Introduction
Since our first workshop on good practices to facilitate active meetings, to training on digital tools, R or Python, at MetaDocencia we promote learning spaces on education and technology. Over the years, we have developed courses and built open resources that have helped thousands improve their teaching practices, increase the accessibility of their proposals, incorporate technical tools, and promote a more open, reproducible, and inclusive science. Every offering had the goal of building knowledge in community and transforming how we share knowledge.
We especially thank each and everyone who collaborated in the design, organization, and facilitation of these activities. Their commitment and generosity allowed MetaDocencia to grow and extend its impact far beyond what we imagined in the early days.
MetaDocencia offers soft and technical skills training options that can be adapted to different contexts and institutional needs. To coordinate proposals or request more information, contact us at formacion@metadocencia.org.
Present! Resources for Active Meetings (formerly: Introduction to Online Teaching Essentials)
Many persons that teach scientific or technical knowledge have not received pedagogical training and need tools to deliver content efficiently.
This workshop seeks to foster good practices for managing synchronous online spaces of knowledge exchange, which can be used in in-person and hybrid settings.
Training is one of the core efforts atMetaDocencia. Training has been linked all projects from day one: MetaDocencia was born to accompany those dedicated to teaching who needed to move their classes to an online format.
In this 3-hour workshop, essential pedagogical concepts are presented; concrete advice is implemented to enable active meetings (such as concept maps, formative assessments, and constructive feedback); and practical exercises are carried out in breakout rooms to foster peer learning.
Materials
- Presentation used in the course
- Template of our document for shared notes
- Recording of an edition of the workshop
Accessible Zoom with a Screen Reader
Zoom is a suitable platform for holding synchronous online meetings, but it presents challenges for persons who rely on a screen reader or teach people with visual disabilities.
This workshop trains participants in the efficient use of Zoom keyboard shortcuts, experiencing its functionality live and using the NVDA screen reader simultaneously.
Through this 2-hour practical workshop, MetaDocencia teaches technical and communication skills, promoting accessibility and inclusion in education.
Materials
- Presentation used in the course with step-by-step instructions for exercises con instrucciones paso a paso de los ejercicios.
- Video of the course
Introduction to the Use of NASA Earthdata Cloud for Monitoring Climate Risks
The prediction and management of risks from wildfires, droughts, and floods have become increasingly challenging in parallel to climate change. These natural risks are intrinsically linked to variation in time and space of the distribution of surface water, precipitation, vegetation, and land use.
Hundreds of petabytes of Earth Science data are available through NASA Earthdata Cloud. This project teaches how to leverage these open data with cloud-based computing resources to understand, analyze reproducibly, and evaluate environmental risks associated with water.
It began as a collaboration between MetaDocencia and 2i2c under the NASA Open Science ScienceCore initiative. The communities proposed co-developing open educational content, benefiting from 2i2c’s track record as provider of interactive computing services in the cloud, and MetaDocencia’s experience in research and creation of pedagogical materials about data science and open science.
This project included the creation of open materials, in English and Spanish, presented as a collection of Jupyter notebooks, along with support material for teaching the course in the cloud, whether in person or remotely. Those who completed the course could adapt and reuse the contents for their own open science objectives related to environmental risks at a local level.
Materials
How to Teach Programming Online
People with programming knowledge who teach others often need more pedagogical training.
This workshop seeks to share effective techniques for course design, class implementation, and student assessment.
This practical training to teach programming is a proposal from MetaDocencia to contribute to communication and the promotion of scientific and technical knowledge.
The 3-hour remote synchronous workshop plan includes, among other concepts, tips on peer programming, different types of assessment, and live programming practice, with examples in R and Python.
Materials
- Presentation used in the course with expanded notes for those teaching con notas ampliando el contenido para quienes dan la clase.
- Template of our shared notes document
- Video of the course
Creating interactive tutorials with the {learnr} package (Not active)
The {learnr} package in R is useful to prepare remote classes, whether synchronous or asynchronous. However, people may need help to start using it.
This workshop aimed to train in using {learnr} to generate interactive tutorials that allow writing and executing code directly from the tutorial, without suffering installation issues, and offering immediate feedback when answering questions.
This 2-hour workshop started presenting the benefits of interactive tutorials and covered how to develop and share them online. It was one of the technical training instances offered by MetaDocencia, focused on teaching programming and communication skills.
Materials
- Presentation used in the course with expanded notes for teachers con notas ampliando el contenido para quienes dan la clase
- Video of the course
From Spreadsheets to R (Not active)
Many people working with data in spreadsheets could benefit from using the R programming language. However, they may need help incorporating the knowledge to use R efficiently and reproducibly.
This workshop was aimed at people using spreadsheets (like Excel or Google Sheets) for data manipulation and analysis, but who wished to incorporate a workflow in R that would allow them to apply good programming practices, collaborate effectively, and present their analyses and results in a single document.
This technical skills training, with an inclusive and accessible approach, was offered by MetaDocencia as part of its work to promote science and research.
Materials
- This course is part of the Research Software Engineering with R series.