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Session 1

Getting started with the ELIXIR-GOBLEt Train-the-Trainer course

The ELIXIR-GOBLET Train-the-Trainer (TtT) course is a structured curriculum designed to help instructors improve their teaching practices by understanding how people learn and how to design effective training. The course is organised into four distinct sessions, which are detailed in the provided sources:

Session 1: Principles of Learning - How they apply to training and teaching

This session focuses on the theoretical foundations of how students receive, process, and retain knowledge.

  • Defining Learning: Learning is described as a relatively permanent change in behaviour, skills, or knowledge resulting from experience.
  • Memory Models: It introduces models from cognitive science, specifically the movement of information from working memory to long-term memory.
  • Skill Acquisition: The Dreyfus model is used to illustrate the progression of a learner from a novice to an expert.
  • Learning Strategies: Learners explore six evidence-based strategies for effective learning: spaced practice, interleaving, elaboration, concrete examples, dual coding, and retrieval practice.
  • Bloom’s Taxonomy: This taxonomy classifies cognitive skills into six levels, ranging from Remembering to Creating, helping instructors align their teaching with the desired level of cognitive complexity.

Session 2: Design and Plan: Session, Course, and Materials

The second session transitions from theory to the practical application of backward instructional design.

  • Nicholls’ Five Phases: The design process follows five interdependent steps: selecting Learning Outcomes (LOs), identifying Learning Experiences (LEs), developing relevant content, creating assessments, and evaluating course effectiveness.
  • SMART Learning Outcomes: A pivotal concept is the creation of SMART LOs (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound). These outcomes define what a learner will be able to do by the end of the session using actionable verbs.
  • Concept Mapping: Instructors are taught to use concept maps as visual tools to represent how different topics are linked, which helps in breaking down training into manageable pieces.

Session 3: Enhancing learner participation and engagement

This session addresses learner participation and the psychological aspects of motivation.

  • Active Learning Paradigm: The course advocates for a shift from “Sage on the Stage” (lecturing) to “Guide on the Side” (facilitating), where learning occurs “by doing”.
  • Engagement Techniques: Specific active learning practices are introduced, including peer instruction, flipped classrooms, think-pair-share, and pair programming.
  • Motivation (The Three Pillars): For learners to be fully motivated, they must see the value of the goal, have high expectancy (self-efficacy), and feel the environment is supportive.
  • Avoiding Demotivation: Instructors are cautioned against “diminishing language” and are encouraged to be aware of stereotype threat and impostor syndrome.

Session 4: Assessment and feedback in training and teaching

The final session focuses on measuring progress and integrating feedback into the learning process.

  • Formative vs Summative Assessment: Formative assessment takes place during teaching to improve the quality of learning (e.g., sticky notes, minute cards, or the “fist of five”), while summative assessment evaluates achievement against a benchmark at the end.
  • Feedback Frequency: Because attention spans typically last only 10–15 minutes, formative feedback should ideally occur every 5 to 15 minutes to refocus learners.
  • Dealing with Feedback: The session teaches instructors how to handle negative feedback by viewing it as an opportunity for personal reflective practice rather than a personal attack.
  • Course Evaluation: The Kirkpatrick-Katzell strategy is used as a framework to evaluate training through four levels: Reaction, Learning, Behaviour, and Results.

  1. Leyla Garcia, Bérénice Batut, Melissa L. Burke, Mateusz Kuzak, Fotis Psomopoulos, Ricardo Arcila, Teresa K. Attwood, Niall Beard, Denise Carvalho-Silva, Alexandros C. Dimopoulos, Victoria Dominguez Del Angel, Michel Dumontier, Kim T. Gurwitz, Roland Krause, Peter McQuilton, Loredana Le Pera, Sarah L. Morgan, Päivi Rauste, Allegra Via, Pascal Kahlem, Gabriella Rustici, Celia W.G. Van Gelder, and Patricia M. Palagi. Ten simple rules for making training materials FAIR. PLoS Computational Biology, 16(5):1–9, 2020. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007854. ↩

  2. Nancy J Hoebelheinrich, Katarzyna Biernacka, Michelle Brazas, Leyla Jael Castro, Nicola Fiore, Margareta Hellstrom, Emma Lazzeri, Ellen Leenarts, Paula Maria Martinez Lavanchy, Elizabeth Newbold, Amy Nurnberger, Esther Plomp, Lucia Vaira, Celia W G van Gelder, and Angus Whyte. Recommendations for a minimal metadata set to aid harmonised discovery of learning resources. June 2022. URL: https://doi.org/10.15497/RDA00073, doi:10.15497/RDA00073. ↩