Learning by doing Sample Clauses

Learning by doing. Experiential learning was discussed in some of the documents, revealing that in many cases, participants preferred to learn software and techniques in a practical workshop setting rather than through presentations or documentation. The DigCurV project conducted a survey of training needs in 2011 with over 400 responses from across Europe and North America. When asked about training methods, the overwhelming majority (75.3%) of respondents indicated that smaller group workshops were preferred, showing that an interactive practical ‘hands-on’ approach is considered most effective. The least popular methods among the respondents were the much more passive methods such as written manuals, online training and large group workshops. Work by the Europeana Cloud project looking into APIs and data reuse among researchers also showed that many institutions favoured smaller group training sessions for their staff in which they were taken through the experience of a researcher trying to learn about software. This is apparent in the training held within the British Library for its staff. It is also demonstrated in the CLARIN Summer schools for early-stage researchers. This closer interaction in a smaller group with a hands-on approach helps to overcome the issue of researchers not knowing what they don’t know, as highlighted by the Software Carpentry team in a reflections of lessons learnt through their training project: “The problem is, most scientists are never taught how to do this. While their undergraduate programs may include a generic introduction to programming or a statistics or numerical methods course (in which they're often expected to pick up programming on their own), they are almost never told that version control exists, and rarely if ever shown how to design a maintainable program in a systematic way, or how to turn the last twenty commands they typed into a re-usable script. As a result, they routinely spend hours doing things that could be done in minutes, or don't do things at all because they don't know where to start.” (our emphasis)