Training Best Practices

A teatime discussion theme for the 2020 Collegeville Workshop on Scientific Software, focussing on Developer Productivity.

Jason M. Gates; Sandia National Laboratories

In the ever-changing landscape that is the scientific software domain, continual learning on the job is just a fact of life. We’ve all taken our fair share of trainings, though, and they fall somewhere on the spectrum between entirely forgettable and completely life-changing. What is it that makes for good training that will stick with you through the years and influence the way you work on a daily basis? As we bring new people on board, or bring folks up to speed with new ideas, what are some best practices for learner engagement that ultimately lead to increased developer productivity? How does this particular training context differ from more traditional learning environments?

In this teatime discussion, we’d like to

1. encourage sharing from those involved in training efforts—what’s worked well, what’s flopped, what’re you considering for next time,
2. synthesize our collective wisdom from our disparate backgrounds into a set of recommendations to share, and
3. have everyone leave with something concrete to try implementing the next time you’re leading a training effort.

Acknowledgements

This abstract describes objective technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the paper do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525. SAND2020-6639 A