Ringing in the New Year: Instructor Community Accomplishments, Updates and Resources
2025 was a year of growth, learning, and achievement for the Instructor community and the Workshops and Instruction Team (WIT). Together, we had many accomplishments, including the delivery of 29 Centrally-Organised workshops with no cancellations, welcoming 294 new Instructors into the community, and hosting two Carpentries-sponsored workshops that were open and free to the public (a long-time goal for WIT!).
Pretix for Community Sessions is now live!
We’re excited to carry this positive momentum into 2026. We already have three Centrally-Organised workshops in progress and filled by Instructors, with more planned for March and April. We’re also happy to share that registration for Community Sessions is now live in Pretix. This includes Instructor Meetings and a new event: Instructor Practice Sessions (more on this below). Pretix is an open-source event registration and ticketing system that offers several benefits, including better privacy, automated email reminders, and the ability to easily add events to your calendar.
Launching Instructor Practice Sessions
You asked, and we listened: Instructor Practice Sessions are launching in March 2026! These sessions are a dedicated time for Instructors to practice any aspect of teaching they choose. Led by WIT, Instructors who join will be paired together to practice teaching and to give and receive feedback. We aim for these sessions to be relaxed, supportive, and low-pressure - a space to prepare, experiment, and build confidence in your teaching. Instructor Practice Sessions will take place every other month beginning in March, with time slots that align with Instructor meetings.
Time changes to Instructor Meetings
This brings us to an update on Instructor meetings. In 2026, we will begin offering the second Instructor Meeting at 23:00 UTC instead of 21:00 UTC. This change is intended to better support participation across time zones, allowing more Instructors around the globe to attend at least one meeting time. Instructor Practice Sessions will align with these meeting times: 15:00 and 23:00 UTC.
In addition to the request for dedicated practice time, we also heard that Instructors would love more opportunities to learn from those with extensive teaching experience. Instructor Meetings are open to all certified Instructors and play an important role in strengthening our community through shared feedback, ideas, examples, and lived experience. We hope even more Instructors will be able to join in 2026. If you have an idea for a topic or would like to lead a discussion, please let us know at workshops@carpentries.org. We would love to have more Instructors join and learn from other Instructors at these meetings.
Updating Instructor Resources
Beyond the updates already underway, there are two additional areas we’ll continue working on in 2026. The first is updating the email templates provided as workshop-planning resources. We recognise that these templates are out of date and in need of revision, and WIT will be working on these updates this year.
The second area is resources for continued learning after workshops. In 2025, we hosted a discussion focused on post-workshop continuing education ideas for learners. This conversation generated a fantastic list of suggestions, currently captured in the 2025 Instructor Meeting etherpad. In 2026, we’ll be working to create a dedicated space (either on The Carpentries website or in the handbook) where these ideas can live, be easily shared, and referred back to over time.
2025 was full of learning, growth, and meaningful progress. We’re looking forward to an even stronger 2026 and can’t wait to continue building this work with you!