Becoming An Instructor
The role of Fab Academy Instructor is to initiate, mentor and technically train new Fab Academy students for participation and leadership in the global Fab Lab Network community.
The Instructor’s primary task is to monitor the students placed in their charge, clearly communicating class expectations, answering their questions, supporting them (through both email and weekly video conferencing), and monitoring and tracking their progress and attendance. It is the Instructor's responsibility to work with the students and to ensure that both equipment and supplies are available to the students in time for weekly assignments.
Instructors are also cheerleaders, and at all times should provide moral support and motivation to struggling or overwhelmed students.
Being a good Instructor is more of an art than a science. There is no “right way” - your student’s skills, software choices, and projects will all be very different - your duty is to keep your students on the Fab Academy path and help them successfully complete the course.
“I Don’t Know” Is An Acceptable Answer
We teach “How to Make Almost Anything”. It’s a team effort, no one knows every facet of every area. Use our common tools (GitLab issue trackers, Matternost, etc) to contact other instructors, mentors and extended team when there is a question you cannot answer yourself.
Workgroups & Dedication
Beyond the Instructor, a workgroup of students is required in order to create the necessary collaboration environment for a successful Fab Academy class. This ensures that one student’s strong suit may help make up for another’s weak spots and vice versa. We do accept Nodes with only 1 student, but we expect that there is a community behind to support and interact.
Groups larger than 10 students per Instructor are not recommended simply because there are not enough hours in a week for each of those students to receive appropriate guidance. In that case, the group needs Support Instructors or staff members that support technically. Beyond Instruction, groups bigger than 15 students become a logistical program regarding the ratio of students vs machines and machine time available (assuming standard inventory quantities).
What is the weekly time commitment required from a Fab Academy Instructor?
Local Instructors should commit to a minimum of 16 weekly hours to their duties during the Fab Academy program (January to June + July) divided into the following categories and based on a class of 5 students:
- Prep meeting and Neil’s Lecture (3.5h)
- Homework Review (1.5h)
- Student support hours (6h-8h)
- Grading (1h)
- Stock control and Ordering (2h)
During the final grading season, Instructors and Mentors should expect to spend approximately 6-8 hours reviewing their student’s work before submitting those they believe to have completed all assignments and final project successfully to the global evaluation committee.
Members of the Global Evaluation committee will spend an additional 2-4 hours making the final decision on the students assigned to them.
Distinctions between Mentors and Instructors
Fab Academy is a unique educational experience, not only based on the transmission of content but also on the kind of interactions that happen between Instructors, Mentors, and Students, in a peer-driven environment. This is why the experience of having done the course once is key to being able to run the course. So, to offer the Fab Academy program Fab Labs need a person who graduated from Fab Academy.
In the past, in a small community of practice, this was sufficient to take on the role of local or remote Local Instructor. But, as the Fab Academy and the Network grew we have found it necessary to further distinguish between those with Instructors with experience teaching Fab Academy and those who are just starting out.
This is why we have created a taxonomy to map the different actors in our community and encourage fresh graduates to continue efforts to grow professionally into the Program.
Instructor’s taxonomy
According to skills and experience, an Instructor can be:
- Novice Instructor: a graduate, never instructed the course before
- Junior Instructor: instructed the course for 1 or 2 consecutive cycles
- Senior Instructor: instructed the course for 3 or more consecutive cycles
- Mentor: instructed the course for more than 3 cycles and has peer recognition as such. Mentors are usually active members of the Fab Academy and Academany community.
Note
It is important to understand that the Node’s taxonomy is related to the experience of the Instructor, NOT the NODE. A physical space cannot hold experience, an Instructor can.
| Taxonomy | Description | Application Process | Prep Sessions | Mentoring hours/week | Mentoring cost/student | Mentoring cost origin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Novice Instructor | never instructed the course before | Yes | Attend | 8 hs | 625€ / student | local costs |
| Junior Instructor | instructed the course for 1 or 2 consecutive cycles | Yes | Attend | 4 hs | 325€ / Student | Assess |
| Standalone Instructor | instructed the course for 3 or more consecutive cycles | Yes | Attend/ | Lead | 0 | 0 |
| Guru / Mentor | instructed the course for more than 3 cycles + has peer recognition as such + is an active member of the Fab Academy and Academany community |
peer recognition | Lead | 0 | 0 | 0 |
*Prep Sessions: Mentors meeting with Instructors prior to cycle to review assessment and other documents
Nodes with Novice Instructor have 8 hours/week dedication from the Mentors:
- 4-5 hours to go over the student’s work one by one
- 2-3 hours for troubleshooting
- 1 hours to work with the Instructor to cover operational tasks, for technical troubleshooting and general support.
Nodes with Junior Instructors have 4 hours/week dedication from the Mentors:
- 3hs to go over the student’s work in group
- 1 hour to work with the Instructor to cover operational tasks, for technical troubleshooting and general support.