Instructor Guidelines

Know your audience

Maptime is for beginners and therefore we do not assume anything about the group’s experience. As an instructor, it is your responsibility to make sure all participants have enough context to follow the lesson.

• Make it abundantly clear there are no stupid questions
• Check in with the group frequently
• Avoid acronyms
• Be prepared to talk through any piece of your presentation
• Omit information that isn’t relevant
• Say “you don’t need to know how this works behind the scenes”

Keep it simple

While there may be a lot you have to share about your topic, you’re only working with two hours. Keep your plan simple enough to cover what you need in this amount of time. Be aware that there may be technical difficulties and questions along the way, and plan accordingly.

Provide an exercise

Plan an exercise that the whole group can accomplish in the allotted time. You will have to provide everything necessary for the exercise, and any software/data will need to be free to the group and unrestricted for education purposes. Please make sure your exercise is well tested in advance of the Maptime session. There are many Maptime tutorials and resources available if you’d like some examples of what has worked in the past.

Don’t be a sales pitch

Maptime is not about selling anything, and we almost exclusively use free and open source software and data. You are welcome to let everyone in the group know where you work and what you do, but not to sell or promote products.

Have fun!

Teaching Maptime is fun and rewarding! The group will appreciate your willingness to teach them what you know. There is no need to take things too seriously. Throw in a joke here and there to lighten the mood and keep it fun. Remember that the Maptime organizers will be there to support you and provide any technical assistance needed.