Exploring the Underlying Factors in Learning Assistant - Faculty Partnerships

Abstract

An effective Learning Assistant (LA) Program provides benefits for both Learning Assistants (LAs) and faculty, in addition to benefits for students. By analyzing LA and faculty reflections, weekly preparation sessions, and interviews with LAs and faculty, we can better understand the partnerships that develop between faculty and their LAs. We leverage a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to investigate the types of LA expertise and skills faculty value and how this affects the formation of these partnerships. The Preparation Session Observation Tool (PSOT), developed from this work, can be used by LAs, LA Program Coordinators, and faculty to reflect on the types of LA partnerships that emerge, and how these partnerships can be used in constructing effective learning environments. We anticipate that this tool can then be used to help LAs, coordinators, and faculty modify their working relationship to develop the type of partnerships that are best for their particular instructional setting. PSOT provides a finer-grained analysis to three broad partnership classifications that exist along a continuum: and. The Learning Assistant (LA) Model leverages the expertise of students (LAs) to work as facilitators of learning in the classroom [1]. This model, developed at the University of Colorado-Boulder, with implementation at over seventy institutions around the country, involves extensive support for LAs in the form of weekly preparation and pedagogy sessions [1 2]. While pedagogy courses in LA Programs are typically well defined and structured, weekly preparation sessions tend to have little structure with great variation in the way they are conducted both across institutions and within institutions[3,4]. In our previous work we highlighted different types of partnerships that form between LAs and their respective faculty members. These different types, , , and , exist along a continuum and are summarized below [5]. • : One-directional with limited LA input on classroom dynamics and reflection on student understanding; • : Faculty elicit feedback from LAs and guide how LAs will be involved in the course; LAs do not co-design instructional materials; • Faculty elicit feedback and then, with their LA, co-design and co-implement instructional materials; The structure of these partnerships is best observed during the weekly preparation session where instructors and their respective LAs meet to discuss the course, course content, student understanding, course activities, and instructional delivery. At some institutions with large LA Programs, weekly preparation sessions may be run by coordinators with LAs from multiple sections of a course potentially with multiple instructors. However, in this work we focus on smaller LA Program dynamics where instructors for specific courses lead the weekly preparation sessions. These sessions are specific to the course as the instructor prepares the LAs for the delivery of upcoming material and assignments and, in some cases, both LA and instructor reflect on previous in-class situations. For instance, the LA and instructor might discuss how certain topics were explained and highlight what methods did and did not aid the students' comprehension.