Abstract
A central goal of the Learning Assistant (LA) model is to improve students' learning of science through the transformation of instructor practices. There is minimal existing research on the impact of college physics instructor experiences on their effectiveness. To investigate the association between college introductory physics instructors' experiences with and without LAs and student learning, we drew on data from the Learning About STEM Student Outcomes (LASSO) database. The LASSO database provided us with student-level data (concept inventory scores and demographic data) for 4,365 students and course-level data (instructor experience and course features) for the students' 93 mechanics courses. We performed Hierarchical Multiple Imputation to impute missing data and Hierarchical Linear Modeling to nest students within courses when modeling the associations between instructor experience and student learning. Our models predict that instructors' effectiveness decreases as they gain experience teaching without LAs. However, LA supported environments appear to remediate this decline in effectiveness as instructor effectiveness is maintained while they gain experience teaching with LAs.
Highlights
A central goal of the Learning Assistant (LA) model is to improve students’ learning of science through the transformation of instructor practices [1]
These findings show that teacher experience can be an important factor in student learning, but there is considerable variability in how teacher experience relates to teacher effectiveness
To investigate how interactions with LAs relates to physics instructor effectiveness over time, we investigated two questions: 1. What is the impact of instructor experience teaching introductory physics courses on student learning, if any?
Summary
A central goal of the Learning Assistant (LA) model is to improve students’ learning of science through the transformation of instructor practices [1]. To support LA and faculty collaboration, the LA model trains LAs in pedagogy courses and creates opportunities for instructors and LAs to co-plan for class each week. These structures support instructors to reexamine and refine their pedagogical practices and increase their effectiveness. This study sets out to examine whether instructor’s prior experience teaching courses with LAs is associated with improved student learning. Some studies have found that teaching effectiveness can decline over time, in high school settings [5] These findings show that teacher experience can be an important factor in student learning, but there is considerable variability in how teacher experience relates to teacher effectiveness. Given the variation in impacts of teacher experience within K-12 educational environments and the substantial differences across K-12 and college systems, it is unclear how predictive the findings are of the impacts of instructor experience in college physics courses
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