Making lab TA professional development work (and some evidence that it does)

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At large universities, where introductory physics labs are often run by graduate student teaching assistants (TAs), it may be necessary to provide professional development for TAs in order to successfully implement inquiry-based lab learning, establish TA practices that support inclusive education in the lab, or effectively introduce other important lab practices. As part of a transformation of our introductory physics labs toward an inquiry-based model, we developed and implemented a research-based training program that includes relevant activities and role-playing while attempting to account for TA `buy-in'. Our analysis demonstrates a positive shift in TA views about student learning and an encouraging improvement in instructional behaviors for TAs who participated in our lab TA professional development program. We have also worked to build systems to both sustain and disseminate our lab TA professional development program and will briefly share some of these efforts.