Abstract
As part of a long-term program to develop effective, research-based professional development programs for physics graduate student teaching assistants TAs, we first identify their current classroom practices and why they engage in these practices. In this paper, we identify a set of teaching practices we call “focusing on indicators,” which occurs when TAs use signs such as key words or diagrams as evidence that students understand the target idea; these indicators are more superficial than a detailed explanation. Our primary finding is that although the three TAs discussed here share a common behavior, the beliefs and motivations that underlie this behavior vary. We argue that TA professional development focused on changing these TAs’ focus-on-indicator behavior is unlikely to be effective. Instead, responsive TA professional development will need to address the TAs’ beliefs that guide the observed classroom behavior.
Highlights
The physics education community has devoted decades to producing research-based undergraduate curricula that help students construct their own physics knowledge
We identify a set of teaching practices we call “focusing on indicators,” which occurs when TAs use signs such as key words or diagrams as evidence that students understand the target idea; these indicators are more superficial than a detailed explanation
As physics graduate students teach tutorials, they can frame their activities in different ways
Summary
The physics education community has devoted decades to producing research-based undergraduate curricula that help students construct their own physics knowledge. There has been little published research on such instruction by teaching assistants, be it descriptive or prescriptive Both researchers and doctoral students themselves have identified a need for more effective, research-based TA training for graduate students5–7͔. Physics education research has demonstrated the benefits of understanding students’ physics ideas before instruction so that we can develop lessons that build on them8,9͔. Research to identify TAs’ teaching ideas and practices should ideally include both observations of TAs’ specific instructional actions and reports from TAs of their goals and motivations, so that we may learn both what they are doing and what they are trying to do. These TAs interpret and respond to students’ correct answers in a similar way. The implications of this result for TA professional development are twofold. The most promising means for improving TAs’ teaching is to respectfully explore and engage with TAs’ potentially productive beliefs about teaching
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