Graduate Student Teaching Assistants Research Articles

The Invisible Carework of Anti-racist Pedagogy: The Experiences of Graduate Student Teaching Assistants

In this essay, we discuss our experience as graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in a first-year writing program with an explicitly anti-racist pedagogy. The growing literature on critical pedagogy focuses on the instructor-undergraduate student dynamic but does not address the necessary role of GTAs in implementing anti-racist pedagogy. We use feminist theory to contend that care is an inherent component of anti-racist pedagogy and that GTAs are integral actors in providing that care. We highlight the indispensable role of GTAs in navigating the complexities of larger classes as anti-racist pedagogy is scaled up beyond the individual classroom and instructor. We conclude by providing three possible solutions to address this challenge.

Leveraging undergraduate learning assistants when implementing new laboratory curricula

At University of California, Irvine, a large-enrollment research university, undergraduate chemistry courses for non-chemistry majors were delivered remotely during the 2020–2021 academic year, with a return to in-person instruction planned for January 2022. Because this return to in-person instruction coincided with the transition of second-year students from general chemistry to organic chemistry laboratory courses, the instructional staff recognized a need for remedial laboratory curricula for students with no prior in-person laboratory experience. Simultaneously, we desired to implement undergraduate Learning Assistants (LAs) in non-chemistry major organic chemistry laboratories for the first time at our university. In this paper, we describe our approach for leveraging undergraduate LAs to (1) test new laboratory curricula and (2) address feelings of comfort and safety for students with no prior in-person laboratory experience. Benefits of our LA program perceived by students include increased laboratory efficiency and improved student learning from near-peer instructors; benefits perceived by LAs include the development of professional skills and teamwork with graduate student teaching assistants. We provide an outline of resources and strategies to enable instructors to simultaneously implement undergraduate LAs and new laboratory curricula.

The value of using different types of physics problems to help students become proficient problem-solvers

During a professional development course for graduate student teaching assistants (TAs), a question was asked–would you use a context-rich problem (presented via a narrative set in a real-world context, not broken into parts and sometimes even without an explicit question) in an introductory physics class, and if so, how? One graduate TA’s sentiment appeared to resonate with most of the other TAs in the class, ‘I will not use this at all.’. Though more experienced in teaching, physics faculty often share this point of view–less than half of interviewed faculty members indicated they appreciated yet would not use such a problem. But if we want students to become proficient problem-solvers, should we not employ a comprehensive toolbox containing a wide variety of problem-types? Is there not a place for a context-rich problem in our teaching or are we overlooking the benefits and utility of problems such as these? Evidence continues to suggest that TAs and faculty alike both appear to be reluctant to adopt some types of physics problems in their teaching, while relying almost completely on just a couple types of problems. Based upon education research data, we believe it is time to broaden those horizons.

Professor-in-Training: Status Control of the Teaching Assistant

I examine the role of apprenticeship status in controlling the labor of unionized graduate student teaching assistants (TAs). In her book Coerced, Erin Hatton identifies status as a basis of labor coercion—particularly in nontraditional labor regimes—in which managers control workers’ access to status-based rights, rewards, and punishments. I expand Hatton's concept of status coercion to status control and distinguish between two types: despotic, in which status coercion prevails, and hegemonic, in which status consent prevails. I argue that status control of TAs is hegemonic, relying on their investment in a system of apprenticeship in which course instructors are a source of professional advancement, opportunity, and support outside of the TA job. I draw on autoethnographic fieldwork to analyze one expression of TA control, participatory management. In this model, the faculty instructor invites TAs to collaborate on course design and encourages routine discussion of teaching strategies, in which hidden labor is made regulable through “confession”. Identification with the instructor limits TA autonomy by disrupting alliances between TAs, and between TAs and students. I conclude by sketching variations in TA management and by discussing status control as a broader mechanism of extraction in the contemporary university.

The price of COVID-19 risk in a public university

We study the allocation of and compensation for occupational COVID-19 risk at Auburn University, a large public university in the U.S. In Spring 2021, approximately half of the face-to-face classes had enrollments above the legal capacity allowed by a public health order, which followed CDC's social distancing guidelines. We find lower-ranked graduate student teaching assistants and adjunct instructors were more likely to deliver riskier classes. Using an IV strategy in which teaching risk is shifted by classroom features (geometry and furniture), we show instructors who taught at least one risky class earned $7,400 more than those who did not.

‘Casual Friday’

There is increasing research literature on instructional pragmatics, including work on Japanese, but little research on naturally occurring classroom innovations. This article presents a study of an instructional innovation called Casual Friday, where the professor of a university multi-section advanced-beginning (2nd year) Japanese language course designated certain lessons as spaces for graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) to involve students in using Japanese casual register. Analysis of interviews with instructional staff, student survey results, and classroom and meeting observations, shows how Casual Friday, an organizational transformation of the course, transformed activity systems (Engeström, 1987, 1999, 2003). Transformed TA roles created a pedagogical safe house (Canagarajah, 2004; Pomerantz and Bell, 2011; Pratt, 1991) on Casual Fridays by providing TAs instructional autonomy, stronger horizontal connections with students, and temporary freedom from the restraints of the course-as-usual. The re-organization thus promoted TA innovation, as they creatively used language, designed materials, taught dialect, introduced Japanese youth culture, etc. Triangulation with student surveys confirms findings of the interviews and observations, while also showing that students reported languaculture learning. Results suggest the benefits of carving out spaces within normally textbook-and-grammar-focused courses for TAs to have free rein in presenting and involving students with languaculture.

“The Stories We Tell Ourselves Shape Our Identities”

The author—in the role of one teacher observing another—documented a spring 2021 remote introductory art history course during the COVID-19 pandemic when graduate student teaching assistants called a campus-wide strike. Forced to improvise, the professor replaced formal analysis papers and exams with an ungraded journal. Drawing from the content of these journals, notes from the Zoom classes, and email correspondence with the professor, the author explicates how students took this journal assignment as an invitation to respond personally to the course content, and as an opportunity to grapple with their own identities. These journals allowed students to use art to explore similarities and differences freely across culture, space, and time. With the traditional requirement for an academic argument temporarily on pause, the author raises questions that characterize our present day: how to encourage a world that accepts different identities without hostility.

The BeAMS project: Using inquiry and modeling to introduce students to the research process in an introductory geology laboratory

Students who enter introductory geology classes often have misconceptions about geoscience research, and they seldom have opportunities to gain authentic research experience in these classes. To improve student engagement in the class and understanding of geoscience research methods, a semester-long authentic inquiry research project was incorporated into an introductory geology laboratory class. This project requires students to create scientific models to test the hypotheses they generate, analyze data they collect and reflect on challenges they encounter. The utility of models in conducting geoscience research was emphasized, and student groups chose either visual models, computer models, or physical models for hypothesis testing. The impact of the project was assessed using pre-post surveys to determine changes in student understanding of research methods and student self-efficacy. Student reflections reveal qualitative improvements in both understanding and self-efficacy after project completion. Multiple-choice questions on research methods also support an improved understanding of research methods compared to a control semester. Statistically significant improvements in confidence to perform research-related tasks also demonstrate the value of the project. Completing this project helped students understand the scientific research process and how modeling is used in Earth science research. Implementing the project required significant instructor preparation and buy-in from graduate student teaching assistants (TAs), who acted as mentors to student research groups. Future iterations of this project will include additional conceptual scaffolding for students and increased support for TAs. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2021.1951080 .

Minority student and teaching assistant interactions in STEM

Graduate student teaching assistants from underrepresented groups may provide salient role models and enhanced instruction to minority students in STEM fields. We explore minority student-TA interactions in an important course in the sciences and STEM – introductory chemistry labs – at a large public university. The uncommon assignment method of students to TA instructors in these chemistry labs overcomes selection problems, and the small and active learning classroom setting with required attendance provides frequent interactions with the TA. We find evidence that underrepresented minority students are less likely to drop courses and are more likely to pass courses when assigned to minority TAs, but we do not find evidence of effects for grades and medium-term outcomes. The effects for the first-order outcomes are large with a decrease in the drop rate by 5.5 percentage points on a base of 6 percent, and an increase in the pass rate of 4.8 percentage points on a base of 93.6 percent. The findings are similar when we focus on Latinx student - Latinx TA interactions. The findings are robust to first-time vs. multiple enrollments in labs, specifications with different levels of fixed effects, limited choice of TA race, limited information of TAs, and low registration priority students. The findings have implications for debates over increasing diversity among PhD students in STEM fields because of spillovers to minority undergraduates.

Minority Student and Teaching Assistant Interactions in Stem

Graduate student teaching assistants from underrepresented groups may provide salient role models and enhanced instruction to minority students in STEM fields. We explore minority student-TA interactions in an important course in the sciences and STEM – introductory chemistry labs – at a large public university. The uncommon assignment method of students to TA instructors in these chemistry labs overcomes selection problems, and the small and active learning classroom setting with required attendance provides frequent interactions with the TA. We find evidence that underrepresented minority students are less likely to drop courses and are more likely to pass courses when assigned to minority TAs, but we do not find evidence of effects for grades and medium-term outcomes. The effects for the first-order outcomes are large with a decrease in the drop rate by 5.5 percentage points on a base of 6 percent, and an increase in the pass rate of 4.8 percentage points on a base of 93.6 percent. The findings are similar when we focus on Latinx student - Latinx TA interactions. The findings are robust to first-time vs. multiple enrollments in labs, specifications with different levels of fixed effects, limited choice of TA race, limited information of TAs, and low registration priority students. The findings have implications for debates over increasing diversity among PhD students in STEM fields because of spillovers to minority undergraduates. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Lessons in Stereochemistry: Resolution, Synthesis, and Characterization of Chiral Compounds

This modular, open-framework capstone course delves deeply into the synthesis, separation, and characterization of chiral molecules while teaching critical thinking and writing skills in a research-like setting within a fertile area for discovery. This course has evolved over 30 years and has been in its present form for 5 years at the time of this writing. The studies described can be easily integrated into a curriculum with other related disciplines, including medicinal, synthetic, analytical, and physical chemistry. The first procedure introduces Pasteur’s classic resolution of (±)-α-phenylethylamine by cocrystallization with enantio-pure d-tartaric acid. The enantiomerically enriched α-phenylethylamine is then characterized using three different methods: polarimetry to measure [α]D, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a chiral column to determine the enantiomeric ratio (e.r.), and by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) using a chiral shift reagent. In the second experiment, students carry out a stereoselective alkylation of a glycine Schiff base using a cinchonine-derived phase-transfer catalyst and methods first developed by O’Donnell and expanded on by many other chemists around the world. The students are encouraged to read the primary literature and design their own experiments with the guidance of the instructors and graduate student teaching assistants (TAs). In our course, the first experiment is described as a communication and the alkylation experiment is reported in the format of a full paper.

Preparing Graduate Students to Teach Statistics: A Review of Research and Ten Practical Recommendations

Many statistics departments in institutions throughout the world hire graduate students to teach and assist with the teaching of undergraduate and graduate-level statistics courses. As many of these graduate student instructors and graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) have little or no previous experience teaching statistics, statistics departments are faced with the challenge of preparing their graduate students for teaching roles. Articles have been written sharing various departments’ strategies for GTA training and development programs, however, articles are often not supported by empirical research. This article provides a review of empirical research regarding graduate students’ preparation for teaching—first focusing on graduate students in statistics, specifically, and second offering what can be learned from studies of graduate students in other disciplines. We conclude with ten research-based recommendations for preparing graduate students to teach statistics, along with practical ideas for how to implement them.

Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Crisis: Adjusting Assessment Approaches within Introductory Organic Courses

This communication describes a variety of virtual student assessment strategies employed at the University of Toronto during the academic disruption caused by the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. Instructors focused their efforts toward maintaining a positive learning environment and offering meaningful evaluation methods for students in each of three introductory organic chemistry courses. Assessment schemes were initially modified in response to moving courses to a virtual platform, and a variety of support measures were used while students completed the course material and prepared for online “final assignments”, which in two courses included a virtual rehearsal test. The readiness for and delivery of online final assignments is outlined (including methods to effectively maintain academic integrity), and the important roles of graduate student teaching assistants in successfully completing each course are highlighted. Specific outcomes and reflections are discussed, including approaches which, with hindsight, were considered unnecessary, and others that proved to be valuable virtual teaching and assessment tools.

Professional development combining cognitive apprenticeship and expectancy-value theories improves lab teaching assistants’ instructional views and practices

A lab teaching assistant professional development program designed using cognitive apprenticeship and expectancy-value theory was successful in moving graduate student teaching assistants to a higher level of teaching effectiveness.

Graduate teaching assistants’ views of broken-into-parts physics problems: Preference for guidance overshadows development of self-reliance in problem solving

Graduate student teaching assistants do not typically think about how to help their undergraduate physics students learn how to successfully break an introductory physics problem into subparts that can be solved.

Design Features of an Effective and Theoretically Grounded Training Program for Undergraduate Teaching Assistants in the Life Sciences

Research over the last decade has indicated that active learning and student-centered instruction lead to better learning outcomes in undergraduate biology courses than traditional methods such as lecturing. This shift in pedagogical approach has been applied to both high-enrollment lecture-based courses as well as smaller laboratory courses. In these laboratory courses, the primary instructor is often a graduate or undergraduate student teaching assistant. Such novice instructors often lack the pedagogical knowledge and experience to implement student-centered instructional practices such as inquiry effectively. Therefore, to fully realize the benefits of inquiry-based laboratories for undergraduate students, the instructors of these courses require support.
 In this paper, we present a design case for a theoretically and contextually grounded professional development program that provides pedagogical support for undergraduate teaching assistants of a college biology laboratory course. Four undergraduate teaching assistants participated in our 12-week program. These participants were assigned weekly readings, turned in periodic reflective writings, and met with an experienced teaching mentor (Thompson) on a monthly basis. As designers, we grounded our design in the current literature but also built-in flexibility to be responsive to participants’ needs throughout the experience. Participants found it challenging to reflect on pedagogical strategies early in their experience, but found the additional support provided by the program very useful as they developed. Finally, we discuss the participant feedback that is being incorporated into future designs of professional development programming.

Course-based prefaculty training program introduces instructional methods, increases instructor self-efficacy, and promotes professional development.

Graduate student and postdoctoral teaching assistants receive highly variable preparation for instructional methods because providing such training is often expensive. Therefore, we conducted an intensive, pedagogical boot camp followed by classroom observations, structured professional development discussions about leveraging the experience on the job market, individual exit interviews, and a letter of recommendation. Our data show the participants implemented new pedagogical techniques in their classrooms, showed increased self-efficacy, and reported appreciation for the training experience. Using a clustering analysis of instructional methods, most participants' classrooms were characterized as peer-led collaborative work as opposed to more traditional instructor-led pedagogies. We believe that this low-cost, prefaculty training leads to demonstrable short-term outcomes and is a viable option for institutions with limited resources or personnel.

The expression of agency by graduate teaching assistants and professors in relation to their professional obligations

Agency has been identified as a personal asset for teachers that may enable them to competently manage their classrooms (Stein, Kintz, & Miness, 2016). We explored how tools from systemic functional linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1994) can be used to track the agency instructors express. We interviewed graduate student teaching assistants (GTAs) and professors from mathematics departments to track their articulation of agency regarding responsibilities associated with interpersonal, disciplinary, institutional, and individual obligations of the role of mathematics instructor (Chazan, Herbst, & Clark, 2016). It is informative to compare these two groups because, while they all teach critical introductory mathematics courses, they also have recognizable differences in status. We report that while GTAs present themselves as similarly agentic as professors in relation to their disciplinary obligation (to the integrity of the mathematics they teach), they vary in relation to their other obligations. We draw implications for the professional development of GTAs.

Establishing a successful teaching assistant program in pharmacy skills laboratory courses

IntroductionLaboratory-based courses often require more manpower than faculty can provide to facilitate active learning activities in the classroom as well as skills-based assessments. PerspectivePharmacy and graduate student and resident teaching assistants (TAs) can be incorporated into laboratory-based courses to help meet this need. Before using student and resident TAs in laboratory-based courses, a number of items need to be considered. This paper will discuss how to recruit, train, and evaluate student and resident TAs. It will also detail the benefits to the faculty, the students in the classroom, and the TAs themselves. Finally, lessons learned from five schools of pharmacy who use student and/or resident TAs will be shared. ImplicationsSchools of pharmacy should implement a formalized process for utilizing student and resident TAs in laboratory-based courses especially where faculty manpower limitations exist.

Cues, emotions and experiences: How teaching assistants make decisions about teaching

ABSTRACTScholars of teaching and learning have increasingly acknowledged the significance of attending to the experiences and development of undergraduate and graduate student teaching assistants (TAs). The present study aims to contribute to this growing body of research by exploring the ways in which TAs at one Canadian university make decisions during and about their teaching. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews, which were supported and supplemented by audio-recordings and observations of participants’ teaching wherever possible, we consider what cues, factors, experiences and relationships shape and inform TAs’ thinking and actions as educators, as well as how these junior instructors experience the process of making decisions while teaching. Ultimately, the findings suggest the need for more sustained attention to both the immediate, concrete processes of teaching in university classrooms and the affective components of this work, laying the groundwork for new branches of research and development focused on early-career educators in higher education.