NSF Award
2417138
This project aims to serve the national interest by developing and implementing professional development for Learning Assistants (LAs) to improve their facilitation of student learning. Learning Assistants are undergraduate students who support student group work in an active learning STEM class in which they have prior content experience. In addition to their presence in STEM classes, they also participate in weekly preparation meetings with the instructional team and in a pedagogy course. There is strong evidence that the implementation of LAs benefits student learning in STEM classes, particularly for students from marginalized groups. The LA pedagogy course is the flagship of the LA model that distinguishes it from other near-peer teaching models. However, pedagogy course lessons are often based on research in K-12 classrooms, as research on facilitation of student learning at the college level is only recently emerging. To address this mismatch of applying K-12 facilitation strategies at the college level, this project plans to implement a new LA pedagogy course sequence based on evidence from recent LA research to support LAs facilitating in student-centered, diverse, and international ways that benefit student learning across a variety of STEM disciplines.<br/><br/>The goals of the project are focused on design and implementation of the pedagogy sequence (Goal 1) and research of the impact of the pedagogy sequence (Goal 2). Goal 1 encompasses development of LA-facing materials, instructor-facing materials, and alternative designs for greater flexibility for adopters. The project aims to make the pedagogy sequence applicable to diverse settings and benefit many racially marginalized students’ learning in STEM classes within and, through dissemination, beyond the institutions involved in this project. To achieve this, the project will implement the pedagogy sequence in three different types of institution: a public Hispanic-Serving institution, a private predominantly white institution, and a public Predominantly Black institution. Collaboration with an Advisory Board will focus on an extension to the two-year college environment. Through dissemination to the 571 institutions with LA programs in the LA Alliance, the materials created will reach many LAs and correspondingly impact many more students. Goal 2 includes investigation into how the pedagogy sequence changes LAs’ reflections and their facilitation practices, how this change impacts student learning in STEM classes, and how the STEM class environments influence LA learning. Within Goal 2, the project also intends to identify critical elements of the pedagogy sequence. The project plans to use this knowledge for research-based revision of the pedagogy sequence. This project is the first to study change of LA facilitation practices through LAs’ experience in the pedagogy course and their concurrent practice in STEM classes. While previous work has looked at LAs’ uptake of language from pedagogy course concepts, the impact on their actual practice in STEM classes has not been studied to date. Through a sociocultural framework and data source triangulation including documentation of the implementation, surveys, interviews, and recordings of LA-student interactions in STEM classes, the project intends to gain rich qualitative insight not only into change in LA practice, but also into the impact it has on student learning in various STEM disciplines. When LA programs include richer and more contextually relevant professional development for LAs, this will make LA programs more impactful in supporting student success. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
