Growing a garden without water: Graduate teaching assistants in introductory science laboratories at a doctoral/research university

Abstract

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in the sciences are a common feature of U.S. universities that have a prominent mission of research. During the past 2 decades, increased attention has been paid to the professional development of GTAs as instructors. As a result, universities have created training programs to assist GTAs in selecting instructional methods, curricular formats, and assessments when they serve as laboratory, lecture, or discussion group instructors. Unfortunately, few studies explore the educational and instructional environment of GTAs in these reformed settings. This study was conducted to address this specific need. As a constructivist inquiry, qualitative methods were used to collect and analyze the data to elucidate the educational and instructional environment of science GTAs at a doctoral/research university in which various training programs existed. We found that GTAs worked autonomously, that traditional practices and curricula existed in laboratories, and that instructors frequently held limited views of undergraduates' abilities and motivation. Findings in this initial study about GTAs suggest that developers of GTA training programs draw on the literature regarding science teacher education, and that reward systems be instituted that recognize faculty and staff for their participation in GTA training programs. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 211–233, 2004

Focusing the Lens to Share the Story: Using Photographs and Interviews to Explore Doctoral Students’ Sense of Well-being

“…Some biomedical science programs require first-year doctoral students to assist in course delivery to help finance these students' doctoral training. Luft, Kurdziel, Roehrig, Turner and Wertsch (2004) observe that first-year doctoral students, who have usually just recently earned their own undergraduate degree, are expected to be both disciplinary experts and knowledgeable of appropriate undergraduate pedagogical strategies. Doctoral students sometimes struggle to balance their simultaneous roles of student and teacher (Cho, Kim, Svinicki, & Decker, 2011) and, as Austin (2002 has noted, can receive mixed messages about the value of teaching from their faculty advisors and peers.…”

Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning: On Integrating Pedagogical Training into the Graduate Experiences of Future Science Faculty

“…In an effort to extend pedagogical training for graduate students, some departments have developed an accompanying course taken by teaching assistants, in which they meet weekly as a group, often with a faculty or laboratory coordinator (Roehrig et al, 2003;Luft et al, 2004). In these examples of an accompanying pedagogy course, the content addressed is common among all of the teaching assistants participating, and thus the workshop affords the opportunity to discuss discipline-specific pedagogical issues.…”

“…Recent articles in the fields of geoscience and chemistry have called for more research into the effectiveness of graduate teaching assistant training programs and an analysis of discipline-specific programs to promote the pedagogical development of young scientists (Roehrig et al, 2003;Luft et al, 2004). Clearly, more extensive research on the effectiveness of different approaches to training science graduate students in the teaching of their disciplines is needed, especially in the area of life science education, if we are to generate both a definition of what it means to be a well-trained university science teacher and a menu of effective strategies for integrating this into the graduate experiences of future science faculty.…”

Optimizing Efficiency and Effectiveness in a Mechanical Engineering Laboratory using Focused Modules

“…Unfortunately, the requirement for expertise is directly contradictory to the current atmosphere in science education at large research universities. Luft et al (2004) provide an excellent discussion of TA culture in the sciences, and summarize the issue by stating:…”

“…Volkmann and Zgagacz (2004) provide teaching assistant opinions of an inquiry-based learning physics course, where the instructor recommends that "new graduate teaching assistants should be required to participate in a preliminary observation semester, and during the first teaching semester, graduate instructors should enroll in a concomitant seminar class that examines science teaching and learning and the nature of science." The lack of training for TAs when implementing inquiry-based labs is lamented by many other authors (Luft et al, 2004;Volkman and Zgagacz, 2004;Kurdziel et al, 2003;Marbach-Ad et al, 2012;Bruck et al, 2010). Bruck et al (2010) emphasize the importance of faculty members' engagement, and find that without it, "the quality of the curriculum suffers, TA training is limited, and students may exhibit a lack of preparedness.…”