How do Laboratory Teaching Assistants Learn to Support Science Practices? Exploring the Intersection Between Instructor Reasoning and Actions

Abstract

Undergraduate laboratory courses can provide opportunities for students to participate in science practices. This requires rethinking both curricula and instruction. Science practice-based courses require students to be positioned as epistemic agents, implying a shift in instructor role. Teaching assistants (TAs) are the primary instructors for laboratory courses. The current study aims to understand how TAs support students in science practices. Specifically, we sought to characterize variation in teaching and to understand how TAs learned and adapted their teaching approaches over time. Our study takes place in the context of a large, introductory laboratory course, Authentic Inquiry through Modeling in Biology (AIB-Bio). Our approach investigated the intersection between instructor reasoning and actions using stimulated-recall interviews, where instructors reflected on audio recordings from their classrooms. Application of our conceptual framework revealed that TAs' instructional roles and purposes were fluid and influenced how they supported students' science practices. We also showed how interactions with students cued fluctuations in TAs instructional approaches. Results include a case study that suggests potential mechanisms for TA learning. We propose a model to explain the variation in the enactment of a science practice-based curricula. We end with practical implications to consider when building professional development for science practice-based instruction.

FIGURE 1.

TA curricular implementation. Composite scores for each dimension are plotted for each TA as described in the Materials and Methods. The x-axis shows TA scores along the instructor role dimension, with a score of “0” indicating a teacher-centered role and a score of” “8” indicating a student-centered role. The y-axis shows TAs scores along the instructional purpose dimension, with a score of “0” indicating a non-practice-focus purpose and a score of “8” indicating a practice-focus purpose. TAs who taught for multiple semesters have two teaching orientation scores, the second labeled with (2).

FIGURE 2.

Model for variation in curricular enactment. Each box represents three different forms of curricular enactment that TAs fluidly moved between: aligned instruction, internal misalignment, and contextual misalignment. Aligned instruction describes moments when instructional actions, rationale, curricular goals all aligned with science practice–based instruction goals. Internal misalignment describes how an instructor's rationale and curricular goals are aligned with science practice–based instruction, but their enacted actions are misaligned with these goals. Contextual misalignment describes the ways an instructor's actions and rationale are be misaligned with the goals of science practice–based instruction and the curricular goals.