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1. Where’s My Whiteboard? The Challenge of Moving Active-learning Mathematics Classes Online

   Nelson, Jill K. ; Rosenberg, Jessica ; Fernandez, Kathryn ; Shank, Julie ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   This research paper studies the challenges that mathematics faculty and graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) faced when moving active and collaborative calculus courses from in-person to virtual instruction. As part of a larger pedagogical change project (described below), the math department at a public Research-1 university began transitioning pre-calculus and calculus courses to an active and collaborative learning (ACL) format in Fall 2019. The change began with the introduction of collaborative worksheets in recitations which were led by GTAs and supported by undergraduate learning assistants (LAs). Students recitation periods collaboratively solving the worksheet problems on whiteboards. When COVID-19 forced the rapid transition to online teaching, these ACL efforts faced an array of challenges. Faculty and GTA reflections on the changes to teaching and learning provide insight into how instructional staff can be supported in implementing ACL across various modes of instruction. The calculus teaching change efforts discussed in this paper are part of an NSF-supported project that aims to make ACL the default method of instruction in highly enrolled gateway STEM courses across the institution. The theoretical framework for the project builds on existing work on grassroots change in higher education (Kezar and Lester, 2011) to study the effect of communities of practice on changing teaching culture. The project uses course-based communities of practice (Wenger, 1999) that include instructors, GTAs, and LAs working together to design and enact teaching change in the targeted courses alongside ongoing professional development for GTAs and LAs. Six faculty and five GTAs involved in the teaching change effort in mathematics were interviewed after the Spring 2020 semester ended. Interview questions focused on faculty and GTA experiences implementing active learning after the rapid transition to online teaching. A grounded coding scheme was used to identify common themes in the challenges faced by instructors and GTAs as they moved online and in the impacts of technology, LA support, and the department community of practice on the move to online teaching. Technology, including both access and capabilities, emerged as a common barrier to student engagement. A particular barrier was students’ reluctance to share video or participate orally in sessions that were being recorded, making group work more difficult than it had been in a physical classroom. In addition, most students lacked access to a tablet for freehand writing, presenting a significant hurdle for sharing mathematical notation when physical whiteboards were no longer an option. These challenges point to the importance of incorporating flexibility in active learning implementation and in the professional development that supports teaching changes toward active learning, since what is conceived for a collaborative physical classroom may be implemented in a much different environment. The full paper will present a detailed analysis of the data to better understand how faculty and GTA experiences in the transition to online delivery can inform planning and professional development as the larger institutional change effort moves forward both in mathematics and in other STEM fields. 

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2. THE BELIEFS AND PRACTICES OF GRADUATE STUDENT TUTORS ENGAGED IN ONLINE TUTORING DURING THE PANDEMIC

   Mule’, T ; Houston, S. ; Piontek, J. ; Webb, J. ; Harrell-Williams, L. ( November 2022 , Proceedings of the forty-fourth annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education)

   Lischka, A. E. ; Dyer, E. B. ; Jones, R. S. ; Lovett, J. N. ; Strayer, J. ; & Drown, S. (Ed.)

   Many higher education institutions in the United States provide mathematics tutoring services for undergraduate students. These informal learning experiences generally result in increased final course grades (Byerly & Rickard, 2018; Rickard & Mills, 2018; Xu et al., 2014) and improved student attitudes toward mathematics (Bressoud et al., 2015). In recent years, research has explored the beliefs and practices of undergraduate and, sometimes graduate, peer tutors, both prior to (Bjorkman, 2018; Johns, 2019; Pilgrim et al., 2020) and during the COVID19 pandemic (Gyampoh et al., 2020; Mullen et al., 2021; Van Maaren et al., 2021). Additionally, Burks and James (2019) proposed a framework for Mathematical Knowledge for Tutoring Undergraduate Mathematics adapted from Ball et al. (2008) Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching, highlighting the distinction between tutor and teacher. The current study builds on this body of work on tutors’ beliefs by focusing on mathematical sciences graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) who tutored in an online setting during the 2020-2021 academic year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, this study addresses the following research question: What were the mathematical teaching beliefs and practices of graduate student tutors participating in online tutoring sessions through the mathematics learning center (MLC) during the COVID-19 pandemic? 

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3. Perspectives and practices of undergraduate/graduate teaching assistants on writing pedagogical knowledge and lab report evaluation in engineering laboratory courses

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--35052  

   Kim, Dave ; Lynch, John D. ( June 2020 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Engineering undergraduate lab sections are often instructed by undergraduate or graduate teaching assistants (U/GTAs), who also grade lab reports and provide feedback. Although U/GTAs contribute extensively to the assessment of lab reports, their perspectives and understanding of writing pedagogy are largely unknown. U/GTAs are primarily trained as writers in engineering; however, they are often novices in writing knowledge and its pedagogy. The electrical engineering and mechanical engineering programs of Washington State University Vancouver have conducted professional development workshops for the U/GTAs (n=6) who instruct engineering lab courses and/or grade lab reports. The goal of the workshops was to enhance the U/GTAs’ knowledge of writing and lab report evaluation to support and improve engineering undergraduate students’ lab report writing. The workshop contents consisted of 1) lab instructors’ expectations, 2) the fundamentals of lab report writing (rhetorical features of lab reports), and 3) productive feedbacks. The workshops were offered to six U/GTAs from five courses (two sophomore, two junior, and one senior electrical engineering lab courses). In order to identify the overall effectiveness of the workshops, we conducted the survey and focus group with the U/GTAs to investigate their writing background, their understanding of audience awareness, their perspectives and understanding of writing instruction, and their lab report evaluation processes. We also collected the graded lab reports to investigate feedback comments. This paper discusses the U/GTAs’ perspectives and their practices of writing pedagogies in the lab courses. The knowledge generated from this study has provided a direction for refining the professional development workshops for U/GTAs in the present and future. 

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4. Perspectives and practices of undergraduate/graduate teaching assistants on writing pedagogical knowledge and lab report evaluation in engineering laboratory courses

   Kim, Dave ; Lynch, John D. ( June 2020 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Engineering undergraduate lab sections are often instructed by undergraduate or graduate teaching assistants (U/GTAs), who also grade lab reports and provide feedback. Although U/GTAs contribute extensively to the assessment of lab reports, their perspectives and understanding of writing pedagogy are largely unknown. U/GTAs are primarily trained as writers in engineering; however, they are often novices in writing knowledge and its pedagogy. The electrical engineering and mechanical engineering programs of Washington State University Vancouver have conducted professional development workshops for the U/GTAs (n=6) who instruct engineering lab courses and/or grade lab reports. The goal of the workshops was to enhance the U/GTAs’ knowledge of writing and lab report evaluation to support and improve engineering undergraduate students’ lab report writing. The workshop contents consisted of 1) lab instructors’ expectations, 2) the fundamentals of lab report writing (rhetorical features of lab reports), and 3) productive feedbacks. The workshops were offered to six U/GTAs from five courses (two sophomore, two junior, and one senior electrical engineering lab courses). In order to identify the overall effectiveness of the workshops, we conducted the survey and focus group with the U/GTAs to investigate their writing background, their understanding of audience awareness, their perspectives and understanding of writing instruction, and their lab report evaluation processes. We also collected the graded lab reports to investigate feedback comments. This paper discusses the U/GTAs’ perspectives and their practices of writing pedagogies in the lab courses. The knowledge generated from this study has provided a direction for refining the professional development workshops for U/GTAs in the present and future. 

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5. Student perspective of GTA strategies to reduce feelings of anxiousness with cold-calling

   https://doi.org/10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Doty  

   Doty, Constance M. ; Geraets, Ashley A. ; Wan, Tong ; Saitta, Erin K. ; Chini, Jacquelyn J. ( January 2020 , 2019 Physics Education Research Conference Proceedings)

   We investigated student perceptions of cold calling on their feelings of anxiousness and how graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) alleviated these feelings when students shared their ideas publicly in the context of tutorial and laboratory sessions. Physics and chemistry GTAs who led active-learning tutorials and labs practiced cold calling paired with error framing with avatar-students in a mixed-reality simulator at the beginning of the semester. Then, we observed the GTAs teaching real students in their actual classroom. We recruited eleven students from sections led by GTAs who were observed to use cold calling in their classroom to participate in semi-structured interviews. Several students reported that cold calling increased their feelings of anxiousness. However, students also reported that GTAs used strategies paired with cold calling that reduced their feelings of anxiousness, such as acknowledging student responses as valuable and remembering student names. We discuss implications for professional development on active learning strategies. 

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