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Learning environments are vastly different across in-person and remote instruction. In undergraduate STEM courses, learning assistants (LAs) have been working in both settings, however, little is known about how the affordances and constraints of each setting influence LA facilitation practices in small group interactions. Thus, in our study, we explore the ways different contextual factors act as drivers of LA actions in both contexts of a hybrid course, and how these LA actions influence student in-the-moment learning. To do so, we recorded LA-student interactions and conducted interviews with the professor and LAs of a hybrid general chemistry course. We used a sociocultural perspective to provide an explanatory account for the drivers of action on LA facilitation practices and student learning, which revealed the following: When LA purposes/goals and social context were the same, but the conditions and means by which they could enact these purposes/goals were different between the in-person and remote conditions, LAs took different actions in each setting resulting in differences with respect to student in-the-moment learning. With our examples, we present evidence that there are multiple conditional factors that drive LA actions during LA-student interactions. Implications for theory and reform of practice will be discussed.
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Characterizing facilitation practices of learning assistants: an authoritative-to-dialogic spectrum
Abstract BackgroundLearning assistants (LAs) increase accessibility to instructor–student interactions in large STEM lecture classes. In this research, we used the Formative Assessment Enactment Model developed for K-12 science teachers to characterize LA facilitation practices. The Formative Assessment Enactment Model describes instructor actions as eliciting or advancing student thinking, guided by their purposes and the perspective they center as well as by what they notice about and how they interpret student thinking. Thus, it describes facilitation practices in a holistic way, capturing the way purposes, perspectives, noticing, interpreting, and actions are intertwined and working together to characterize different LA actions. In terms of how perspectives influence actions, eliciting and advancing moves can be enacted either in authoritative ways, driven by one perspective that has authority, or in dialogic ways, driven by multiple perspectives. Dialogic practices are of particular interest because of their potential to empower students and center student thinking. ResultsOur analysis of video recordings of LA–student interactions and stimulated recall interviews with 37 introductory physical science lectures’ LAs demonstrates that instead of as a dichotomy between authoritative and dialogic, LA actions exist along a spectrum of authoritative to dialogic based on the perspectives centered. Between the very authoritative perspective that centers on canonically correct science and the very dialogic perspective that centers the perspectives of the students involved in the discussion, we find two intermediary categories. The two new categories encompass a moderately authoritative perspective focused on the LA’s perspective without the claim of being correct and a moderately dialogic perspective focused on ideas from outside the current train of thought such as from students in the class that are not part of the current discussion. ConclusionsThis spectrum further adds to theory around authoritative and dialogic practices as it reconsiders what perspectives can drive LA enactment of facilitation other than the perspective of canonically correct science and the perspectives of the students involved in the discussion. This emerging characterization may be used to give LAs and possibly other instructors a tool to intentionally shift between authoritative and dialogic practices. It may also be used to transition towards more student-centered practices.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2000603
- PAR ID:
- 10418427
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer Science + Business Media
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of STEM Education
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2196-7822
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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