Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ana T. Torres-Ayala, University of South Florida; Geoffrey L. Herman, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Tagged Divisions

Student

uncertain how to adjust their instruction tomotivate their students. Many instructors who design new laboratory-based and project-basedinstruction to boost motivation find that these efforts are often greeted by apathy or resistancefrom the students. This situation is further exacerbated by curriculum (re)design efforts whichemphasize the presentation and transmission of course material rather than everyday teachingdecisions that motivate, or demotivate, the students to learn the material3. Based on the premise that educational psychology must inform the practice of teaching4,this primer first presents and synthesizes a selection of recent theories of motivation. With thesetheories as a backdrop, we discuss how these theories can be used in

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sean Franey, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Anthony Gregerson, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Michael T. Braun, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Tagged Divisions

Student

computerengineering courses. Within these classes are permutations of 12 unique TAs and 7 uniqueinstructors. From this dataset, we are able to analyze whether factors such as varying experiencelevels and TA roles (such as discussion mediation versus laboratory instruction) affect differentcomponents of their students’ grades. When analyzing our dataset we sought to answer three basic questions: First, do TAs producestatistically significant differences in the grades of their students when compared to other TAs inthe same course? Second, if there are differences, what components of the assessment processare affected? Finally, is there a correlation between the amount of previous teaching experiencea TA has and the grade outcomes of that TA’s students? We