Work in Progress: How a Mixed Experience Learning Assistant Seminar Functions as a Community of Practice

Isabella Stuopis; Kristen Wendell

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Educational Research and Methods (ERM) Division Poster Session
Page Count: 7
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41539
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41539
Download Count: 167

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Paper Authors

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Isabella Stuopis Tufts University

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Isabella is a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering entering her final year at Tufts University. She has a research focus on learning assistants in undergraduate engineering classrooms.

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Kristen Wendell Tufts University

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Kristen Wendell is Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Education at Tufts University, where she is a member of the Tufts Institute for Research on Learning and Instruction (IRLI) and the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO). curriculum and instructional supports for inclusive knowledge construction by engineering learners. Major projects emphasize community-based engineering curricula and professional development, engineering discourse studies, design notebooking, undergraduate learning assistants, and responsive teaching for engineering. Kristen is an associate editor for the Journal of Engineering Education. She teaches courses in design, mechanics, electronics, and engineering education. Wendell completed her PhD in science education at Tufts, her MS in aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, and her BS in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton.

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Abstract

In this work-in-progress study, we investigate how a multi-year cohort of learning assistants (LAs) supporting courses within the same academic department exhibits characteristics consistent with Lave and Wenger’s notion of ‘community of practice.’ The Learning Assistant (LA) model for peer instructors emerged from physics and biology education but has recently been gaining momentum in engineering departments. LAs are undergraduate students who facilitate student thinking and encourage inclusive active learning in the classroom. They participate in weekly preparation sessions with their supervising faculty, where they provide input as active members of the instructional team for their course. LAs also participate in a pedagogical training program, a key element of the LA model. In many institutions using the LA model, LAs are involved in the pedagogical training for just their first semester of practice. However, there may be benefits to providing sustained pedagogical training and reflection across multiple semesters of LA participation. Research is needed to explore the affordances of mixed-experience pedagogical training for LAs. This study looks specifically at LAs within the mechanical engineering department at a small private university in the northeastern US who participated in the program over two academic years. A unique aspect of this department’s pedagogy seminar is that both veteran and novice LAs took part in the pedagogy course. We, as the facilitators and program coordinators, began to notice the veteran-novice interaction as becoming central to the functioning of the group, so we turned to Lave and Wenger’s framework of community of practice to document and understand what was happening. The central question for this study is: How does this unique mixed-experience context for engineering LAs exhibit characteristics of a community of practice? We conducted retrospective interviews with 13 LAs. These LAs had experience varying between 1 and 4 semesters of practice. The goal of the interviews was to explore how these LAs perceived their role and the larger community. This preliminary analysis suggests that this unique mixed-experience context for engineering LAs does exhibit characteristics of a community of practice. When LAs with differing experience levels interacted over multiple years within the same single-department seminar, they found that their work as LAs was meaningfully influenced by those interactions. Four overarching dimensions of a community of practice were apparent in the LAs’ reflections: community space, mixed experience of members, shared mission, and development of expertise. Providing a consistent and structured opportunity for engineering LAs to interact with each other at all experience levels seemed to help them develop as facilitators of student learning and provide them with motivation to work toward the goal of improving educational experiences in their engineering department.

Citation
Format

Stuopis, I., & Wendell, K. (2022, August), Work in Progress: How a Mixed Experience Learning Assistant Seminar Functions as a Community of Practice Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41539

TY - CPAPER
AB - In this work-in-progress study, we investigate how a multi-year cohort of learning assistants (LAs) supporting courses within the same academic department exhibits characteristics consistent with Lave and Wenger’s notion of ‘community of practice.’
The Learning Assistant (LA) model for peer instructors emerged from physics and biology education but has recently been gaining momentum in engineering departments. LAs are undergraduate students who facilitate student thinking and encourage inclusive active learning in the classroom. They participate in weekly preparation sessions with their supervising faculty, where they provide input as active members of the instructional team for their course. LAs also participate in a pedagogical training program, a key element of the LA model. In many institutions using the LA model, LAs are involved in the pedagogical training for just their first semester of practice. However, there may be benefits to providing sustained pedagogical training and reflection across multiple semesters of LA participation. Research is needed to explore the affordances of mixed-experience pedagogical training for LAs.
This study looks specifically at LAs within the mechanical engineering department at a small private university in the northeastern US who participated in the program over two academic years. A unique aspect of this department’s pedagogy seminar is that both veteran and novice LAs took part in the pedagogy course. We, as the facilitators and program coordinators, began to notice the veteran-novice interaction as becoming central to the functioning of the group, so we turned to Lave and Wenger’s framework of community of practice to document and understand what was happening. The central question for this study is: How does this unique mixed-experience context for engineering LAs exhibit characteristics of a community of practice?
We conducted retrospective interviews with 13 LAs. These LAs had experience varying between 1 and 4 semesters of practice. The goal of the interviews was to explore how these LAs perceived their role and the larger community. This preliminary analysis suggests that this unique mixed-experience context for engineering LAs does exhibit characteristics of a community of practice. When LAs with differing experience levels interacted over multiple years within the same single-department seminar, they found that their work as LAs was meaningfully influenced by those interactions. Four overarching dimensions of a community of practice were apparent in the LAs’ reflections: community space, mixed experience of members, shared mission, and development of expertise. Providing a consistent and structured opportunity for engineering LAs to interact with each other at all experience levels seemed to help them develop as facilitators of student learning and provide them with motivation to work toward the goal of improving educational experiences in their engineering department.

AU - Isabella Stuopis
AU - Kristen Wendell
CY - Minneapolis, MN
DA - 2022/08/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Work in Progress: How a Mixed Experience Learning Assistant Seminar Functions as a Community of Practice
UR - https://peer.asee.org/41539
DO - 10.18260/1-2--41539
ER -