Catalyzing Graduate Teaching Assistants' Laboratory Teaching

Research: Science and Education edited by

Chemical Education Research

Diane M. Bunce The Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064

Christopher F. Bauer

Catalyzing Graduate Teaching Assistants’ Laboratory Teaching through Design Research

University of New Hampshire Durham, NH 03824-3598

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Janet Bond-Robinson*† and Romola A. Bernard Rodriques Department of Chemistry, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045; *[email protected]

In a recent survey report on Graduate Education in Chemistry, over 2000 Ph.D. recipients currently working in industry and academia responded very favorably to the statement, “My experience as a teaching assistant helped me in the performance of my job” (1). Respondents also rated their research advisers’ contributions to mentoring very favorably. Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) often have more undergraduate (UG) contact than do course faculty (2, 3). GTAs want preparation and supervision to feel confident, competent, and to know that their work is noticed as a meaningful departmental contribution (2, 4, 5). Since teaching has considerable value to professional chemistry careers, it is the responsibility of the chemistry departments to put time and resources into a timely, substantial, and durable training program that catalyzes development of professional capacity in teaching for new graduate students. As a chemistry community in the U.S. we have not made substantial progress in developing GTAs’ professional teaching capacity. In 1975–76 a survey to chemistry departments in 190 Ph.D.-granting institutions found that one-third of these departments offered some TA training, one-third offered no training, and one-third did not respond. Of the 60 departments offering TA training, 12 institutions were using Project TEACH. Over 20 years later Abraham et al. (6) surveyed 300 chemistry departments and found that 37% (about 75) offered no formal training. Of the 126 departments who responded, 63 did only informal individualized training by course instructors. The other 63 held a departmental orientation; only 10 of these orientation programs lasted longer than one day. A formal model for catalyzing teaching performance of new graduate students—performing as chemical managers, mentors, and teachers—must comprise more than an orientation activity. An effective model must illustrate what is important for graduate students to learn as well as identifying course activities that will enable effective and efficient understanding of pedagogical laboratory management and chemistry teaching. The design must include evaluation of the effectiveness of GTA learning as determined by each GTA’s performance in the teaching lab. The final component is to assess the underlying goal of GTAs gaining understanding, which is the undergraduates’ learning—Do the UGs of these GTAs actually learn to understand chemistry at a deeper level as a result of GTAs’ gain in pedagogical chemical knowledge? This † Current address: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1604

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paper addresses primarily the catalysis and evaluation of GTA learning. Background The most prominent formal model has been Training in Education for Assistants in Chemistry, called Project TEACH by Brooks et al. (7, 8), which developed with the collaboration of chemists and educators. Project TEACH incorporated written materials for self-study and group-oriented techniques. The approach is based on two validated assumptions: (1) Increasing student–TA interaction during recitation and laboratory sessions increases student learning, and (2) The format of the lab environment enables tutoring-type interactions. In Project TEACH new graduate students watched others in videotapes and learned to recognize effective interactions between teachers and students, such as using questioning strategies to probe for student thinking. Graduate students were videotaped while teaching a lesson they prepared, attempting teaching skills taught in the videos. Project TEACH was state of the art when it was produced in the mid-1970s. At Purdue University a recent training addition for GTAs follows a continuous development model (9). Offered to GTAs who teach recitations, additional learning sessions model interactive techniques to facilitate student learning. The GTAs’ role is to prepare problems for UGs, model problem strategies, and give helpful feedback as the UGs work in small groups on problems. It would be interesting to know whether the interactive techniques became part of their weekly laboratory teaching. While reviewing the literature it emerged that GTAs from countries outside the U.S. (international teaching assistants, ITAs) possess very strong theoretical knowledge backgrounds yet perhaps not as much laboratory experience relative to U.S. GTAs (10). Another significant challenge for ITAs, even those who speak English, is the less-formal educational system in the U.S. in which UGs expect to have a relationship of sorts with their instructors (11). In many international cultures the teacher–student roles are clearly hierarchical, with teachers having high status, and interaction is less common between student and teacher. Further, education in the U.S. tends to be broader in scope, so that UGs are often less knowledgeable in chemistry than international students of the same age (12). Learning Goals Our goals are based on the literature of how people learn in general, and how people learn chemistry. Learning improvements, as recommended by reform literature in science

Vol. 83 No. 2 February 2006

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Journal of Chemical Education

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education, expand beyond transmitting knowledge to students. Reform literature illustrates motivating students in disciplinary thinking in two ways: 1. Increase activities that require students to use disciplinary thinking to generate scientific meaning (i.e., to use chemical reasoning). 2. Construct new assessments that require students to understand and reason from their knowledge; to use higher-order thinking rather than relying primarily on memory strategies.

Rickey and Stacy (13) note that transmission-oriented teaching is effective for teaching rules, facts, algorithms, and procedures, but not deep understanding: “Typically, students are simply told the ‘correct’ scientific ideas and are expected to understand them although the fact is that they are given few opportunities and little guidance to develop such an understanding” (13, p 916). A large study of college-level chemistry laboratory situations (14) found that strategies requiring lower-order thinking (recall and basic level comprehension, e.g., students define, identify, know, match, name, recognize) were more common in college chemistry labs than those asking for higher-order critical thinking, such as applying concepts from lecture, analyzing and evaluating data, and making interpretations (15). A GTA seminar course must emphasize a more constructivist learning approach to thrust GTAs beyond the dominant teaching and learning models that they already understand, which are teaching as transmission of knowledge and learning as recall of knowledge.

How Students Learn People naturally find meaning and adapt to environmental conditions. This is how we define constructivism. Meaning is constructed from many forms of input: doing work, attempting to solve problems, listening to someone else speak, reading an account of a topic written by someone else, developing awareness of cultural rules from the larger society during back-and-forth, give-and-take personal conversations with relative experts or with peers, putting together a piece of writing, and even talking to oneself as in reflection or selfassessment. John Dewey and George Herbert Mead (16–18) were concerned about educational practices in the early 20th century that ignored the importance of students finding meaning. Classroom practices substituted “pale abstractions of thought” (13, p 691) for concrete conversations about subject matter. The outcome was that students’ real life experiences could not be utilized for school learning. This gap still exists today. The chemical laboratory of the 21st century is an ideal place to bridge the gap between concrete conversations that occur there and the abstract concepts that explain any modern science. In an ideal lab experience UGs can build meaning of the nanoscopic world by making connections from lab work at the macroscopic level of their personal experience to the particulate world of explanations in chemical science. Combining explicit transmission of knowledge with attempts to guide reasoning using new knowledge is likely to be more effective for students to find meaning than explicit transfer alone. A model of knowledge transmission does not push students to reason, so it can inadvertently reinforce memorizing rules, facts, algorithms, and procedures rather than encourage students’ efforts to understand the material 314


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first and then remember it. A constructivist model requires higher-order thinking by students. Then instructors must facilitate reasoning by UGs as well as model chemical reasoning. Directing students to build meaning through reasoning is built upon the students’ current knowledge and understanding. Taking the time and energy to identify students’ knowledge levels is less efficient than teaching through explicit transmission. Often interaction is lacking when explicit transmission of the instructor’s words are given to students, thus it is often difficult to determine students’ current levels of comprehension. Given that human reasoning is essential to generate meaning, opportunities for individual and group reasoning are the essence of an effective learning environment for people—without regard to whether an individual is a general chemistry student, a graduate researcher in organic synthesis, an expert chemist probing novel problems, or a new GTA learning to teach.

GTAs Learning How To Teach The GTAs’ professional role is complex because it contains dual functionality: to manage a chemical laboratory (e.g., promoting safety, providing directions, and developing procedural skills), and to teach chemical concepts. When GTAs work through the challenges of teaching chemistry labs, they develop pedagogical chemical knowledge (PChK). Shulman defines the more general pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as interwoven pedagogy and content knowledge necessary for good disciplinary teaching (19). Ideally, Shulman says, the teacher will transform disciplinary knowledge to encourage students’ understanding of meaning. Transformation is a process that differs from giving a restatement of the chemical view of a concept or theory and expecting students to remember it. Much transformation in chemistry involves connecting macroscopic matter and events to nanoscopic particles and processes, all of which have chemical symbolic representations. Some transformations involve the former aspects of chemical reasoning and lead to mathematical symbolism and equations. Finally, transformations often involve good examples, analogies, or demonstrations. GTAs must figure out what it means to transform chemical knowledge on specific topics for their UGs. Transforming also involves directing students’ attention. Since UGs may have trouble determining what information is most central to a well-structured word problem, lesser-structured lab problems are likely to be difficult. GTAs must learn to direct UGs’ attention to significant features and appropriate reasoning as they transform chemical knowledge to the level of their UG population in lab. Interacting with students in a strategic manner is part of the challenge of professional teaching practice. Giving GTAs rules of teaching behavior limits professional growth. Shulman (20) explains that the learning process begins with engagement, which in turn leads to knowledge and understanding. Once someone understands, he or she becomes capable of performance, alone, with peers, or with guidance. “Critical reflection on one’s practice and understanding leads to higher-order thinking in the form of a capacity to exercise judgment in the face of uncertainty and to create designs in the presence of constraints and unpredictability” (20, p 38). Stewart and Lagowski (21) believe that “cognitive apprenticeship” describes the key attributes of graduate students’ re-


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search experience, in which the learning environment provides opportunities for modeling, coaching, scaffolding, reflection, articulation, and exploration (21, p 1362). We believe the same can be true of a teaching apprenticeship model. Working with GTAs situated in teaching labs emphasizes that most learning occurs and is shaped by “doing” (22) just as it is in chemical research. Understanding gained in the experience—the structure of the job, and mentoring and coaching that occurs by others—can create a cognitive apprenticeship (23). Teaching expectations and basic knowledge about teaching chemistry labs may be transmitted to GTAs. To gain teaching judgment, GTAs must adapt, reflect, and build teaching skills while they teach. Modeling of teaching may occur by the instructor and advanced peers in real-time or through video clips. Coaching can provide specific direction and feedback to implement a high standard of work through key performance criteria. Scaffolded guidance from a mentor helps those at the novice level by striving to push learning to a higher level than the novice could reach alone. Scaffolding fades naturally as development in one area of performance increases so as to move energy into mastering others. Seminar discussions offer opportunities for articulation. GTAs need to discuss emerging problems, problems they solved, knowledge they gained, and questions that an individual wants the group to address. Personal and professional discussions can create a teaching community similar to a research group, in that dialogue and feedback often foster selfreflection and assessment. The goal of this professional development in teaching is to induce GTAs to explore taking more professional control of the learning environment of the laboratory. Thus, features of a cognitive apprenticeship would generate a commendable GTA training program.

The Laboratory Teaching Apprenticeship Model Our model, the Laboratory Teaching Apprenticeship, uses the crucial features of a cognitive apprenticeship to catalyze the performance of new GTAs’ in one semester. Our model synthesizes the contributions previously mentioned. The survey findings of Abraham et al. (6) are further evidence that supports more emphasis on concepts than procedural work. In their large study (268 institutions responding, a 68% response) faculty were pressed to choose the most important learning goal among the following: learning facts, laboratory skills, scientific processes, concepts, or positive attitudes. Faculty chose learning concepts as the primary goal for UGs in a laboratory program (6, p 592). Similarly to the strategies of Project TEACH we identified specific, descriptive, and strategic TA–student interactions as criteria that constitute good teaching. Criteria were adapted from constructivist-observation instruments previously used by the first author (24–26) and focused by our own experience as GTAs. We created operational definitions (descriptions that we could measure) of each strategic interaction when constructing two written instruments. Lists 1A and 1B show the instructor’s assessment instrument, the ITAT, honed down to 12 strategic teaching interactions. Performance on these 12 interactions is the criterion used in coaching and scaffolding GTAs for effectiveness in each of three formative assessments (no grade recorded) and to measure effective teaching in the final summative assessment (worth 75% of their course grade). A separate yet related instrument, the UGATA, allows UGs to assess their TA in a similar fashion.W Development of both instruments over four years and the UGATA’s relationship to the ITAT are explained

List 1A. Stategic Actions of GTAs While Managing a Chemical Work Environment

List 1B. Stategic Actions of GTAs While Teaching Chemical Concepts

GTAs are expected to be responsive mentors and procedural guides in a specific and timely manner throughout the lab, i.e., serve as a chemical manager.

GTAs are expected to be responsive chemistry teachers who initiate conceptual explanations and linkages to lecture and prompt UGs to reason using concepts, i.e., serve as a teacher.

A1. Interaction: GTA moves regularly throughout the lab space to interact with all UGs rather than waiting for students to approach. A2. Safety: GTA models and enforces safety rules (goggles worn, disposal directions followed, proper clothing and shoes, etc.). A3. Respect/Help: When responding to requests for help, GTA’s attitude is respectful of individuals personally and of UGs’ ability to learn. A4. Opening Talk: Focused, concise, clear, and primarily procedural, with a conceptual overview that illustrates why this experiment is important and relevant to UGs. A5. Awareness: GTA notices UGs having difficulty and moves to interact with them. A6. Guidance: When interacting with UGs, GTA’s explanations of the experiment are given at a level commensurate with the general understanding and prior experiences of these UGs.

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B1. Advice: GTA’s comments to individual UGs or student groups are timely and meaningful for the tasks to be completed. B2. Links Concepts with Lab: GTA links the lab tasks to the underlying chemical concepts from the lecture portion of the course. B3. Chemical Explanations: GTA explains chemical concepts in concrete conversations based on UGs general understanding and common prior experiences. B4. Prompts Students to Reason: GTA prompts UGs to think about chemical concepts underlying the lab when they ask questions. B5. Facilitates Reasoning among Students: GTA stimulates and facilitates discussion among UGs of concepts underlying the lab. B6. Urges Reasoning in Troubleshooting: GTA encourages UGs to think through and correct problems when mistakes are made rather than the GTA fixing problems.


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elsewhere (27). Reliability was measured using Cronbach’s α: ITAT (α 0.86) and UGATA (α 0.94). As in the case of Purdue’s continuous development, we work over the semester with GTAs in a progression of activities (28). The laboratory teaching apprenticeship emphasizes teaching performance in these ways: (1) Identifying abstract chemical concepts fundamental to the laboratory investigation and transforming them to the UG level; (2) Learning to recognize and perform strategic pedagogical procedural and conceptual explanations; and (3) Deliberate and strategic use of interactions that direct UGs toward reasoning through chemistry. Learning to teach involves intrinsic factors that direct a GTA’s effort and cognitive processes. For example, motivation, attention, and interests of an individual GTA (29) determine his or her responses to the program, the coaching and feedback, and participation with peers. We insisted that GTAs focus energy into teaching proficiency. Therefore, our model must bargain with these GTA factors that manage the output of effort. Consequently, we designed the following performance boosters: 1. We encouraged GTAs to express their personalities since putting on a role depletes mental energy. 2. Class time was only one hour per week. Most of the emphasis was on their teaching function. 3. We provided nonjudgmental feedback: They received assessments of their teaching lab video on an ITAT form. No grade was recorded until a final assessment at the end of the semester. 4. Clear expectations of the important content of teaching were communicated. Consistent, specific, and explicit standards for performance focused every one-hour session and formative assessment. 5. We emphasized the professional skills of a chemist. We gave them CDs of their teaching performance every two weeks to emphasize their work and a need for professional reflection and self-assessment as they viewed their teaching CDs.

Questions Addressed by Our Design Research The following questions were the bases of our work. • What constraints in our department affected course design? • What is the most effective course design after five years of successive refinement? • What kinds of knowledge did GTAs gain? What performance levels did GTAs reach? • What are key factors in effective catalysis of GTA teaching performance?

Constraints Affecting Course Design Constraints are boundaries, departmental norms, or restrictions. Constraints can be helpful as well as difficult; some provided structure, and others directed curricular needs. Some constraints were threats to the program’s success. We found nine general constraints that bounded our design experiment, many of which Nurrenbern et al. (9) found in their GTA work These local but common constraints are summarized in List 2 and are discussed more thoroughly elsewhere (27). Laboratory Teaching Apprenticeship Course Design When you examine Figure 1 in the Supplemental MaterialW you will see that the final course design of the Laboratory Teaching Apprenticeship is composed of diverse activities, which we call “design elements”. This is the research-based design that developed over five years in teaching 83 new graduate students. List 2. Constraints Bounding Course Design 1. The course is needed in the first semester of graduate school. 2. Only a 1-credit hour course could be slipped into a tightly packed and sequenced graduate curriculum. 3. Little control of GTA assignments: They may be assigned to teach general, organic, analytical, or physical labs.

6. We created a social society of new graduate students who had common experiences. They discussed their own and peers’ teaching (30, 31), thus creating a teaching community.

4. Course lecture attendance limitations: The timing of graduate courses overlaps the only section of both general and organic lecture.

We incorporated these six aspects of the program to alleviate factors that could negatively affect a GTA’s exertion toward gaining teaching proficiency.

5. Goal orientation of new graduate students is generally geared to their student role in becoming scientists.

Methodology for Experiments in Course Design Our methodology for designing a GTA course is called “design research” (32, 33), which investigates how people function in a real learning environment. A key feature of design experiments is successive refinement based on data each time the course is offered. The goal of successive refinement for a new cohort of GTAs, in our case, is to meet the course goals more effectively. These cycles of iteration provide systematic variation that leads to a better course (33). Through course iterations 1–3 all assessments were done through physical observation inside the laboratory. Subsequently, a remote audio video observation system (RAVO) used the local area network (LAN) to send audio and video from the teaching lab and enabled observers to pan, tilt, and zoom the camera from their own remote lab. 316


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6. Many new GTAs plan careers in industry and do not believe teaching has professional relevance. 7. GTAs are familiar with a transmission model of learning; they are unfamiliar with a constructivist model of learning. 8. Control issues in professional problem solving: Sometimes a GTA believes s/he has control of very few factors, doesn't feel competent enough to risk noticeable failure, or attributes a lab problem to others (e.g., the UGs or a course supervisor). 9. ITAs: Due to University SPEAK test requirements, international graduate students often cannot teach in the first semester while taking the course. ITAs need specific socialization in addition to teaching skills.


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Timing of each design element in the course differed according to its function. Teaching occurred twice each week for most GTAs; seminar meetings occurred once a week. Readings were assigned during orientation; further reading and written assignment were given on alternate weeks. The three formative feedback sets were completed at two-week intervals to provide written communication from instructor to GTA on the ITAT form. Formative assessments focused on a GTA’s ability to create effective procedural and conceptual interactions. In addition, the video of each GTA’s lab teaching became sources of observation and discussion at seminars as well as fodder for further reflection as GTAs coded their own interactions. Data from UGs assessing their GTA with the UGATA,W as well as the instructors’ assessment from the ITAT, were pooled for 75% of the GTAs’ grade near semester’s end. Our assessment design put less than 10% of the emphasis on the lab lecture, i.e., the ITAT’s interaction A4 (in List 1A) is only one of 12 coded. Five reasons guided us to deemphasize the opening lab lecture. First, our general chemistry and organic laboratories were clearly not designed for a lecture because a significant number of UGs can neither hear easily nor see when the TA stands at the board. Secondly, people’s attention span is lower in a less than ideal environment for lecturing. We noticed that many UGs do not pay adequate attention to a GTA lecture. Thirdly, students are anxious to get to work, so extended lecturing seems irrelevant to them. Fourthly, the power of the teaching lab situation is in the 90% of remaining lab time available for an instructor to work with UGs individually and in small groups, using strategic tutor-like interactions. Finally, Roehrig and Luft, who studied GTAs leading inquiry labs (34), noted that many GTAs simply did not know what to do with their time after they gave the opening talk. Therefore, it makes sense to put the lion’s share of guided instruction on strategies for management and chemistry teaching that are possible in the hours remaining. In the first assessment we spent more time analyzing the effectiveness of the opening talk. We scaffolded preparing an opening talk for the GTAs for whom this was problematic. Rather than lecture on all features of the experiment immediately, we promote that GTAs talk for 10 minutes at the start and then purposefully punctuate the lab at several later intervals. Later they can talk with individual groups; they can bring all students together for further discussion on a timely topic; and they can ask student groups to write results on the

board to generate comparisons with other groups. Such punctuation means that the opening talk can be focused, concise, clear, and primarily procedural, however, with a conceptual overview that illustrates to students why this experiment is important and relevant to them. We found in deemphasizing the opening lab lecture that the majority of the conceptual talk (chemical concept talk), when it occurs, happens in discussion and tutor-like interactions when groups are finishing. These are times when students are more likely motivated about the significance of their work to write lab reports. Measuring GTAs Learning and Performance The new graduate course was refined over five fall semesters and 83 graduate students. Qualitative audio–video data supplemented statistical data. Valid and reliable data, collected from 12 strategic interactions while GTAs taught a lab, were used to judge effectiveness of teaching in terms of pedagogical chemical knowledge (PChK). We share statistical and qualitative data. Statistical data from the fourth course iteration showed the kinds of knowledge gained by GTAs, which kinds of knowledge were easier or more difficult to gain, and which kinds of knowledge were effectively demonstrated during the summative assessment. Qualitative commentary then supplements or explains some of the quantitative data.

Knowledge Gain PChK Development of pedagogical chemical knowledge (PChK) was a goal for the GTA course. Forms of PChK were identified by a statistical factor analysis after the fourth course iteration, which we explain elsewhere (35). Pedagogical interactions involving helpfulness and respect for students’ abilities to learn do not require chemical knowledge; we called this group mentoring interactions. These were labeled PChK-0 because little or no chemical knowledge is required in the pedagogy. Beyond mentoring three groups of interactions remained, each of which requires chemical knowledge of the GTA. These were labeled PChK-1, PChK-2, and PChK-3; the higher the number, the greater the requirement for both chemical knowledge and for that knowledge to be performed with pedagogical fluency at the level of the student population. Table 1 (adapted from ref 35) shows each PChK form, as well as its link to the ITAT instrument that coded teaching interactions.

Table 1. Summary of Forms of Pedagogical Chemical Knowledge (PChK) PChK

Strategy Used To Promote Learninga

Knowledge Requirement for Each Form of PChK

PChK-0

A1, A3

This is general pedagogy mentoring that does not require chemical knowledge

Interacts with students; Helpfulness; Respects students’ abilities to learn

PChK-1

A2, A4, A5, A6, B7

Pedagogy using general procedural knowledge of chemical lab work; Specific technique, procedures, calculations, and safety knowledge of each lab

Models and enforces safety precautions; Demonstrates techniques; Troubleshoots lab problems; Gives guidance to students

PChK-2

B2, B3

Pedagogy using an understanding of chemical topics and concepts in order to transform them to make sense to students (which is dependent on student knowledge)

Correlates macro-level events with nano-level processes; Chooses examples wisely; Links chemical symbols, mathematics variables, and nano-level processes together

PChK-3

B4, B5, B6

Pedagogy flexibly using knowledge to probe and guide students’ reasoning as well as confidence in knowledge and role so as to direct the learning environment

Decides on questioning strategies to probe reasoning; Gives occasional directed guidance but also directs students to work through conceptual questions or procedural problems with each other

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Example Actions by GTAs To Teach These PChK Components


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Functions of PChK-1, PChK-2, PChK-3, and Mentoring To describe the functionality of the GTA, we pooled the Mentoring interactions with those of PChK-1 and pooled interactions of PChK-2 with those of PChK-3. Adding the interactions of mentoring with PChK-1 led to the functional category of Chemical Manager (see ITAT interactions A1-B1). Merging interactions of PChK-2 and PChK-3 yielded the functional category of Chemical Teacher (see ITAT interactions A1 also, B2-B6). Paper instruments and results were rearranged to fit these two categories, which explains why the ITAT already shows this pattern. The GTA’s instructors measured knowledge gain by each GTA’s performance on the ITAT instrument’s 12 interactions. The two instructors negotiated on ratings until agreement was reached. Our rating system allowed assessment of either effectiveness or frequency, whichever resulted in a higher score. Dual codes supported momentum in attempting and sustaining new kinds of interactions since the quantity of action attempts (frequency) often increased before the quality in the attempts (effectiveness) improved as would be expected from coached practice. Table 2 shows the scale and overall results obtained from ITAT analyses of summative videos. The ITAT results in Table 2 showed that overall GTAs gained more understanding of their function as Manager of a chemical laboratory than of Teacher of chemistry. A mean of 4.34 for managing meant that it was performed often or when performed showed good skill. GTAs performed best on mentoring actions. Initially, consistent walking throughout the lab daunted new GTAs, but this pattern of interaction was learned and executed early because the instructor-coaches were relentless about the need for engagement. GTAs eventually realized that interaction enhanced their proficiency in several ways: in knowing what was happening procedurally, to answer students’ questions, and to notice when someone or something was going awry. GTAs were also good at interactions requiring PChK-1, i.e., monitoring, predicting, and responding to safety issues, demonstrating techniques, and giving pertinent advise on the mechanics of the experimental system as students worked. Further, every GTA improved in the content and coherence of their opening talk; although still rated good prepared talks were the lowest rated of all the procedurally oriented actions by UGs. This rating indicated that it was more difficult for GTAs to prepare and deliver an appropriate talk than to provide guidance or give specific pertinent advice as the lab proceeded. In conclusion, a mean score of 4.34 indicated that GTAs had gained knowledge and understanding of crucial management factors well enough to execute them frequently and with good performance while interacting with their UGs. In contrast to the GTAs’ management, the mean of Chemistry Teaching interactions was only 3.22, which meant strategic actions B2-B6 were sometimes performed or showed mediocre skill when performed—even for GTAs who had taught before. Thus, more emphasis on PChK-2 and PChK3 development was needed. For example, many actions indicating PChK-2, e.g., linking lab to lecture and making explanations at the level of UGs, were weakly executed or non-existent. Performance showing PChK-2 required groundwork ahead of time. GTAs needed to identify underlying abstract chemical concepts that related to the lab investigations 318


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Table 2. Summative Assessments of GTAs by Role Quality or Frequency Descriptors Associated with the Scale

Likert Scale Values

Very Poor/Never

1

Poor/Rarely

2

Mediocre/Sometimes

3

Good/Often

4

Very Good/Very Often

5

Chemical Managers

Chemical Concepts’ Teachers

3.22 4.34

Note: The 12 strategic interactions are pooled into two composite variables, manager and teacher.

as they prepared for lab. We learned about the following difficulties from seminar discussions and videotaped teaching observations. The value of identifying concepts was not evident to most GTAs at first; some never understood the need to identify them. Facilitating UGs to connect these underlying abstract concepts with their lab work required that GTAs make some decisions ahead of time. Making these pedagogical decisions entailed thinking about how to transform chemical knowledge by determining clear examples, correlating from the macro to the nano level or vice versa, devising analogies from a familiar idea to a chemical one, or putting together mathematical variables to explain chemical processes, and was therefore, challenging. Making explanations at the level of UGs’ knowledge stipulated knowing the extent of their UGs’ knowledge and ability to reason and thus, were demanding. Transforming chemical knowledge was difficult for all and neglected by some GTAs. The PChK-3 interactions promoted reasoning between the GTA and UG(s) or among UGs. PChK-3 required more aggressive objectives and positioning as well as the ability for a GTA to exploit his or her chemical knowledge on the fly. Some GTAs were uncomfortable “butting into” the UGs’ workspaces. Many GTAs had inertia when the situation called for beneficial prompting of reasoning by using generic and directed questioning strategies (36). A generic question is not focused on a specific answer; instead its purpose is to encourage students to think and articulate, e.g., “Tell me about what you just finished.” Use of directed questions that asked about specific concepts was a more familiar technique, but GTAs performed directed questioning in only a limited fashion. When a GTA attempted to facilitate a group in troubleshooting by guiding their thinking, the process taxed the GTA’s own mechanical knowledge and confidence. Some GTAs never encouraged a group of UGs to discuss a problem or question among themselves. Our data showed that PChK-3 was even trickier to perform than PChK-2. The amount of chemical understanding and pedagogical sophistication required of the GTA for effective interactions increases from those showing PChK-1 to those showing PChK-3. In other words, aspects of PChK-3 performance were seen the least often, and PChK-1 was observed most often. Our explanation about these results is that PChK-3 requires that GTAs take control of the learning environment in a professional manner. To perform with PChK-3, knowledge must


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Research: Science and Education Table 3. Grading Rubric and Distribution of GTA Performance over Four Course Iterations GTAs’ Grades Determined by Instructors Exemplary, A Very Good, A and A

Good, B to B In Transition to Good, B

Mediocre, C to C Very Poor, C

GTAs at Each Level, in Percent (N = XXX?)

Statements Corresponding to Performance Criteria Used To Evaluate GTAs as Managers and Teachers

1–2

Good manager; orchestrates teaching chemical concepts often and very well

38

Good manager; sometimes teaches chemical concepts well

22

Good manager; attempts to teach chemical concepts but not skilled

25

Good manager; vague attempts to teach chemical concepts

12

Good manager; doesn’t teach chemical concepts

1–2

Mediocre manager; doesn’t teach chemistry concepts

be well organized and flexibly applied in order to effectively guide and facilitate UGs in mechanical reasoning with components of the experiment and conceptual reasoning with underlying concepts that the lab illustrates. Helping students to reason requires the knowledge base of PChK-2 as well as that of PChK-3. The prerequisites of performing PChK-2 were listed above. GTAs who perform well with PChK-2 had good chemical understanding of the topic and took the trouble to identify underlying abstract concepts of the week’s lab. High PChK-2 performers worked to attain sensitivity to student knowledge because it permitted their explanations to work better with their UGs. Finally, PChK-1 performers required understanding of chemistry at the lab level of modeling safety, giving general procedural guidance, and giving directed advice. Thus, PChK-1 did not involve transformations or taking control of the learning environment. Much of the knowledge employed in PChK-1 was generated from the GTA’s own lab experiences as an UG because the teaching model in those labs was more likely to have been one primarily of PChK-1. PChK-1 corresponds most closely to UG’s procedural emphases in that they wish to get the lab experiment started quickly and quickly finished (37). Thus, modeling of PChK-1 in past educational experiences when they were UGs may account for the ease of GTA understanding and frequency of exercising PChK-1 interactions. Evidence supporting this claim is that ITAs, who often have less UG laboratory experience, have more difficulty acquiring PCK-1. We have clearly shown (38) that UGs in the lab do not notice strong teaching performance of PCK-2 and PChK3 as they do PChK-1. Therefore, this fact may account for the difficulties most GTAs have in acquiring the more complex forms of PChK.

Variation in GTAs’ Performance Levels and Grades The performance criteria were set by the ITAT interactions. Thus, the challenge for the course was giving GTAs enough support so that a majority of new graduate students would reach these standards. Table 3 shows the meaning of the course grades for GTAs through four iterations of the course. Data through four iterations of the course indicated a natural progression in acquiring forms of PChK in that they developed PChK-1, then PChK-2, and then some performed www.JCE.DivCHED.org

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PChK-3. While prior experience at teaching and the individual speed of development varied, there was also the issue of some GTAs becoming “stuck” at a particular stage (refer to constraints in Table 2). Over 95% of the GTAs became effective chemical managers, illustrating strong performance in Mentoring and PChK-1 interactions. Nearly 15% of the GTAs, however, performed neither PChK-2 nor PChK-3 interactions, thus earning a C grade. Almost 50% of the GTAs earned a B grade; they performed PChK-2 interactions sometimes or rarely, but never demonstrated PChK-3. Only 40% of the GTAs demonstrated they could facilitate UGs reasoning through abstract or experimental chemical concepts (PChK-3). GTAs who received A grades in the course were all working diligently using PChKs-1, -2 and –3 and mentoring interactions. The qualitative analyses of video data illustrated the practical manner in which high performing GTAs handled the balance between the procedural (PChK-1) and conceptual (PChK-2 and PChK-3) teaching. They utilized all the time available throughout the lab session. Generally, the first half of the lab session concerned procedural knowledge (PChK1) and the opening conceptual overview (PChK-2). The UGs and GTA worked on aspects of procedures and on progressing into the experiment. Sometimes the GTA utilized explicit transmission of experimental information (PChK-1); sometimes the GTA tried to get UGs to reason (PChK-3) about their lab work or procedural difficulties. Those GTAs strong in teaching concepts orchestrated the second half of the lab as well as the beginning parts (PChK-3). They started working with teams and pairs, explaining (PChK-2) and probing UGs about chemically related meanings (PChK-3) in their work. Often the whole lab was drawn together for a discussion after each group explicitly wrote their results on the board (PChK-3). The exemplary GTA used this time to point out results (PChK-2), ask questions about the meaning of those results (PChK-3), summarize the results (PChK-2) and give UGs time to discuss their work (PChK-3). This kind of discussion led UGs into drawing conclusions related to chemical concepts rather than procedures. Fifth Course Iteration The fifth course iteration was refined to provide an intense focus on PChK-2 and PChK-3 to catalyze teaching development among a majority of GTAs. Instructor–coaches


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provided an intensive focus in four ways. (1) Examples of PChK-2 and PChK-3 were utilized earlier and often. (2) A handout was produced to give explicit guidance in using directed and generic questioning (see syllabus handout 2W). (3) Since exemplary teaching on the summative assessment (and an A grade) matched the ITAT’s expectations, GTAs were reminded to illustrate good interactions in B2-B6. And, (4) Higher responsibility was reinforced for GTAs to analyze their own teaching in terms of the ITAT’s 12 interactions. Results of the intense focus were striking. Final GTA variability at the summative assessment of the fifth class changed decisively from that shown in Table 2. No C grades were earned. This indicated that all GTAs were good quality managers, performing PChK-1 and Mentoring interactions. They were also attempting interactions requiring higher forms of PChK. One third of the class earned B grades: Although no PChK-3 development was demonstrated among the Bgraded GTAs, 20% exhibited good quality PChK-2. About 13% of the B-graded GTAs were in transition to becoming better at PChK-2. Finally, two-thirds of the GTAs earned A grades, indicating development of both PChK-2 and PChK3. About 20% of these GTAs were exemplary in that they showed high quality interactions of PChK-2 and PChK–3. Almost 50% of the A grades went to GTAs who often illustrated interactions of both PChK-2 and PChK–3. Thus, the results over all five years show that 45% of new GTAs developed the higher levels of PChK. A total of approximately 8% of new GTAs developed only the lowest form of PChK-1. Since faculty members’ primary lab goal for UGs is learning chemical concepts (6), developing and expressing only PChK-1 is not high enough GTA performance to impact UG’s chemical understanding during lab.

Key Factors in Effectively Catalyzing GTAs’ Teaching Each GTA must be provided with intense support to help him or her become the best teacher possible in this situation and under these time constraints. Selection of only the best chemistry GTAs before they teach is a moot point considering supply and demand for graduate TAs in chemistry. We have asked each GTA to move toward attaining more strategies that require higher-order cognitive effort. Constructivist strategies require listening to UGs to determine their knowledge level. Hearing UGs, inferring their knowledge level from what is heard, and then judging what to explain, what to direct UG attention toward, and what to ask UGs to think about, are clearly higher-order thinking skills. Selfconcerns, especially significant anxiety, reduce an individual’s capacity for higher order thinking. Thus, every GTA needs nonjudgmental feedback to scaffold thinking about two issues: (1) How to identify and teach my UGs important concepts, and then ideally into (2) How to guide my UGs to reason so they can understand these concepts. It has been our goal, therefore, to create a training that enhances attention, motivation, previous abilities and understandings by coaching and seminar activities directly related to their work of teaching, and has a letter grade attached to one hour of credit. List 3 illustrates a ranking of significant course design factors in catalysis of frequency or effectiveness in the GTAs’ chemistry teaching interactions (PChK-2 and PChK-3). These were identified in the successive revisions as we sought higher performance in PChK-2 and PChK-3. 320


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Personal Catalysts Personality, temperament, gender, course, and domestic versus international TA: The question has been asked (39) as to which are important factors to the development of a GTA. Personality traits were not as important as one might think. For example, extroverts were not more likely to be a good chemistry teacher than introverts. A consistent personality trait among the most proficient GTAs over five iterations was the likelihood and ease of reflection about their work—as shown in seminar discussions and written essays. This finding is not unusual since athletes and other performers analyze their performances for improvement on a regular basis. Significant temperament traits revolve around a natural willingness to be concerned about or understand people with whom you work. Over 98% of GTAs have possessed this natural willingness and understanding. In lab teaching this looks like an ability to understand, gain, and implement professional goals towards other people. Only one GTA out of 83 (1.2%) had tremendous difficulties as a GTA in both areas of management and concept teaching. This GTA was unable to understand the purpose, recognize and try types of interactions or exert the effort to interact regularly with his UG students—even after three months of coaching. We saw few differences in performance among GTAs in the Laboratory Teaching Apprenticeship that could be attributed to gender or national status. Men as well as women were equally likely to be effective chemistry teachers. Following passing of the SPEAK Test1 and during this GTA course, we hoped that enough time for development was allowed for ITAs to acclimate socially and for catalysis of their teaching performances. ITAs had more difficulty gaining PChK-1 than domestic GTAs did. In terms of variability of performance over the semester, ITAs and domestic GTAs were equally

List 3. Action Factors Catalyzing Professional Performance as Ranked by GTAs 1. A, B, or C grading rather than pass/fail. 2. A one-semester seminar class associated with the lab teaching assignment. 3. GTAs assessing 12 strategic interactions themselves using the ITAT form while watching videos of their labs. 4. GTAs simply observing videos of teaching at 2-week intervals (3 different labs). 5. Explicit guidance through instructor coaching of 3 labs and giving ungraded comments on the ITAT. 6. Explicit guidance through video collages showing difficult strategic interaction in practice by peers. 7. Motivating development through persistence that the highest standard of performance was expected. 8. Weekly participation in a seminar performing a similar purpose as a research group meeting.


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likely to be effective chemistry teachers on instructor ratings. And we found no significantly different variability on student evaluations between ratings of domestic GTAs and those of ITAs. We did find a difference, however, between two groups of ITAs teaching in the same lab course: those enrolled in the GTA class and those without the course. The enrolled GTAs performed significantly better on UG evaluations ( p .0001). Effective teaching requires both explicit transmission and chemical reasoning models of learning. GTAs’ chemical content knowledge matters for initial development and continuing developments of PChKs-1, 2, and 3. Simple possession of content knowledge is not as important, however, as an understanding of how chemical knowledge is utilized. GTAs with stronger chemical knowledge can be less effective than those who work consistently or strategically to transform chemical knowledge to the apparent level of the UG students. GTAs who had prior experience teaching UG labs were more advanced in PChK-1 than their peers. By the end of the semester, however, prior teaching experience had no significant effect on performance variability. Effective chemistry teaching among GTAs who taught general or organic labs was not significantly different. We cannot yet speculate on whether analytical or physical chemistry GTAs were significantly different than others because we had a much lower number of them (n 8) than general and organic GTAs (n 75). Explicit Guidance as a Catalyst Design experiments and their cycle of successive refinements led to a fifth course iteration that finally met the instructors’ expectations. The remarkable instructional change was availability of three videos of GTAs’ own teaching performance to watch and assess. Had they assessed by simply watching themselves they would have seen whatever caught their attention. In contrast, observing with the ITAT form motivated them to expand what they noticed in order to catch themselves performing good interactions with students: They marked the ITAT form with clip number and time of the interaction. The videotapes provide a perception of fairness for GTAs in that GTAs could hunt for more of whatever strategy that the instructor thought was lacking in their videotape performance. Very directive, explicit, consistent coaching enabled GTAs gradually to recognize and understand the meaning of high teaching performance while working as GTAs for UG labs. The purpose of coaching assessments and seminar discussion was acceleration of GTAs’ recognition, understanding, and strategic use of the 12 interactions. We were very careful to undertake the following actions: • Provide Direction. The ITAT instrument accomplished more than measurement and evaluation for GTAs. The specifically defined, strategic interactions (1) Enabled GTAs to know the performance goals even if they did not understand how to perform them yet; (2) Created a tension between feedback on missing or weak interactions and understanding how to perform them skillfully; and (3) Motivated discussion and directed effort by providing video clips of skilled peers or previous new GTAs’ in challenging interactions that promoted UG learning.

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• Reinforce Skilled Interactions. Gaining professional competence is a matter of professional experience. Thus explicit direction is only the first step in growth. Telling a football player how to run a new play happens first. The second step is coaching the player during practice, i.e., directing his attention to specific details of performance that refine the necessary skills until the play can be naturally executed effectively. For similar reasons identifying and telling GTAs about the 12 necessary interactions are not enough. GTAs must be coached on specific details of performance noted while they taught. Coaching is effective because the GTA’s attention is directed on those skills in the most important interactions—rather than skills and interactions most apparent to the GTA. Strategic, directed guidance while in situated practice is also more efficient than an individual GTA trying to learn through his or her own noticing and tentative correction. • Promote Conceptual Understanding of GTAs and UGs. An effective learning environment for new GTAs must emphasize the role of conceptual understanding of chemistry to its application. The UGs’ emphases in learning may be related mostly to knowledge for the exam, data for the lab report, and a grade. GTAs at the first stages of teacher development may resonate to the UGs’ emphases. Secondly, lower levels of learning (recall and basic level of comprehension, e.g., student defines, identifies, knows, matches, names, recognizes) cannot be the instructor’s goal because lower level learning by definition is unlikely to transfer to new situations. The lab situation is the perfect place for higher level learning in terms of applying concepts from lecture, analyzing and evaluating data, and making interpretations from the macro experimental level to the nano-level of chemical explanations. The instructor-coach of GTAs must clearly communicate, persistently reinforce, and give GTAs the time to internalize the message that they must promote reasoning with abstract chemical concepts relevant to the concrete laboratory work because doing so is fundamental to effective chemistry learning by UGs.

Conclusions

Laboratory Teaching Involves Complex Balancing Acts Since faculty members’ primary lab goal for UGs is learning chemical concepts (6), then GTAs should perform with heavy emphasis on concept teaching. Clearly the need in laboratory teaching is a balance between managing a chemical workplace and teaching chemistry, balancing procedural teaching and underlying concept teaching, as well as balancing the transmitting of knowledge with guiding chemical reasoning. The following principles emerged from GTA difficulties with chemistry teaching in the lab. If a GTA thinks learning occurs mostly by transmission, then it may seem obvious to that GTA that the lecture portion of the course is the primary place for students to sit and learn essential concepts. When GTAs understand and employ an additional learning model— calling for reasoning with chemical concepts to enable fluency and understanding of chemistry—then they see that a


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3–5 hour lab is the best time and environment to guide UGs at the reasoning level of engagement while students work. Secondly, a GTA must learn how to connect chemical symbolic representations to words and processes, to transform processes and species at the nanoscopic level to the macro level of UGs’ existence, and to guide UGs’ reasoning so that mathematical equations are not merely algorithms; rather they are representations of actual chemical processes. Finally, the GTA must take hold of the learning environment of the lab session and orchestrate it for maximum student understanding. What is the consequence for UGs of instructors who do not intentionally teach concepts underlying the lab? When UGs say on course evaluations that lab and lecture are not connected, this means that students have not intellectually seen the connections that actually exist. Up to 55% of UGs expressed disconnection in one study (40). Therefore, poor connections between lab and lecture are a serious problem. We believe our GTA course explicitly addresses the disconnection problems and plan to test that issue further. Exemplary reasoning-oriented activities of a GTA with UGs lead to conceptual learning, which has a much greater impact on understanding than a GTA simply transmitting suitable conclusions for his or her UGs to include in their lab report. The procedural focus of many UGs and their TAs perhaps explains the common observation that students’ experimental “Conclusions” section is a restatement of their “Results” section rather than an explanation of how their results support or dispute the conceptual purpose of the experimental design.

GTAs Bridge Lab Instruction and Lecture Concepts Making Connections Requires Bridging Communication Bridging is necessary for a variety of reasons. A study of college chemistry lab interactions (14) showed disconnection resulted because labs are self-contained experiences not reinforced or supplemented further by other activities (14, p 103). Secondly, the entirely different characteristics of the laboratory as opposed to a class or lecture hall create an entirely different context from the lecture section; two highly dissimilar contextual situations discourage knowledge transfer (41). Therefore, if procedural work only is the focus of labs, then it is feasible that knowledge will not transfer either direction. Many UGs will not make intellectual connections from Wednesday’s explicit lecture class in Building A to Thursday’s lab experiment in Building B, despite the careful sequencing that some faculty members engineer to avoid the disconnection issue. Consequently, our GTA course explicitly leads GTAs to understand how to identify and transform chemical concepts so they can bridge concepts from lecture to lab and vice versa. Discussion in Lab Promotes Connection Evidence shows that UGs in formats using cooperative methods that stress interaction and discussion about their work were more likely to connect the lab work with lecture concepts than UGs in traditional lab formats (42). For this reason the GTA course’s strategies promote occurrence of discussions among students and discussions between GTA and students throughout the lab session.

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Failing To Make Lab–Lecture Connections Making these lab–lecture connections requires performance at the level of PChK-2. Our qualitative data, especially seminar interactions, provided at least seven main reasons related to circumstances, attitude, lack of topical knowledge, and lack of instructional guidance. (1) The UGs are unlikely to prompt the lab instructor to initiate talk about underlying concepts. (2) The lab instructor did not really believe it was his or her job to help UGs understand abstract course concepts during lab. (3) The faculty member in charge did not explicitly discuss the underlying abstract concepts to connect with the lab or did not tell lab instructors that they were expected to identify the important concepts that the lab illustrated and help students make those connections. (4) The lab instructor did not realize they existed or did not take time to identify underlying chemical concepts in the laboratory experiment. (5) The lab instructor could not figure out how to make connections of lab with abstract concepts, which is a transformation process. (6) Lab instructors perceived or found out that trying to understand students’ understanding (so as to make good connections for them between the concrete and the abstract chemistry) was too energy-intensive. (7) The lab instructor lacked confidence to teach the underlying chemical concepts of the lab because he or she needed to understand the chemical topic better.

GTAs Play an Important Role in Teaching Chemistry In a nutshell, it is the job of those who understand chemistry to facilitate connections between lab and lecture learning. If an instructor does not emphasize chemical concepts and reasoning during the lab session, assuming that UGs will readily pursue connections from their lab work to lecture, then the most powerful function of the laboratory experience is lost. A department’s GTAs are powerful tools to increase the effectiveness of chemistry learning since GTAs often spend considerably more time in contact with UGs than faculty members do. GTAs infect UGs with their beliefs about learning in the laboratory (43, 44), so GTAs can be potent forces affecting the learning strategies of their UGs. GTAs therefore, can serve as change agents as well as intellectual or cognitive agents to enact the department’s educational mission. The only cost for vastly increased expertise supporting our teaching mission is a pivotal, initial semester-long strategic focus on coaching new GTAs to develop their use of PChK1, 2, and 3 with UGs. An effective model to train GTAs for a higher level of professional teaching must illustrate the most important teaching strategies and pinpoint a series of opportunities for individual GTAs and groups of GTAs to reason using chemical knowledge and pedagogy, thus generating PChK. The design must include evaluation of the effectiveness of GTA learning, determined by each GTA’s end-of-semester performance in the teaching lab. The final model component is assessment of the original goal for which we train GTAs, which is their positive impact on the chemistry learning of UGs. Collecting and analyzing data to answer the following question is our cur-


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rent project: As a result of the GTA gain in higher forms of PChK, do the UGs in the lab sessions of these GTAs understand chemistry at a deeper level? W

Supplemental Material

Laboratory Teaching Apprenticeship course materials are available in this issue of JCE Online. They include a syllabus; a figure illustrating the course design and development; two assessment instruments, one for instructors (ITAT) and one for UGs (UGATA); and two handouts. Acknowledgments We extend appreciation to the National Science Foundation (NSF Grant Number 0093319) for funding the most recent research, and further, to The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation (Grant Number 98-2379 to Joseph A. Heppert) for funding the production of inquiry laboratory investigations (45) that enabled our early work in TA training for pedagogical chemical knowledge. Notes 1. The SPEAK test is a twenty minute standardized test from the Educational Testing Service to assess placement of ITAs. It is administered via audiotape.

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