Authors: Eleni K. Zotos
Source: Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (article, 2022-01-01)
Field: Chemistry — Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

Chemistry Graduate Students' Knowledge for Teaching and Factors That Influence Their Development as Instructors Chemistry graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) play a unique but important role in undergraduate STEM education. As leaders of laboratory and discussion sections, GTAs teach fundamental experimental techniques and reinforce course content in classrooms and have more opportunities to interact with students one-on-one or in small groups. GTAs often teach sessions independently; however, they engage in minimal training in preparation. Furthermore, GTAs simultaneously balance research and academic requirements, which are often regarded as more important for graduation than teaching development. As universities implement evidence-based teaching strategies, including in laboratory settings, the expectations of GTAs become more complicated and thus GTAs require additional support for their teaching. The call to improve GTA teaching resulted in recent efforts within the chemistry education research field to investigate and describe elements of chemistry GTAs’ content and teaching knowledge and their experiences in different types of classrooms. A number of chemistry GTA training programs have been developed, implemented, assessed, and disseminated, though the need to improve GTA teaching remains. The work presented herein expands on our current understanding of GTAs’ teaching knowledge and practices by considering the overlap of GTAs’ knowledge, identities, and social context in which they work. This work was guided by several research questions, including (1) What is the nature of chemistry GTAs’ knowledge for teaching organic chemistry mechanisms? (2) What is the nature of GTAs’ teacher knowledge and teacher identity, and what factors influence their development? (3) What sociocultural aspects of GTAs’ environments inform their teaching? (4) How does a GTAs’ teacher learning shift as they gain experience in their social context? and (5) What do chemistry GTAs notice about their students during class sessions, and how do they interpret what they notice? Investigating these questions was guided by several theoretical frameworks, including pedagogical content knowledge, which describes teaching knowledge as a transformation of content knowledge, and the sociocultural theory of teacher learning, which considers teachers’ contexts as a critical influence as teachers learn to teach. All four studies involved collecting interviews with chemistry GTAs; two studies also involved collecting observational data. Interviews and observations were qualitatively analyzed to investigate relevant research questions. A case study approach was utilized in one study to deeply investigate the experiences of a few first-year GTAs. Findings indicate that GTAs’ content knowledge varies, impacting their teaching knowledge. In the absence of substantial training, GTAs rely on their content knowledge and prior experiences to inform their teaching; this contributes to a barrier preventing GTAs from implementing evidence-based practices because many GTAs’ prior experiences as students were in traditional lecture-style classrooms. Additionally, the focus of research within the culture of chemistry departments inhibits GTAs’ development of teacher identity, which in turn inhibits their development of teaching knowledge. While GTAs’ pedagogy does develop with experience as a GTA, this development occurs in relatively isolated environments without support for their development. Findings from this work contribute to our understanding of chemistry GTAs’ teaching experiences within their unique contexts, which suggests that a single training program may be insufficient in preparing GTAs to teach with evidence-based practices in their current role and in their future academic roles. An ongoing training program, where GTAs have space to interact with other instructors to reflect on and grow from their experiences, might accelerate GTAs’ teacher learning and support their implementation of evidence-based practices. Mathematics education ; Graduate students ; Chemistry ; Psychology ; Medical education ; Pedagogy ; Medicine Various Chemistry Research Topics