Research and Teaching: Offering More Than “Here Is the Textbook”—Teaching Assistants’ Perspectives on Introductory Science Courses

by: Sharon Dotger

Eight Earth science graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) participated in a semester-long seminar designed to facilitate change in their practice. The seminar used lesson-study methodology to facilitate discussion of GTAs’ beliefs about teaching while planning a research lesson for implementation in their laboratory. This article reports the results regarding GTAs’ consensus perspectives about interactions with faculty in the context of laboratory teaching and discusses eight themes that emerged from the consensus-establishing process. The article concludes with implications for faculty teaching large lecture classes and their interactions with GTAs teaching the associated laboratories.

Details

Type Journal ArticlePub Date 1/1/2010Stock # jcst10_039_03_71Volume 039Issue 03

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