Aligning Perceptions of Laboratory Demonstrators’ Responsibilities To Inform the Design of a Laboratory Teacher Development Program

Abstract

Throughout countries such as Ireland, the U.K., and Australia, graduate students who fulfill teaching roles in the undergraduate laboratory are often referred to as "laboratory demonstrators". The laboratory demonstrator (LD) model of graduate teaching is similar to the more commonly known graduate teaching assistant (GTA) model that is prevalent in the United States. While the responsibilities of LDs and GTAs in the undergraduate laboratory are similar, both cohorts experience different recruitment and training processes that can influence their teaching behaviors. With respect to enhancing the teaching capability of GTAs, considerable research has investigated the design, implementation, and evaluation of various GTA teacher development programs as well as identified various factors that influence their teaching behaviors. However, there has been relatively less research devoted to enhancing the teaching capability of LDs. This research study set out to inform the design of a teacher development program for graduate students who fulfill LD roles. This study involved the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data as a means of comparing LDs (N = 28) and undergraduate students' (N = 224) perceptions of LDs' responsibilities in addressing cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning experiences in the noninquiry general chemistry laboratory. In catering to the misalignment of perceived LD responsibilities, this research offers faculty the evidence−align−develop framework that can inform the design of a teacher development program for LDs. Given the similarities between LDs and GTAs with respect to their status as graduate students, their relative experience in learning chemistry, as well as their role in the laboratory, this framework can also inform the design of GTA teacher development programs.

Demonstrator training needs to be active and focused on personalized student learning in bioscience teaching laboratories

“…However, these approaches are at the group level and except for one study do not consider individual students’ emotions and needs [ 40 ] (Table 1 ). This is a missed opportunity as students’ affective learning experiences have been shown to influence their cognitive and psychomotor learning experiences in first year [ 8 , 46 , 47 ]. Furthermore, positive instructor behaviours have been linked to students’ affective learning experiences, which in turn enhance cognitive learning [ 48 ].…”

“…[ 49 ]. Therefore, it is important that demonstrators are made aware of the extent and influence of students’ emotions and individual needs in the laboratory and their potential role in promoting positive learning experiences [ 8 ]. Flaherty et al found that demonstrators were unaware of the students’ needs across the cognitive, psychomotor and emotional domains and identified this as a barrier to developing their teaching effectiveness [ 8 ].…”

“…Therefore, it is important that demonstrators are made aware of the extent and influence of students’ emotions and individual needs in the laboratory and their potential role in promoting positive learning experiences [ 8 ]. Flaherty et al found that demonstrators were unaware of the students’ needs across the cognitive, psychomotor and emotional domains and identified this as a barrier to developing their teaching effectiveness [ 8 ]. It is clear that current studies (Table 1 ) have not sufficiently explored active learning approaches where demonstrators experience the same challenges as the students (doing the same experiment with role‐playing, etc.)…”

“…An increasing number of studies have emphasized that the evaluation of demonstrators’ training should be an integral part of the training strategy. Most of the studies have focussed on surveying the demonstrators on their opinions of the training that took place [ 8 , 14 , 26 , 28 , 34 , 39 , 40 ] (also see Table 1 ). Aleamoni (1999) found that the use of well‐designed and correctly analysed student evaluation of teaching (SET) evaluations can be extremely beneficial for students, staff and institutions [ 50 , 51 ].…”

“…However, engaging in these learning domains requires specialized teaching skills which makes the laboratory a complex teaching and learning environment [ 3 ]. For a given laboratory, postgraduate research students often referred as laboratory demonstrators or graduate teaching assistants (GTA), are recruited who fulfil teaching roles in the undergraduate laboratory and facilitate students’ learning in small groups[ 7 , 8 ]. Demonstrators often come with minimal or no prior experience either as a student in the particular teaching laboratory or as an instructor in this dynamic learning environment [ 9 ], and furthermore, effective demonstrator training is frequently neglected usually due to budget and time restraints [ 10 , 11 , 12 ].…”