Developing a Training Course for Undergraduate Teaching Assistants

Abstract

An undergraduate teaching assistant (UTA) training course was developed using existing best practices and Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives as a framework. Course goals included developing assistants’ content knowledge, procedural knowledge, and metacognition regarding teaching. Across three semesters, UTAs’ (N = 68) pre- and post-test responses showed significant increases in their teaching-related knowledge, confidence in their skills, consideration of a teaching-related career, and perceived benefits of being a UTA. The course provides an efficient method by which assistants learn to support students and faculty in a range of undergraduate courses, serving as a potential model for other teaching assistantship programs.

Keywords:

• Teaching assistant
• learning assistant
• pedagogical instruction
• undergraduate pscyhology course