Once the course is in motion, Teaching Assistants can play a range of vital roles that deepen both students' experiential learning and engage and motivate the TAs themselves; one such role is that of a coach to students. In addition, it's important for faculty to model practices and approaches they want TAs to employ and to seek a range of experiences that will create value for everyone involved.
Commission Coaches
The Practice
Empower teaching assistants to act as students' coaches - entrusting them with the knowledge and authority necessary to both challenge and support students – inside and outside of the classroom.
The Principle
Experiential learning pushes students into the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) - the developmental space between those things a learner already knows and those things they have the potential to know (Vygotsky, 1978). Students are uniquely positioned to learn in this space, from the combination of cognitive and affective challenges that can be presented. Successful navigation of the ZPD, however, requires that challenges be balanced with affirmations – risks with rewards – so that students are encouraged to step outside their comfort zones.
- Role playing: Marshall Ganz works to develop the capacity of his teaching assistants to coach not only through workshopping and training, but through role playing with peers. Teaching assistants practice grading and instructional facilitation with one another and they also practice coaching conversations in scenarios designed by their peers - both past and present.
- Teaching assistants as sounding boards: According to Karen Brennan, the most important roles teaching assistants can be empowered to play are the roles of coach and sounding board. "It's primarily emotional - social and emotional support for students...[and] it requires empathy with the [people] you're working with...[as well as the ability] to ask questions that are [tailored] and helpful." Being a teaching assistant is, ultimately, "about coaching, encouragement, and feedback."
- Tracking and supporting learners: Ron Heifetz notes that "the more experiential a course is, the more judgment is required in evaluating students and tracking [their individual] learning because the more experiential a course is, the more the learning frontier for each student is different." This requires teaching assistants to exercise their judgment and to treat each student as unique, curating conversations, reflections, and evaluations to their particular needs.
Model Best Practice
The Practice
Model best practices in teaching for both your students and your team.
The Principle
Observation is often the first step towards taking a new action. In experiential learning, students will take their lead from their teaching team. The teaching team, in turn, will take its lead from from its faculty. To ensure the teaching team is receiving the right cues and preparing to take the right actions, faculty should establish norms of practice and behavior that set an example of best practice and set a tone for the experience they want the teaching team to facilitate for their students.
- Expose the good, the bad, and the ugly: Teaching assistants need to be prepared to deal with any number of potential situations - from hyper-motivated high-achieving students to scared students to stressed students to disengaged students. Brian Mandell believes that the best way to prepare them for this reality, is exposing them to this reality. "I'm trying to model the crap and the junk, as well as the good stuff that [teaching assistants] will face in the real world."
- Use video: Marshall Ganz and Jorrit de Jong both model extensively with their teaching assistants during training and in their teaching, but they also use videos of past teaching and past experiences to support this work. Ganz describes how his team "models coaching [and] we use videos from previous classes to show good practice and lousy practice or how to intervene."
Create Value
The Practice
Give teaching assistants meaningful work that is clearly connected to the goals of the course and to students' learning.
The Principle
Work that isn't valued isn't performed to the highest standard. Experiential learning requires commitment to the purpose from all of those involved, especially those on the teaching team. Faculty can amplify teaching assistants' enthusiasm and commitment by providing them with clearly defined and visibly important roles in the course and by tying their experiences as teaching assistants to their long-term professional development.
- Let them lead: Each of Brian Mandell's teaching assistants are given the opportunity to teach and debrief students in the classroom. After each class exercise, a teaching assistant will lead the full-class debrief - thus making them responsible for the most important part of the students' learning experience. Although Mandell may chime in with comments, "this is [the teaching assistant's] show."
- Helping select the next generation: Brian Mandell and Karen Brennan both give their teaching assistants a role in selecting those who will replace (or in some cases join) them. Brian gives his teaching assistants a particularly important role in this process by making them "responsible for coming up with a joint and common set of questions [for the] interviews recognizing that ultimately [they will be] be graduating [and it will be] my choice, but they get to [have] input and give their views."
- More than grading, reflecting: In Ron Heifetz's signature course – Exercising Leadership – students write weekly papers that contribute significantly to both their grade and their learning. Teaching assistants are responsible for reviewing these papers, but more than that they are responsible for providing students with the kinds of comments and feedback necessary for formative learning to truly take place.