Learning Assistant Program

Jillana Finnegan, Boise State University

Selected as a Rapid Talk at the NSEC 2016 National Conference

Program Activities Type

Program Components

Professional Preparation
Tutoring
Institutional Systems:Personnel/Hiring
Supporting Students:Academic Support
Supporting Students:Mentoring Program

Target Audience

Teaching/Learning Assistants

Program Point of Intervention

Course

Program Description

The Learning Assistant (LA) program at Boise State University matches peer leaders with a specific STEM course and instructor to support both the faculty and students. The Learning Assistant supports faculty in implementing active learning strategies in class and facilitates peer study groups outside of class. Our program focuses on recruiting, selecting, and training peer leaders for exceptional communication and facilitation skills.

Program Purpose

The success of a peer leader program relies on quality interactions between students and peer leaders. The quality of these interactions are dependent upon the interpersonal skills of the peer leader, and therefore selecting for those skills must be a priority. However, sometimes faculty or other stakeholders want to hire peer leaders based on goals or preferences that do not prioritize interpersonal skills. For example, a faculty may want the student with the highest grade in the class, instead of a student with a good grade and excellent relationships with peers. We observed that students "cherry-picked" by a faculty member often did not take the position seriously and showed less engagement in training, which we hypothesized contributed to the variability in our program outcomes.

The quality of the peer leader is fundamental to the success of a peer mentoring program.

Program Goals

Our goal was to find and train highly motivated peer leaders with excellent interpersonal skills in order to increase the number of students participating in LA study sessions and maximizing the impact of that participation on their success.

Program Activities

Starting in Fall 2013, we implemented a very intentional and selective recruitment process that helped us maintain the faculty role in recruiting students, while allowing us to hire motivated students with the right combination of cognitive and non-cognitive skills. We also improved our pre-semester training and ongoing professional development curriculum to really focus on communication skills, understanding and empathizing with diverse student needs, and practicing facilitation techniques.

1. Recruitment: Focus faculty involvement on creating a diverse and large applicant pool, instead of asking them to "recommend a student for the position". This change in language communicates that we need help in promoting the position widely not just encouraging a few to apply. We also made clear that we although we take faculty recommendations and requests into consideration, our office has the hiring authority and make matches based on overall program needs.

2. Selection: Create a process that communicates your programs values and asks students to demonstrate how they meet your criteria. Our process has three stages: application, group interview, and individual interviews. In the first stage, candidates submit an application that includes essay questions and two faculty recommendations. This screens for minimum GPA requirements, but also for a commitment to the program which is demonstrated by the quality of their short answers. Applicants invited to the next stage take part in a group interview, which focuses on identifying candidates with exceptional communication skills. The group interview consists of a 2-min persuasive speech, a group problem solving activity, and a self-reflection. The final stage is an individual interview with questions that emphasize maturity and their ability to work autonomously.

3. Training: A pre-semester training is essential for the success of peer leaders as they begin the semester. Our pre-semester training includes mock sessions, role playing, and hands on application. Active learning strategies they could apply in their own sessions are modeled in every presentation. The content focuses on facilitation, communication strategies, marketing, and building relationships with faculty and students. However, the complexity and diversity of the situations they will face often demand deeper, more comprehensive professional development opportunities that are offered "just in time", so we have designed a high-impact/low maintenance structure of mandatory staff meetings, cohort meeings, and online reflections. New peer leaders attend bi-monthly staff meetings where we offer curriculum delivered by expert guest speakers on topics such as meta-cognition, supporting multilingual students, transmitting successful study strategies, and creating inclusive environments for LGBTQIA students. In alternate weeks, new and returning peer leaders meet in cohort groups of 5-6 peers to troubleshoot challenges, identify new strategies, and report on the implementation of those strategies at subsequent meetings. All leaders are required to submit biweekly reflections on Google Docs, which keeps supervisors aware of issues before they become problems and helps the peer leader celebrate successes. The LA Program Coordinator sends out a weekly electronic newsletter to keep peers aware of on-going opportunities and resources for them and the students they support.

4. Mentors: Mentor peer leaders are the latest addition to our professional development and support efforts. Experienced peer leaders with demonstrated excellence in the position are hired for an additional five hours a week to lead cohort meetings, meet with new peers one-on-one, review online reflections, and conduct observations of sessions. Mentors assist new peer leaders in setting goals for their professional development and provide assistance and feedback in reaching those goals.

Minimal outside of pay for peers. GoogleApps or other file sharing services increase efficiency and effectiveness in communication, tracking, and reporting.

Notes and Tips

TIPS: List the important dos and don'ts for success that you have learned from your experience.
1. The dates of mandatory training and meetings must be on the application and strictly enforced without exception. You will get push-back from students and faculty, but if you allow one student to miss you set yourself up for many future problems and devalue your program.

2. Relationships with expert faculty and staff to support the training and professional development of LA's are a tremendous asset. Take the time to cultivate and encourage those relationships.

3.Use your recruitment and selection process to communicate what you value and who you are as a program. We have found this will attract the students who on board with your vision and detract students who are just looking for "an easy job" or "resume fodder".

4.Communicate to peer leaders that you not only want to help them be successful in this job, but that you are setting them up to be successful in their next (even better) job. This helps them see the purpose and get on board.

5. Ask experienced peer leaders to facilitate most of the training.

6.Ask all peer leaders for feedback on how to improve your program regularly. They will tell you!

Evidence of Success

To assess the impact of Boise State's hiring and selection process on course grade outcomes for program participants, we used an independent samples t-test with "before" (Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 participants) and "after" (Fall 2013 – Spring 2015 participants) our selection process implementation as the grouping variable and course GPA as the dependent variable. Students were counted as participants if they attended 3 or more Learning Assistant sessions during a given semester.

In addition to GPA differences, we analyzed the difference in pass rates between "before" and "after" cohorts using a Pearson's Chi-square analysis.

Our overall program outcomes were analyzed using the same statistical analyses, but with program "participants" and "non-participants" as the grouping variable.

Before/After Results:
1.Mean GPA: Before= 2.556; After= 2.682 (diff=0.1262)
test statistic: t=2.784, df=1300.942, p=0.005, n=3021 (equal variance not assumed)

2.PASS Rates: 3.3% higher pass rate after interview implementation (80.5% --> 83.8%)
test statistic:chi square=4.219, df=1, p=0.040

Future Work

Currently, we are collecting data on additional success indicators (e.g. High school GPA, semester cumulative GPA, etc.) to build a more robust statistical model to test the outcomes of our hiring process against additional variables.

We are also seeking ways to increase the number of minority students who apply to be LA's.

References and Accessory Materials

http://bit.ly/1r0oURZ
for recruitment and training documents