Learning Assistant (LA) Leadership Development Program Description
Abstract
The LA Leadership Development Program (LDP) will be a required program for STEM undergraduate students who are in an LA, undergraduate TA, or TA mentor role in select chemistry and biology courses. The program will train undergraduates in leadership skills and foster their development as undergraduate leaders throughout a semester (or year). The leadership skills will be focused through the lens of developing a leadership persona that considers foundational, humanistic, and meta knowledge.Back to Program Overview »
Design Philosophy
There are already training programs in many institution for LA's in biology and chemistry, but these mostly focus on foundational content knowledge. The philosophy of our design is to enhance the training that is already in place with meta and humanistic knowledge (and foundational knowledge in leadership) while also making it cross-disciplinary between STEM departments. The program will blend the 3 types of knowledge with training for LA's in both departments. This will be achieved by designing two main resources:
- A pre-semester workshop for students in all types of LA roles in both departments.
- Exercises on the LDP learning management system (LMS) to facilitate the delivery of meta and humanistic knowledge that would accompany the foundational knowledge training at the department level.
LDP Sequencing
- Workshop Pre-Work - Students will begin each semester with pre-assigned asynchronous work before the first fall workshop in the LDP LMS. The LMS will contain multimedia content and student exercises, such as videos, journal reflections, and debrief questions.
- Workshop - There will be a synchronous day workshop at the beginning of each semester. The purpose of the workshop is to address core leadership topics and to integrate the 3 types of knowledge that will be taught throughout the semester. LAs will develop personal leadership development goals to focus on during the semester.
- Weekly LA Meetings - LAs will attend weekly meetings with faculty. To prepare, students must complete LMS exercises to help them reflect on the 3 types of knowledge. These meetings will cover content LAs should cover during their course LA sessions, and will prompt students to review and reflect on workbook activities.
- Peer Observation & Feedback - LAs will complete one peer observation and be observed once during the semester by an LA in a different department. The peer observations will foster interdisciplinary community and provide LAs an opportunity to practice and receive feedback on leadership and the three tenets of knowledge.
- End of Semester Presentations - LAs will design a presentation (oral, poster, or video) to reflect and report on their goal progress and what they learned.