Promoting Success in Undergraduate Mathematics through Graduate Teaching Assistant Training

By Audrey Malagon, Virginia Wesleyan University, Lead Editor

Mike Jacobson, Leigh Harrell-Williams, and their team of investigators recognize the importance of preparing graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). GTAs’ teaching experiences begin in graduate school and often continue into academic careers. While in the first stages of teaching, GTAs often interact with undergraduates early in their own mathematical journeys, so GTAs can have a significant impact on persistence in STEM majors. Here Jacobson and Harrell-Williams tell us about how their current project to expand professional development for GTAs at Auburn University and the University of Memphis builds upon and refines a previous NSF-funded GTA training program at the University of Colorado-Denver.

Tell us what motivated you to develop this program and about the impact you hope it will have.

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in the mathematical sciences are often responsible for teaching a significant portion of the entry-level undergraduate courses at doctoral-granting universities in the United States, even though they may have little to no prior teaching experience. By providing professional development centered on classroom instruction and inclusive pedagogy, we can improve classroom environments and facilitate improved undergraduate learning in early mathematics coursework that has a significant impact on continued STEM major persistence and ultimately degree completion. Since many GTAs today are the mathematics faculty of the future, we can also have a long-term impact on undergraduates’ success.

What makes your GTA training program unique?

The GTA training program has a multi-component approach. We use practical training, grounded in relevant literature, regarding issues in undergraduate mathematical sciences instruction. Participants have opportunities to mentor and be mentored by peers, including a peer instructional TA Coach. We have also built in outreach opportunities to gain an understanding of the student pipeline, and the GTAs participate in a cross-institutional Critical Issues in STEM Education/Learning (CIUSE) seminar series. Finally, GTAs are trained to teach in a series of courses. All project components emphasize equity and inclusive pedagogy in the classroom as it is being implemented at three very different state-supported, doctoral-granting universities, covering a range of geographic locations with diverse cohorts of graduate and undergraduate students.

What have you learned so far in this project?

In terms of the portability of program components, we’ve learned that department and university context is important, and flexibility in implementation is necessary. For instance, the roles that GTAs can hold in their first year at Auburn and Memphis are limited due to accreditation requirements for being instructors of record and the lack of recitation sections at those universities in comparison to UC Denver.

We’ve also learned through focus groups with GTAs that informal exchanges that happen in the hallways or in shared GTA office spaces were an important aspect of mentoring and developing a community of practice, which was difficult to replicate when students were not in close physical proximity in the first year and a half of the pandemic. In end-of-year surveys, GTAs rated how beneficial each program component was to them. In both years, on average, GTAs at two of the three institutions ranked peer mentoring the highest, while GTAs at the other institution rated the teaching seminar highest in year 1 and the CIUSE seminars the highest in year 2. Across both years, at least 70% of mentees who responded indicated their mentor was at least “somewhat significant” in their success as a GTA during the academic year. Positive impacts were attributed to the mentor giving advice/help and providing encouragement and feedback on their classroom instruction. Mentors shared that the experience had a positive impact on them as instructors and that they learned from their mentees. They reflected on their own teaching and growth, expanded their networks, and improved their leadership and/or listening skills. Participants also benefited from the critical issues in STEM seminar series: the 2020-2021 end-of-year survey showed that at least 70% of those GTAs who attended or watched the CIUSE seminar recordings felt that these influenced their thinking about teaching mathematics.

Tell us about someone impacted by the project.

While there are many graduate student stories to tell, we choose to highlight a Spring 2022 graduate, Nick Weaver, who served as the TA Coach at UC Denver for one calendar year. He recently accepted a position as Senior Lecturer of Mathematics and Statistics at Messiah University.

I knew going into grad school that I wanted to primarily teach, but having the experience as the TA Coach certainly solidified that career direction for me! I would say the biggest impact that the role of TA Coach had on me was that it allowed me to explore and refine my own teaching pedagogy, setting me up to be a successful candidate at primarily teaching institutions. I also learned a lot from being able to observe [Gary Olson, Mathematics Senior Instructor and Director of General Education Mathematics who serves as the TA Coach faculty mentor] teach and helping other TAs implement active learning techniques in their classrooms. I pay a lot more attention to learning objectives/outcomes, student engagement, and the promotion of student voices/ideas because of my time as the TA Coach. For my teaching demonstrations during interviews I even tried highlighting these skills and I think it left an extremely positive impression on the search committees!

Check out our conference presentation materials on our ResearchGate page and a 3-minute video highlighting the elements of our training program

Learn more about NSF DUE (#) 1821454

Full Project Name: Promoting Success in Undergraduate Mathematics through Graduate Teaching Assistant Training

Abstract Link: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1821454&HistoricalAwards=false

Project Contact: Michael Jacobson, michael.jacobson@ucdenver.edu Gary Olson, gary.olson@ucdenver.edu