At the faculty of Science, senior students are employed as teaching assistants (TAs) to support students during tutorials and practicals. In our Lesson Study approach we engage TAs in 1) preparation of a lesson, 2) teaching and observation of the lesson and 3) evaluation and redesign of the lesson (de Vries, Verhoef & Goei, 2016).

Introduction

The students that are employed as teaching assistants often have little or no prior teaching experience and this sometimes results in ineffective teaching and interpersonal problems between TAs and students. This teaching assistant training prepares TAs for five main tasks: preparing the learning process of the student, diagnosing student needs, asking activating questions, giving feedback and providing a productive learning environment. In each of the three meetings, some theory is offered and pedagogical challenges are discussed and tackled collectively. However, transfer of these pedagogical solutions to their actual teaching practice appears ineffective. To address this problem and link theory to teaching practice, the Lesson Study approach was developed (Fernandez, 2002; Lewis, Perry & Murata, 2006).

Aim and research question

The goal is to empower teaching assistants during their first steps in academic teaching: How can a lesson study approach be designed that meets this goal?

Set-up and method

Based on earlier results from a USO study and an initial literature search on Lesson Study specifically focused on teachers that have limited expertise, the teaching assistant training was re-designed. To evaluate the training, where TA’s participated in a lesson-study, a short questionnaire was handed out to participants (n=20) and 8 TAs were interviewed to further improve the training and connect to their needs and expectations. During this project, the training was given in 4 subsequent periods in 2020-21. Each period the training was evaluated by means of a questionnaire and 10 TAs participated in two focus groups on the Lesson Study approach.

Results

The TAs in the project were employed at the departments of Mathematics, Physics or Information and Computing Sciences. The multidisciplinary character of the Lesson Study teams was both valued and criticized as it resulted in observations of a teaching practice that was new to students but not always deemed relevant for their own practice. The latter could be related to a task definition that some teaching assistants mentioned during interviews: they describe their role as ‘being present during tutorials to answer questions when needed’ and ‘to assess and grade assignments’ They show limited interest in other teaching strategies.

Although TAs experienced practical COVID-related difficulties while observing each other’s teaching practice, they valued the lesson study approach in which they collaboratively prepared and evaluated their tutorials. TAs missed some practical guidelines on how to deal with specific cases, most often related to classroom management: i.e. how to deal with students that are not motivated or arrive late in class. As a result, they do not feel fully prepared for their role as Teaching Assistant. On the other hand TA’s said to be aware of their improved teaching behavior: 15 of the 20 students mentioned their teaching practice had changed and referred to their pro-active attitude in approaching students and the way they dealt with student questions.

Conclusion

The limited prior pedagogical knowledge of TA’s means that the training has to offer some theoretical background, but because we now asked to apply this theory in practice (Lesson Study), it became clear that the theory did not always fit with the task definition of (all) TA’s. Group discussions on particular practical cases should be included before students engage in a lesson study so as to prepare them to transfer the ideas offered to their teaching practice by a lesson study approach.

References

• Fernandez, C. (2002). Learning from Japanese approaches to professional development: The case of lesson study. Journal of teacher education, 53(5), 393–405.
• Lewis, C., Perry, R., & Murata, a. (2006). How Should Research Contribute to Instructional Improvement? The Case of Lesson Study. Educational Researcher, 35(3), 3–14.
• de Vries, S., Verhoef, N., & Goei, S. L. (2016). Lesson Study: een praktische gids voor het onderwijs. Maklu.