Below are multiple suggestions for term projects for LAs. We suggest one project per term.
Non-fixing interview
General instructions
The task for this project is to interview a single person to learn about their ideas about a physics concept. Your only purpose in this interview is to learn about their idea. Your purpose is NOT to teach them anything.
- DO: Openly inquire into their thinking, with curiosity. Ask questions for the sake of finding out. Paraphrase what you understand them to be saying to see if you are understanding them correctly. Spend at least 30 minutes learning about their idea.
- DO NOT: Teach, lead, coax, help, critique, challenge, correct, give feedback, judge, or in any way attempt to change, repair, or fix your interviewee's ideas.
Assignment 1: Interview topic
- Choose one of the posted physics problems (below) to use for your interview.
- Write your own answer to the question/problem, using your best conceptual physics understanding.
- Write some questions that you want to ask your interviewee along the way, to help you learn about their thinking. Some prompts you might consider: “what do you mean?” “tell me more about that.” or “can you walk me through your thought process about ____?”
Physics problems to choose from:
- Are all the colors in the rainbow?
- Is the burn one may get from touching a hot pan the same as, or different from, a sunburn?
- If you were trying to throw a ball as far as you could, would you be more successful throwing the ball on Earth or on the moon?
- A bird is temporarily contained in a large sealed glass container (with plenty of air), which is placed on a scale. When the bird flies in the container, does the reading on the scale change?
- A monkey hangs on a rope. The rope goes up over a pulley, and on the other end is a weight, which exactly balances the monkey. Everything is initially stationary. Then, the monkey tries to climb the rope. What happens?
Assignment 2: Interview subject
- Describe the specific person that you will be interviewing. This person should have agreed to be interviewed by you. Don't tell us their name (for confidentiality), but do tell us generally who they are, how you know them, what their physics experience is, etc.
- State the time when you have agreed to conduct the interview (before [date]).
Assignment 3: Interview
Conduct your interview and video- or audio- record it. Post either a video of your entire 30-minute interview, or the entire transcript of your interview. You can use Zoom’s AI transcription for this, or an AI transcription service like otter.ai.
Assignment 4: Episode transcript
- Choose a short episode (1-5 minutes) from your interview that (1) shows part of your interviewee's physics ideas and (2) is interesting to you.
- Transcribe at least one minute and no more than five minutes. If you use an automatic transcription service, check the accuracy of the transcript.
- Use a pseudonym for your interviewee.
- Number the lines of your transcript (to make it easier to discuss later).
Assignment 5: Reflection
Write a reflection on your experience of conducting this interview and/or the content of the interview. Address the following questions:
- What gestures, questions, representations, gave you insights into the interviewee’s thinking? What went well? What could have gone better?
- Were there instances (questions, gestures, representations, etc.) where you coaxed, helped, critiqued, challenged, corrected, (etc) your interviewee’s thinking? Describe at least one instance of this (unless you’re sure it never happened).
- What (if anything) did you learn/discover?
- What (if anything) did the person you interviewed learn/discover during the course of this interview? Point to specific moments in the interview that give evidence of this learning/discovery.
Satisfactory reflections must do the following:
- Be posted on time
- Consist of at least 500 words
- Be accurate about the interview material
- Draw explicit connections to teaching or learning experiences you have had
- Convey something that personally struck you as interesting, compelling, engaging, or otherwise moved you
- Write in a clear manner – your style can be less formal than typical academic prose, but it should be serious and engaged with ideas
- Contain no more than 3 errors to Standard Written English
Assignment 6: Presentation
In class, we’ll role-play each other’s transcripts and discuss what we notice.
Record yourself
This project is to analyze a video episode of yourself interacting with students, especially in terms of [theme - e.g., student ideas or group dynamics].
Assignment 1: Recording plan
Describe how you will record yourself interacting with students in class. A satisfactory recording plan will enable you to
- Record at least three different interactions with groups of students in your class, each at least 2 minutes long, and
- Capture both audio and video, so that everyone in the interaction can be seen and heard.
You may recruit fellow LAs to help. If there is anything you will want the professor to do, make that request now.
Assignment 2: Sample recording
Make a sample video recording of yourself interacting with a group of students and submit it here. A satisfactory sample recording meets these criteria:
- You are interacting with a group of students.
- You and the students you interact with can all be heard and understood.
- To the extent possible, you and the students you interact with are all visible. (Inevitably there will be the back of some people's heads.)
- The recording is at least 2 minutes long.
- You are able to either submit the recording to this Canvas assignment or transmit it to the instructor some other way. (Some recording techniques result in files that are too large to submit or send. If this is the case for you, find a way to either make your files smaller, or successfully transmit larger files.)
Assignment 3: Three recorded episodes
Record and submit three video episodes of yourself interacting with students in class.
A satisfactory episode meets the same criteria as for the sample video recording PLUS:
- It illustrates [theme - e.g., student ideas or group dynamics].
Assignment 4: Transcript
Transcribe one of the three episodes you submitted and submit the transcript here. A satisfactory transcript meets these criteria:
- Represents least two minutes of your interaction with students
- Clearly indicates who is speaking when, and what they are saying
- Describes any non-verbal interactions that seem important (gestures, eye contact, etc)
- Uses pseudonyms in place of students' names
- Is line-numbered
Assignment 5: Reflection
Write a reflection on the episode you transcribed, including responses to the following questions:
- What [theme - e.g., student ideas or group dynamics] do you notice?
- How did you respond?
- What would you do the same way if you were in this situation again?
- What would you do differently if you were in this situation again?
A satisfactory reflection:
- is at least 500 words long
- makes clear connections to course readings and/or discussions
- is accurate about the course material
- is written in standard English, though you do not need to use formal academic language or tone
- is posted on time.
Assignment 6: Presentation
In class, we’ll watch each other’s videos and discuss what we notice. [Alternative: In class, we will re-enact the episode using the transcript and discuss what we notice.]
- You will have the floor for 15 minutes.
- [Instructor] will bring enough copies of your transcript for everyone, will be ready to play your selected video episode, and will serve as timekeeper.
- Please lead an interactive discussion of your selected episode. Focus on the reflection prompts from Assignment 4, but don't just say your answers to these questions -- lead an interactive discussion, in which you invite us to share our observations and ask you questions.
Present a poster
Overview
At the end of this term, you will share your development with other Learning Assistants, Faculty Mentors, Pedagogy Instructors, and the campus community at large during the [name of poster session].
- The [name of poster session] will take place on [date/time] in [location].
- You are expected to attend this poster session for at least 90 minutes.
- Your poster will illustrate your individual growth and experiences as an LA, working from one of a few possible prompts or one of your choosing.
- Your poster will highlight evidence and examples to promote conversation with visitors.
- In addition to sharing your experiences, you will give feedback to other LAs about their presentations by visiting their posters and engaging in conversation.
Developing your poster
How have you developed as an LA and student throughout your LA experience? How has your development been related to your specific class? Track your own development from the beginning to the end of your time as a LA by examining how you understood and implemented concepts discussed in your pedagogy class and prep sessions. This is your opportunity to demonstrate your learning in this class, and also, the aspects of your role and development as an LA that you are excited to share with others! What have you learned as a LA that’s worth sharing with the rest of the LA community?
Each poster presentation should answer one of the following prompts:
- YOUR GROWTH. What did you learn as a LA? Describe your growth throughout your LA experience. Many of you came in with previous experiences in tutoring or teaching--what did you learn that built upon these formative experiences? What evidence do you have to demonstrate your growth? What structures, lessons, and/or interactions helped you grow and change in these regards?
- YOUR IMPACT ON STUDENT LEARNING. How did you impact student learning? What evidence do you have to support these claims? We expect you to be able to fluidly discuss specific actions you have taken and how these aligned with skills and overarching concepts of pedagogy discussed in your LA training. How did the ways you supported student learning evolve throughout your experience? What structures, lessons, and/or interactions helped you develop your approaches to supporting student learning?
- YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS. What advice do you have for future LAs and/or faculty for your specific course? What is it about the subject area and specific ways in which you interacted with students that led you to use certain pedagogical techniques? Which skills are most important for LAs in your specific context? What evidence do you have to support the importance of these particular techniques? What kinds of opportunities could you imagine LAs in your position engaging in during future courses that would promote better student learning and LA-student interactions? How can LAs be better utilized to promote student learning in this class? Recommend small or large changes.
- YOUR CHOICE... Propose a topic of your choosing to your instructor for approval as a final project.
Assignment 1: Examine examples
These examples show the type of content we expect: [examples here]
- Choose 3 of these that appeal to you.
- For each one, write at least 100 words saying what you learned from it and what qualities of this example you want to emulate.
Assignment 2: Choose prompt and plan evidence
- Commit to one of the four options described above.
- Describe the evidence you will need to support your presentation.
- Describe how and when you will gather the above evidence.
(To help you follow through on this commitment, your instructor will create specialized assignment(s) for you in the coming weeks: e.g., if you’re going to administer a survey, she will create assignments for you to (1) create and (2) administer the survey.)
Assignment 3: Present evidence
By now, you have gathered evidence to support your poster presentation. Analyze this evidence and share it visually. If your evidence includes quantitative data, use data visualizations (bar charts, pie charts, etc) to show patterns and trends in the data you collected. If not, think about how you will visually show what you’ve found.
Assignment 4: Main finding
- Watch this video about better scientific posters: How to Create a Better Research Poster in Less Time
- Draft the main finding – the single sentence that will be in giant letters in the middle of the poster. We will workshop everyone’s sentences in class.
Assignment 5: Draft poster
Submit a draft of your poster presentation here. In class, we will display and discuss each draft, to give you feedback before you prepare your final presentation.
Assignment 6: Verbal presentation (in class)
Presenting your poster at a poster session actually means having conversations, not delivering a speech. In class, we will each practice the opening line of our poster conversation.
Finally: Present at poster session.
Meet an LA
Meet one or two other LAs at other universities and teach us about them. [Instructor] will provide you with contacts.
- For each LA that you meet, arrange and record a 30-minute one-on-one conversation with the other LA. Sample conversation prompts:
- "Tell me about yourself. What is your story?"
- "Please describe the LA program in your department." (size, discipline(s), application process, prerequisites, etc)
- "What are your duties as an LA?"
- "What are you good at as an LA? What are you trying to improve?"
- "What difference has being an LA made to you, if any?"
- "What difference do you think LAs make in your department, if any?
- "What advice do you have for me as a new-ish LA?"
- "What advice do you have for our new-ish program?”
- Make a creative image that represents the LA and their program. This image may NOT include either a photo of the LA or the name/logo of their school or program. You and the LA can do this together, or you can do it yourself and share it with the other person. You and they must both "sign" this work.
- During a class period of your choosing, tell us about each LA that you met and share each creative image. You are responsible for 15 minutes of class for one LA introduction, 30 minutes for two.
- Submit:
- A recording or transcript of your entire conversation
- Written answers to the conversation prompts listed above; minimum 300 words
- The creative image of the LA and their program, "signed" by both you and the other LA
Attend an LA poster session
Attend a virtual LA poster session hosted by another university. The assignment is to re-present three of the posters you see to us in the class.
During the poster session: Get the information you need and document your experience so as to complete the tasks below.
During a class period of your choosing: Spend at least 5 minutes of class time teaching us about each poster of your choice (at least 15 minutes total).
Submit:
- A 150-word summary of each poster (x3)
- A screen shot of the most important image on each poster, with an informative caption (x3)
- A 50-word bio of each presenter, including information such as their name, school, year, major, interests, career objectives, hobbies/talents, etc. (x3)