Cargando…

Teasing apart the impacts of curriculum and professional development on teaching assistants’ teaching practices

Teaching assistants (TAs) often lead courses using curricula they did not design. Therefore, examining how curriculum and professional development (PD) interact to influence TAs’ teaching practices is critical. This study describes the effects of a curriculum and PD intervention in two contexts: whe...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hicks, Jenna, Dewey, Jessica, Abebe, Michael, Kramer, Maxwell, Schuchardt, Anita
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8827484/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35139098
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262841
_version_ 1784647639567958016
author Hicks, Jenna
Dewey, Jessica
Abebe, Michael
Kramer, Maxwell
Schuchardt, Anita
author_facet Hicks, Jenna
Dewey, Jessica
Abebe, Michael
Kramer, Maxwell
Schuchardt, Anita
author_sort Hicks, Jenna
collection PubMed
description Teaching assistants (TAs) often lead courses using curricula they did not design. Therefore, examining how curriculum and professional development (PD) interact to influence TAs’ teaching practices is critical. This study describes the effects of a curriculum and PD intervention in two contexts: when TAs are teaching curriculum that is explicitly linked to PD, and when teaching curriculum that is not linked to PD. The Intervention curriculum featured structured opportunities for reform-oriented teaching practices. The Intervention PD was situated in the context of these specific curriculum activities and modelled the desired teaching practices. TAs that participated in the intervention implemented more student-centered teaching practices than TAs that did not participate in the intervention, even when teaching curriculum that was not designed to be student-centered and was not linked to PD. A linear model of TAs’ teaching practices that included PD type, task cognitive demand and curriculum type indicates that cognitive demand has the largest relationship with teaching practices, followed by PD type. These results have implications for policy. They suggest that investment in curriculum-linked TA PD can be effective even when teaching curricula that is not linked to PD. Additionally, investment in development of higher-cognitive-demand tasks may be an effective strategy to support implementation of student-centered practices.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8827484
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-88274842022-02-10 Teasing apart the impacts of curriculum and professional development on teaching assistants’ teaching practices Hicks, Jenna Dewey, Jessica Abebe, Michael Kramer, Maxwell Schuchardt, Anita PLoS One Research Article Teaching assistants (TAs) often lead courses using curricula they did not design. Therefore, examining how curriculum and professional development (PD) interact to influence TAs’ teaching practices is critical. This study describes the effects of a curriculum and PD intervention in two contexts: when TAs are teaching curriculum that is explicitly linked to PD, and when teaching curriculum that is not linked to PD. The Intervention curriculum featured structured opportunities for reform-oriented teaching practices. The Intervention PD was situated in the context of these specific curriculum activities and modelled the desired teaching practices. TAs that participated in the intervention implemented more student-centered teaching practices than TAs that did not participate in the intervention, even when teaching curriculum that was not designed to be student-centered and was not linked to PD. A linear model of TAs’ teaching practices that included PD type, task cognitive demand and curriculum type indicates that cognitive demand has the largest relationship with teaching practices, followed by PD type. These results have implications for policy. They suggest that investment in curriculum-linked TA PD can be effective even when teaching curricula that is not linked to PD. Additionally, investment in development of higher-cognitive-demand tasks may be an effective strategy to support implementation of student-centered practices. Public Library of Science 2022-02-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8827484/ /pubmed/35139098 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262841 Text en © 2022 Hicks et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hicks, Jenna
Dewey, Jessica
Abebe, Michael
Kramer, Maxwell
Schuchardt, Anita
Teasing apart the impacts of curriculum and professional development on teaching assistants’ teaching practices
title Teasing apart the impacts of curriculum and professional development on teaching assistants’ teaching practices
title_full Teasing apart the impacts of curriculum and professional development on teaching assistants’ teaching practices
title_fullStr Teasing apart the impacts of curriculum and professional development on teaching assistants’ teaching practices
title_full_unstemmed Teasing apart the impacts of curriculum and professional development on teaching assistants’ teaching practices
title_short Teasing apart the impacts of curriculum and professional development on teaching assistants’ teaching practices
title_sort teasing apart the impacts of curriculum and professional development on teaching assistants’ teaching practices
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8827484/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35139098
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262841
work_keys_str_mv AT hicksjenna teasingaparttheimpactsofcurriculumandprofessionaldevelopmentonteachingassistantsteachingpractices
AT deweyjessica teasingaparttheimpactsofcurriculumandprofessionaldevelopmentonteachingassistantsteachingpractices
AT abebemichael teasingaparttheimpactsofcurriculumandprofessionaldevelopmentonteachingassistantsteachingpractices
AT kramermaxwell teasingaparttheimpactsofcurriculumandprofessionaldevelopmentonteachingassistantsteachingpractices
AT schuchardtanita teasingaparttheimpactsofcurriculumandprofessionaldevelopmentonteachingassistantsteachingpractices