Incorporating Various Levels of Action Research into Learning Assistant Seminars

Learning Assistants (LAs) in the LA seminar at Central Washington University write a case study about an interaction they have had with students in an introductory physics course. The LA summarizes the interaction, including the dialogue, and describes how they helped resolve the issue. This assignment introduces LAs to action research, which is a way for instructors to gather and interpret data about student learning. Experienced LAs are expected to do a more involved action research project. They still observe and diagnose a learning issue. But instead of just summarizing the issue with a short dialogue and reporting on their response; experienced LAs need to develop a formal means of remediating the learning issue, create an assessment tool to determine if the remediation was successful, and fully evaluate the effects of the intervention. LAs present their action research projects during the final exam period. This presentation will share assignment templates, rubrics, and sample projects.