Teacher Recruitment and UCF's LA Program

The Learning Assistant (LA) program at University of Central Florida is exercising a formative and reflective model intended to effectively recruit talented science majors for careers in teaching and improve the quality of science education for all undergraduates. Specifically, we are including the following components in our LA program in contrast to the original model from University of Colorado, Boulder: 1) the LA pedagogical seminar is led by our Teacher-In-Residence (TIR) who coordinates with local elementary, middle, and high schools to provide field experiences for LAs to directly reflect their learning on their classroom experience. 2) Collect survey data weekly to assess LA experience in and outside of classroom and effectively communicate with LA mentors to optimize LA experiences during the semester. 3) Let returning LAs lead significant portions of the LA seminar to broaden their instructional experience.