LAOS

Context:

  • All students in teaching positions that directly communicate with students must fulfill the LAOS program.
  • The program covers basic pedagogic principles and offer several optional modules students can select.
  • See LAOS
  • Part of this program is a course-specific part, scheduled in total for 6 hours.
  • The department pays the students for these 6 hours.

Content of this guide:

  • Intention of this guide is to offer optional coordination for some of these course-specific parts across the study programs at IIK where possible.
    • The challenge is the selection of focus: If parts are too generic, they are (or should be) handled by the generic LAOS course, and if they are too specific, they need to be handled for each individual course separately.
  • In principle, it is up to the course teacher to decide how these 6 hours should be spent for the students, as long as they follow the intention of the LAOS course.
  • Teachers can decide which parts part of the program their student assistants should join.

We propose the following structure. It involves the individual teachers in 2 of the 6 hours, with tasks that are specific to their course (and hopefully useful as part of the course work anyway).

Hours

Who

Task

1

LA + Teacher

Initial Meeting: Learning goals and outcome of the course
Specific tasks for learning assistants
Challenges specific to this course (Technicalities — time, material, …)

2

LA

Preparation: Course and reference group reports from the course of previous years. Students answer a set of questions as part of the preparation.

1

LA + Teacher

Course Goals: Follow up of the feedback on the preparation. Dialog about challenges and improvements of the course specifically with regard to the teaching assistants.

1

LA

Reflection: LA reflects about good and challenging situations when guiding students as a preparation for the final meeting.

1

LA + IIK

Final Meeting: All learning assistants at IIK reflect together. (Specific course teachers can join if they want to.)

Initial Meeting with Course Teacher (1 h, with course teacher)

The following questions are taken from the LAOS template and guide the discussion in the first meeting with the course teacher.

Related to the course itself:

  • What are the main learning objectives, content, learning activities during the course that I will be working for?
  • Which kind of learning activities will I assist in?
  • How many students will I work with? What kind of background do these students have?
  • Will other learning assistants or the course teacher attend at these learning activities?

Related to your tasks:

  • What are the specific tasks that are expected of me?
    • Preparing learning material, copying (code to copying machine?), publishing o Tutoring / guidance, lecturing, repetition, clarification?
    • Assessment / feedback
    • Other tasks?
  • What are my specific responsibilities?
  • Will the department provide me with the learning material? Will I plan any activity myself?
  • Will I be able to supplement/change the learning material with further resources? How can I publish the material?

Related to your employment:

  • How will my work be followed up?
  • What do I expect of the department? What do I expect with regard to being a learning assistant?
  • How can I give and receive feedback with regard to my work?
  • What kind of contact will we have?
  • If there are any issues, how shall I deal with it?
  • How are the hours spread out over the semester?
  • When and how do I hand in the timesheets for LAOS, and for my hours?

Preparation (2h, student preparation)

Read through the course and reference group reports from the course of the previous years.

If you followed the course as a student earlier, also reflect about your own experiences as a student.

Answer the following questions as preparation for a meeting with the teacher:

  • Which part of the feedback to the course is related to the role and work of the student assistants?
  • What is the critical task of you as learning assistant in the specific course that contributes to the learning for the students?
  • What can be improved in the course that can relate to the work or role of student assistants?
  • Try to formulate some specific goals or changes with respect to student assistants.
  • How can lab or exercises in general be improved?
  • Is there a way to improve the amount and quality of feedback to the students?
  • Anything else?

Course Goals (1h with course teacher)

Together with the teacher, reflect on the notes from the preparation and formulate together a set of tasks goals or improvements you want to focus on in the semester. Ideally, write them in a shared document that can also provide input to the teacher's course report at the end of the semester.

Reflection (1h, student preparation)

Describe two situations during the supervision of students, where one was challenging (and you maybe have not tackled it as well as you would like to) and the other one was successful both for you and the students.

  • Describe both episodes. What was the setting and the type of problem the students had?
  • What did you do?
  • What do you think about your reaction?
  • Do you now see how you could have handled the challenging situation differently?

Final Meeting (1h)

We meet together with all learning assistants at the department (teachers are invited if they want to join but don't have to) and reflect together about the specific learning challenges you prepared for.