Hi! My name is Shaz and I’m one of the Undergraduate Learning Assistants for Chemistry here at GW. Undergraduate Learning Assistants here play a very active role both inside and outside the classroom during recitation, office hours, and review sessions. For clarification, I’ve written an explanation for each below:
A recitation is led by both the professor and the ULA. Students are broken into small groups and given a packet of problems to work on as a team which hits on material learned that week. During office hours, students have the opportunity to drop in and ask specific questions they may have regarding the course material, structure, etc. Review sessions are similar in theory to recitation, but are led solely by the ULA. The ULA must prepare problems for the students to work on together pertaining to the material covered that week.
Although these different settings share the common theme that the ULA is there to be a resource and support for the students, the specific role the ULA takes in each differs. This blogpost will be specifically exploring the role of a Chemistry ULA in a review session. Every ULA has freedom to run their review sessions how they want; this is just what works best for me and the students!
Review sessions function as guided recitations designed by the ULA. No new material is taught during the review session, but it serves as a review to supplement the material taught that week. The ULA is responsible for preparing practice problems for students to work on collaboratively. Students are split into groups of 3 maximum, and this serves as a tool for students to use in order to figure out the steps to solve the problem.
Students are given a few minutes, with the exact time depending on the problem type/length. During this time, the ULA walks around keeping students on track and encouraging students to share ideas with each other to work collaboratively. After the time given to work on the problem has passed, the ULA can choose to go over the problem collectively as a group if it seems like students are having trouble, or can choose to have the students move onto the next problem.
When going over the problems collectively, the ULA should try and have the students walk them through the steps instead of having the ULA lecture in front of the room. This facilitates active participation and allows the students and ULA to figure out where students have the most trouble. A tip to encourage participation is to use student names when walking around the room to keep students engaged!