Author(s):
Many STEM departments have adopted student-centered active learning curricula into undergraduate discussion and lab courses. However, graduate teaching assistants (GTA) who lead these courses have reported varied training specific to using and personal experience with using active learning pedagogies across and within STEM disciplines. We leveraged a mixed-reality classroom simulator to incorporate skills-based training sessions into existing GTA professional development for chemistry and physics GTAs. During each training session, GTAs rehearsed complex teaching techniques with avatar-students (puppeteered by trained human actors). A training session included two rounds of practice followed by facilitator feedback. Here, we focus on GTAs’ use of error framing, a communication apprehension reduction technique. In error framing, an instructor makes a verbal statement after a student has made an error that situates the student’s error as natural or beneficial to the learning process. GTAs rehearsed error framing in multiple iterations of our project. We present how 30 unique physics GTAs in the spring 2019, fall 2019, and spring 2020 used error framing during their training sessions and in the classroom. In interviews, we asked undergraduate students (N=13) to describe their reaction to exemplar GTA error framing statements. Through thematic analysis we identified three categories of error framing inspired by researchers and nine categories of error framing inspired by student responses. We also found that framing and tone of the error framing statement impacted student’s comfort level (i.e., hedging words used during error framing had a negative impact on student comfort). In the next study, we used the error framing categories as a priori codes and categorized error framing statements GTAs (N=27) used in their actual classrooms across three semesters. We found a few (N=13) examples of error framing. Within those examples, GTAs mostly avoid explicit error indication when error framing. In addition, we found that GTAs mostly used error framing statements that positively impacted student comfort like “acknowledge idea as natural and sensible” and “acknowledge idea as common.” Finally, in our third study, we interviewed undergraduate students (N=14) about their feelings of anxiousness when their GTA used the teaching techniques presented in the simulator training. We found five students reported their GTA to use error framing when they shared an idea that was incorrect or unexpected. Four of the five students also reported a positive emotional response when their GTA used error framing. Based on our findings from the three studies, we suggest that GTAs have the potential to use complex techniques like error framing in the classroom to positively impact the undergraduate physics learning experience. Broader impacts from this work include direct impact on the GTAs and the potential to improve the STEM learning environment.
Coauthors
Tong Wan, University of Central Florida; Daniel Sharkey, University of Central Florida; Erin K. H. Saitta, University of Central Florida; Jacquelyn J. Chini, University of Central Florida
