Training beyond the classroom: Case Study of the Impact of a Undergraduate Teaching Assistantship program

Abstract

In an effort to continue to help provide various and thriving experiences to engineering undergraduates and help increase retention, a mid-size university uses a high impact practice of using peer teachers in the classroom. It is a standard practice to use graduate teaching assistants in most areas of higher education, especially in engineering classes, discussions, labs or just to hold office hours and grade. However, an increasing number of universities have adopted and leveraged undergraduate teaching assistants as it demonstrates to effectively improve students’ grades, retention, student selfefficacy, and provide some financial relief to academic institutions [1]. The impact of using peer teachers is especially evident in the first and second years in engineering. Students who participate in the role are third year or above demonstrate expertise, leadership, and an interest in teaching as part of their development. At a mid-size minority serving institution, an undergraduate teaching assistant (termed as teaching fellow) was developed informally in 2005 in the mechanical and chemical engineering department and expanded in 2017 to the entire College of Engineering and Informational Technology. In this case study, alumni and current teaching fellows were interviewed to assess the impact of their experiences and how it influenced their educational experience in their major and current career. Several themes were discovered to include increased professional and personal skill sets, self-efficacy in engineering, motivation to participate in the program, impact on career, creation of community and improvements needed to the program. A few teaching fellows decided to continue to be a p12 teacher.