Association for Biology Laboratory Education

Connecting and Supporting TAs online: During the Pandemic and Moving Forward
 

Deborah Lichti, Nancy Abney, Frank R. Castelli, Katie Coscia, Amy Kulesza and Jordan Mohr

Advances in Biology Laboratory Education, 2022, Volume 42

https://doi.org/10.37590/able.v42.abs47

Abstract

During the past year, most laboratory courses were taught fully online or hybrid. Many of these laboratories rely on teaching assistants (TAs) for leading and delivering the content. Once everyone went remote, we needed to change how we connected and supported our TAs. The panel will be discussing how we transitioned training and communication to online or hybrid. We will discuss what worked, what didn?t work, and how we would like to continue some of the communications techniques in the future. A first year TA will give insight into her experience as a teaching assistant during the pandemic and describe how she felt communication and support was during the pandemic including interactions with students and TAs with disabilities. Panelists will then share their professional development modules developed for online, both asynchronous and synchronous. These programs were developed before the pandemic but are examples of what could be done as we continue in hybrid or online for TAs. Finally, we will open up the discussion for participants to share their experiences working with TAs during these challenging times and discuss future pathways to continue the communication and support for online courses or implementing techniques once back in person.

Keywords:  teaching assistants, online

Virtual ABLE (ViABLE) (2021)