Teacher/Faculty Interviews
Instrument 5: Workshop Instructor College Chemistry Course Interview
Project: Sparky IntroChem: A Student-Oriented Introductory Chemistry Course
Western Carolina University
Funding Source: NSF: Undergraduate Education (DUE)
Purpose: To assist faculty in understanding the effects of course innovation on student learning experience
Administered To: Teaching assistants in introductory college chemistry course
Topics Covered:
- Background Characteristics & Activities (Teacher Assistant): purpose for participation, academic focus
- Demographics (Teacher Assistant): experience
- Impact on Outcomes: pedagogy, instructional methods, content, classroom activities, integration
- Implementation Activities: content, methods, activities
- Instructional Practices: methods, instructional approach
- Plans & Expectations (Teacher Assistant): concerns, professional development activities, revision, student learning
Format/Length: 30 open-ended questions
Teaching Assistant
College Chemistry Course Interview
developed by
The Learning through Evaluation, Adaptation and Dissemination (LEAD) Center
University of Wisconsin Madison
adapted for use in Chemistry 132 at Western Carolina University
Spring Semester 2001
Chemistry Course Interview Consent Form for Teaching Assistants
The Chemistry Department is conducting interviews of some of our undergraduate courses. The
interviews are designed to assist faculty in understanding the effects of course innovations on
students learning experiences and may lead to improvements in the teaching of chemistry nationwide.
We are asking teaching assistants to be interviewed about their learning experiences teaching
in the course. The interview should take about 1 hour to complete. In order to correlate responses
with demographic data and measures of achievement we are asking you to write your Student I.D.
number on the survey.
All teaching assistant responses will be held strictly confidential. We will generalize about
responses so as to obscure the identity of any particular students before reporting any survey
findings. We may publish papers based on the results of this survey, but these materials will
contain no information that would identify particular students.
Any questions you have you may ask now, or you may call Dr. Royce S. Woosley, at 227-3667.
I have read the above and give my consent to participate in the interview.
Signature ____________________________________________ Date ___________________
STUDENT I.D. Number ____________________________________________
(Please write your I.D. both here and fill it in on the upper left corner of
the bubble sheet) |
We wish to thank you for participating in this national study of how students learn in college
chemistry courses. The questions in the interview are intended to help researchers understand your
experiences in the chemistry course in which this survey is being administered. Your thoughtful
responses to the questions will enable us to help faculty across the nation improve
chemistry education.
Copies of this consent form can be obtained at 231 Natural Sciences.
Teaching Assistant Interview Protocol
Introductions and presentation of the Informed Consent form.
Briefly review points from the Informed Consent. Check that the instructor
is comfortable with the tape recorder. If not, just take notes.
Background |
| 1. |
Take a few minutes and give me a brief history of yourself -
a history that helps me to understand how you came to be a TA in this course. |
| 2. |
What, if any, preparation did you receive to be a TA in
Chem 132? Probe for formal and informal experiences. |
| 3. |
What were your initial expectations about what it would be like to
teach in this course? |
| |
|
Goals |
| 4. |
What are your goals for student learning in Chem 132? |
| 5. |
What are the professor's goals for student learning in Chem 132?
How, if at all, do your goals differ from the professor's goals? |
| 6. |
When you started this course, how confident were you that
it would be successful? |
| |
|
Labs |
| 7. |
How would you characterize the labs for this course? How, if at all, are
they different from other labs you know about? |
| 8. |
To what degree are the lab experiments coordinated and integrated with
the lecture part of this course? How, if at all, does this affect students' learning? |
| 9. |
How is lab going at this point? |
| 10. |
What do you do in the lab? [Prompt: what role do you play?] |
| 11. |
How much do you feel students are learning in the labs? [Prompt: What kinds
of things are they getting out of lab (conceptualization of principles, lab technique, etc.)?] |
| |
|
TA Meetings |
| 12. |
Can you describe the TA meetings. What are they like? What is the purpose of the meetings? |
| 13. |
What, if anything, do you get out of them? |
| 14. |
Can you compare these meetings with TA meetings for other courses you have taught? |
| 15. |
Are student concerns/difficulty with the course discussed at these meetings?
Are strategies for addressing these problems devised? |
| 16. |
Do you have any suggestions for changes to the TA meetings? |
| 17. |
Having come close to the end of the semester, what is your opinion on the
adequacy of TA training for this course? |
| |
a. |
Were there aspects for which you felt the TAs could have used more preparation? |
| |
b. |
Aspects which were particularly difficult? |
| |
c. |
Anything else that could have been done to make you as successful as possible? |
| |
|
Closure |
| 18. |
Are there particular problems that you or the students have experienced
in this course that we have not already discussed? |
| 19. |
Do you have any other thoughts about the efficacy of particular teaching
strategies that you or the course professor have been employing? |
| 20. |
We will be interviewing students soon. Do you have issues that you want
discussed or specific questions you would like the students to discuss? |
| 21. |
Is there anything else you can tell us in order for us to understand
Chem 132 better? |
| 22. |
Do you have any questions or comments that you would like to share with me? |
|
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