Atlas Academic Teaching And Learning Assistants Study: The Use Of Peers As ‘Quality Managers’ In Engineering Class Instruction

• Published in: Association for Engineering Education - Engineering Library Division Papers p. 15.219.1
• Main Authors: Jaeger, Beverly, Balint, Corey, Wishon, Christopher, Fritze, Colleen
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Atlanta American Society for Engineering Education-ASEE 20.06.2010
• Subjects: Classrooms; Colleges & universities; Education; Engineering; Engineering education; Learning; Peers; Quality; Students; Teaching

In recent years, teacher/student ratios (TSR) have been progressively declining in many higher educational environments. While the reduced TSR is not necessarily a drawback to the educational experience, it is generally believed –or perceived– that fewer students per qualified instructor can have a more positive effect on educational outcomes in terms of attention, learning efficiency, communication patterns, and overall student satisfaction. To simultaneously address issues of class size and course quality, the Academic Teaching and Learning Assistants Study (ATLAS) was developed at Northeastern University. ATLAS explores the effects of enlisting and training student peers from within an ongoing class to serve as “Quality Managers” for select lessons and labs in engineering courses. These Quality Managers (QM’s) act as instructional and supportive extensions of the professor in more complex course environments. Following preparations with the instructor and some independent work on the labs or activities, QM’s serve as assistants and/or reference resources to their peers in the class to help guide selected lessons. More details are set out in the body of the paper in terms of QM selection, responsibilities, roles, and outcomes. Participating students (Quality Managers and their course peers, referred to in this work as general students) completed an extensive questionnaire inquiring about the use of QM’s in the classroom and, if applicable, their personal experience as a QM. The QM program was implemented across multiple academic levels: freshman (1styear), middler (3rd-year) and seniors (5th-year), and all levels participated in the feedback process. Empirical data gathered in the ATLAS initiative strongly supports the efficacy of the QM program and provides evidence that the use of Quality Managers has appreciably improved activities in classroom and lab settings and has enhanced the academic experience of the QM’s themselves. Introduction and Background In their work on engineering education, Upadhyay et al., state, “Quality consciousness has become a central theme for any human endeavor in today’s competitive world. The system of higher education is not devoid of this concept.”9 Baldwin another educational advocate, refers to meeting the challenges in our current STEM classrooms and considers possible innovative solutions to such demands: “Today many of the efforts to strengthen undergraduate education in Science, Technology Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields continue to rely on individual faculty and small faculty groups who are committed to the cause of improving science or technology education in their department or institution.”2 Baldwin and Upadhyay provide an apt lens for this focus on raising educational quality and inspiration to seek out ways to accomplish this . In this paper, the Academic Teaching and Learning Assistants Study (ATLAS) describes one initiative that has effectively attempted to address some of the challenges that persist in STEM classroom and lab cultures through the use of strategic and guided peer-assisted instruction.