A Case Study of How I Helped Build our LA Program
This article is a great resource for understanding how an LA program can adapt to meet institutional needs while positively impacting students, faculty, and LAs. It provides valuable insights into starting and scaling a program, including practical details about developing an effective pedagogy course.
To contribute to the broader literature outlining the effectiveness of LA programming, here we a) identify two factors that contributed to the successful initiation of the program, b) describe our implementation and organization of the core aspects of an LA program, c) outline the challenges encountered as we grew the program to serve the broader university, and d) reflect on the ways LAs are used in the classroom and how their use might affect student learning. To formatively assess the LA program following full implementation, we sought to examine the perceived role that LAs play in the classroom through the lens of the students, the faculty partner, and the LAs themselves. This was done to ensure that the role of an LA aligned among the three groups. The results of this analysis are discussed in the context of the LA program during the period of the assessment and the program’s current state.