Just Another Label Or a Tool for Development?

Dan Yngve Jacobsen

Learning assistants;

Just another label or a tool for development?

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, UniversityCollegeDublin, 7-10 September 2005

Dr. Dan Yngve Jacobsen

Associate Professor

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

N-7491 DRAGVOLL

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Dan Yngve Jacobsen:

Learning assistants; Just another label or a tool for development?

ABSTRACT: Following current trends in Europe to focus the quality of students’ learning and the outcome of higher education programs, a recent Norwegian policy reform has a closer follow-up of the students as one of its important measures. Finding the sufficient resources, monetary as well as human, however, easily becomes a barrier. To meet these challenges the NorwegianUniversity of Science and Technology designed the LAOS-project, a system for training older students as ‘learning assistants’. Talented students both graduate and undergraduates, are trained to support their younger peers in their learning processes. A main goal for the project is to encourage change in the educational approaches at the instructional level, encouraging more group work and group tutoring. Learning in groups is often complementary to faculties’ teaching in the lecture hall, and peer assisted learning is a well documented supplementary. Forthis reason the learning assistant project seems both economically profitable and intellectually advantageous. The paper gives an outline of the local setting. Some of the lessons learned are also shared. In order to analyze the notion of a learning assistant I will look further into how the concept relates to comparable measures, in particular the US teaching assistant (TA). Scrutinizing the novelty of the idea of a learning assistant is both pertinent and necessary. Despite similarities between these other measures and the LAOS approach, important new developments of the idea of a student teacher emerge, thus endorsing the use of a new label for these students.

Introduction

Arecent “Quality Reform”in Norwegian higher education (MER 2000), defines the concept ‘quality in learning’as it is largely inspired by learning formats well known from other countries where the universities has become the power sources in the new knowledge economy (Castells 1994:16).Some of these countries also have a longer experience with mass education. Looking to other countries, in particular the United States of America is in fact a part of the contemporary globalisation process that also influences higher education. The reform promises students better tutoring and a closer relation to their institution. New evaluation formats, such as portfolio assessment, are supposed to foster productive and more regular learning activity. The portfolios are especially mentioned in the policy documents, and midterms, a well-known concept in the US, are also implemented along with variations of problem-based learning, more seminars and a much higher frequency of personal feed-back. A renewed optimism related to new media and recent technology developments has also put its foot-prints on the reform.

Obviously, to deal with these initiatives more human resources are needed. Finding the resources, however, is not always straightforward in a country where the unemployment rate is relatively low and university wages in many subject areas cannot compete on the open marked. At the NorwegianUniversity of Science and Technology talented students were seen as the answer to some of the challenges in the recent reform. Through the learning assistant training program more resources, in the form of learning assistants or adjunct teachers, could be allocated to different learning formats, in particular small group learning sections. The initiative was rated second in the competition for a national award for quality in learning, “The educational quality award 2004”.

Problem Statement

On the background of the recent quality reform’s request for improving the quality of learning, this paper aims to observe and discuss actions taken by the NorwegianUniversity of Science and Technology (NTNU) to develop the idea of a “learning assistant” in the LAOS[1] project.
This includes the training program that was designed, its background as well as some of the negotiations that took place during the implementation process. The idea of a learning assistant was believed to facilitate important reform goals. However, there were also important undercurrents in the organisation running counter to these ambitions trying to turn the learning assistant into an extra resource for traditional teaching formats.

In order to elaborate on the notion of a learning assistant I will also look into how the measures taken relate to comparable measures, in particular the US teacher’s assistant. One aim is to find out what is new in the concept.Is the idea of training learning assistants in fact a novel idea or simply a new label on an old jug?

The Norwegian 2002 Quality Reform in Higher Education[2]

The over all ambition of the present Norwegian Quality Reform in higher education is to increase efficiency, relevance and competitiveness nationally and internationally while simultaneously keeping up traditions of academic freedom and institutional autonomy (MER 2002). The three main objectives are:
- Increased quality of teaching, learning and research
- The speed of candidates through the system shall increase
- The degree of internationalisation shall increase
The reform appears to be a consequence of pressures from a changed international context of globalisation, educational massification and new public management ideas. The State has changed the legal and financial frame factors accordingly and higher education institutions are pushed into change. The institutions have been given more autonomy in their organisation and leadership, making them more flexible in adapting to changes in their surroundings or market. The degree structure has been changed to the internationally more common system of Bachelor (three years), Master (two years) and Ph.D. (three years). The grading system has been changed to A, B, C, D, E and F(ail), and the study credit points system will now follow EU’s European Credit Transfer System, with 60 credits for one year of full time study.
While the ambitions of increased quality and competitiveness of research are expressed more vaguely, the measures to increase quality of teaching and teaching programmes are stated clearly. At State level an independent quality assurance body is in operation from January 2003. Their responsibility is to monitor the quality of the study programmes at the individual higher education institution by assessing the institutions’ quality assurance system. Students’ financial support is increased, although now partly being made dependent on speed of study progress and exams reached on time.
Within these structural and financial conditions, specific attention is given to measures for increasing the quality of all students’ learning environment. A slogan has been “From teaching to learning”, thus looking to newer trends in international pedagogy. Indications of increased learning quality are assumed to be more students finishing on time with better academic results. To achieve learning quality objectives the following measures are introduced:
- The institution’s administration and professors should engage in a closer follow-up of the individual student. Thus, obligations of both the students and the institution are stated in an individual contract document, “the individual curriculum”, however, not judicially binding.

- An increase in individual tutoring.

- There should be more exams underway (formative evaluation), to inform the student about progress towards the learning goals of the program.
- The reform encourages portfolio assessment, and a reduction the “grand, final exams”.

Previous initiatives using students as adjunct teachers

NTNU has a long tradition for involving older students in peer-assisted learning activities often comprising some form of small group learning. Generally speaking, a group can be anything from a few, but also many hundred people sharing a common interest or a common goal. When I use the term small groups in this context they usually involve less than ten students and oftentimes this means four to five students. Tutorial groups in problem-based learning settings oftentimes include as many as eight or ten students.

The civil engineering faculties had, prior to the LAOS project, had extensive experience using undergraduate students to assist their younger peers working on weekly assignments. During one period some of these ‘student assistants’ were also offered some formal training through a program called “Pedagogical Leadership”. The program had a workload equal to 5 ECT credits that would show on the students’ final diploma. However, when the LAOS project was initiated these initiatives to train student assistants at the civil engineering faculties had been stopped. This halt was, in fact, one major motivation behind the new initiative. Recent experiences with student assistants were mixed and the vice-rector for these faculties felt that it would be essential to resume systematic training. Thus, he expressed optimism about having this fresh plan and thereby also gave the new initiative some of its political endorsement.

Another initiative at the civil engineering faculties has been the “Experts-in-team” (EiT). This is a problem-oriented model where students from various programs come together to discuss and solve real-life challenges. Up to recently these have mostly been from the field of engineering, but other programs are now starting to copy the model. Students in their fourth year at university use their accumulated qualifications in mixed groups to contribute with their knowledge to the different projects. The main purpose of the initiative is to teach cooperative work and productive group processes. The initiative relies on using students as group facilitators, and the student tutors are trained to handle group processes in an affiliated training program. Even if the EiT initiative and the LAOS project share similar properties, the interconnections between them have mostly been rather weak in the past.

The MedicalSchoolat NTNU uses problem-based learning as their core curricular approach. In the literature on problem-based learning (see e.g. Savin-Baden 2000) we find an important distinction between problem-based (PBL) and problem-oriented learning (POL). The former (PBL) describes learning formats using real-life problems or situations as stepping-stones for student discussions and other learning activities intended at constructing each learners’ individual understanding of subject matter. Problem oriented learning, on the other hand, describes an approach where solving the problem is in focus. The EiT initiative mentioned above obviously falls into this category. Students bring their different portfolios of knowledge to the groups and for the most part solve the problem using what they already know or were responsible to check out. Even if this many times also enhances the individuals’ understanding of subject matter, the problem solving also resembles jig-saw puzzles where pieces are put together to viable solutions or presentations. The shortcoming may well be that the individual learners are not very familiar with all the pieces adding up to the final product.

The medical problem-based curriculum at NTNU was initialized in 1993. After a few years they also started to use student tutors in the small-groups. This is a well-known strategy in some medical schools (e.g. Moust & Schmidt 1994). The student tutors in Trondheim were older student who had walked down the same lane a couple of years in advance. They were also given some limited formal training. When asking the responsible staff at the time they claimed to be satisfied with the student tutors, in fact, an internal evaluation ranked these students’ performance as equal to that of faculties. Yet, representatives from the school also thought that the LAOS training would be useful and add value to the student tutors’ qualifications.

The humanities and social science faculties also have a long tradition for using students as group tutors. Mostly, these would help out in smaller groups or seminars working on particular assignments given by the professors. Student tutors at these faculties, at the time before the LAOS project, would normally not have received any training except for “having taken the subject” themselves.

Most reviews of peer assisted learning show students well able to add something to their friends’ learning (for an overview se Collier 1980; Topping & Ehly 1998). This was also what professors experienced in the medical and engineering programs mentioned above. Nevertheless, training the assistants is beneficial to gain better results from peer learning. In a previous study (Bertheussen & Jacobsen 1999), engineering students were interviewed about their group work. The assistants in this program had had no training with respect to facilitating group learning and therefore concentrated solely on subject matter. This also meant a focus on solutions rather than on helping the younger students improve their learning processes, problem solving and overall group outcome. The students in the program on the other hand mostly hoped to have more help with their learning processes. When conflicts or other similar problems surfaced in the group, there was no one there to help them out.

What is a learning assistant?

Although the term ‘learning assistant’ marks up some distance to previous initiatives developing students as learning resources, there is also an obvious legacy from these predecessors.Both locally designed models as well as the North-American teaching assistant (TA) programs were sources of inspiration, butthere are also obvious differences stemming from different ideas behind these traditions and also differences in the amount of time the assistants would spend helping other students. Whereas the TA typically spends twenty hours a week, the NTNU learning assistant at most will spend about six hours a week, or 120 hours per semester for about 20 weeks. Furthermore, the US teaching assistant is normally a graduate student whereas the majority of assistants at NTNU, particularly in the engineering programs, are undergraduates. However, before I draw the contrast to the American TA in more detail, let me explore some of the particular features of the learning assistant as the program was designed at NTNU.

First and foremost the concept of a ‘learning assistant’ at NTNU involves a particular training programme. As already mentioned, the vision was a universal program for all the learning assistants.The idea was that this would provide some collectivebase for the activities taking place in the different departments. Parallel developments should have a similar point of departure, and a similar training would also make it easier for the assistants to take on the same job in a different department. The idea was so to speak a common code for the concept of learning assistants. A part of the vision was also a unique title that would mean something on the external job-marked. There should be no way around the LAOS program for those who wanted the title. Employers should know that this was a candidate that had undergone a certain training program and been involved in facilitating other students’ learning. Unfortunately, the title has lately also been taken into use by other initiatives, thus weakening this “brand-value”.

One of the visions for the learning assistants was that they should be involved in a variety of activities relevant to other students learning processes. Such activities could be tutoring group work, guiding students working on assignments later to be used for portfolio assessments, giving some help related to subject matter, assisting and tutoring in laboratory settings, giving formative feed-back on learning tasks, participating in summative evaluation at the end of the semester and also being mediators between students and faculties.

Hoping to involve the students in more differentiated tasks than we can see in previous initiatives, however, also constitutes a painstaking dilemma when constructing the curriculum for the learning assistant training program. On the one hand the programme should be interesting and meaningful to the students;that is reflectingactivities they will in fact be involved in. On the other hand, the initiative came because NTNU wanted to develop something quite different in order to reach quality goals for the university’s competitiveness. This latter goal is not necessarily shared all the way down in the system. Faculties may want the assistants to fill traditional roles, e.g. to continue the good work of the previous student assistants. This constitutes a conflict where the university wants to train the assistants for a variety of tasks while faculties may want a more focused program.

A university is a mixture of traditions and cultures. For instance, professors ideas about faculty-regulated as opposed to choice-based learning, will vary inside this complex organisation. In some subject areas faculties may feel an obligation to control what students learn as others may see students’ choice of learning material as a crucial part of their academic development. Some of the professional programs tend to plan a higher degree of organized activities, mostly lectures, to ensure a certain ‘content coverage’, and even the problem-based curriculum in the Medical School has a high degree of organized activities and an increase in these have actually been documented since the model was introduced in 1993 (Karlsen et al. 2000). Other programs may have different notions, offering just a small amount of lectures and seminars. Typically social sciences and humanities fall into the latter category. Limited resources serve as one reason for less organized learning activities, but other explanations align to ideologies idealizing students having sufficient time to study on their own. In some respect this attitude could be seen as a legacy from the elite university where students were expected to be more self-regulated learners. Differences in culture also mean different needs as to how the assistants should be trained.