Video clubs in physics teaching assistant training: Teaching assistants’ experiences

Abstract

Teaching assistants have a very important role in physics education as they interact with students and guide them in different contexts. A multitude of research has focused on how to prepare teaching assistants to implement high-quality, research-based teaching techniques. Video clubs, i.e., working with a group of teachers to watch and discuss excerpts of videos recorded from their own teaching, is a novel approach to teaching assistant training that draws from teacher education. This study reports on the experiences of five physics teaching assistants as they participated in a semester long series of video clubs as a part of the implementation of a new introductory lab course. Data were collected through interviews (N=5). The interview data were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis. Five themes for the experiences were constructed from the data. Participation in the video clubs enabled the teaching assistants to uptake teaching practices from each other and spurred a wish for more coplanning of teaching. There was tension in the experiences as some teaching assistants appreciated the positive feedback but others would have preferred more constructive feedback. As the teaching assistants’ experiences were positive, the use of video clubs in teaching assistant training warrants more research. This research could focus on, e.g., the type of feedback the teaching assistants receive in the video clubs.