TA Competencies for Inclusive Learning Spaces

Abstract

Undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants (TAs) play a pivotal role in supporting student learning. TAs perform various duties, including grading, facilitating labs and tutorials, supporting collaboration projects, and, in some cases, designing course materials. TAs often receive training to enhance their technical skills but, more recently, some TA training programs have begun to recognize and emphasize the need for skills that help TAs foster inclusive learning spaces. Because TAs often have more opportunities to interact directly with students and hold dual identities as students and teachers in the same community, how they address and mitigate non-inclusive behavior may be different than how faculty would. While some TAs are beginning to receive training on concepts like self-efficacy, growth mindset, equity, inclusion, and bias, our community needs a deeper understanding of what skills TAs need to cultivate inclusive spaces and how these skills can be developed and evaluated within the constraints of the teaching term. In this BOF, we will discuss the skills and competencies that faculty and TAs believe are essential for helping TAs foster inclusive learning spaces, how to teach those skills and competencies in TA training programs, and how to evaluate the effectiveness of those programs.