Your role in the classroom

While the instructor may set all the instructional and classroom activities, undergraduate learning assistants are the only ones who have taken the course. Among the others in the classroom, you’re the expert at knowing how to learn the material and what it takes to be successful in this course. Since your instructor has not taken the course, your role and perspective is invaluable. Your insights into qualities of the course (e.g., which parts are confusing or fun) help instructors get a realistic perspective of how students learn in their course.

Learning assistants serve the students’ learning needs by working with the student and collaborating with the instructor. You are supporting students’ learning by helping them build knowledge and skills from the lower level tasks (e.g., memorizing a term) to higher-level work (e.g.,applying and explaining terms in assignments). You do this by relying on your skills as a student and applying them in a new role within the same context.

Transferring Student Skills to a Professional Persona

You were, no doubt, chosen for your academic merits, communication skills, and maturity, to name only a few attributes. But, personally doing well in the course and helping others to do well rely on different skill sets. As a learning assistant, you will need to transfer some of your skills as a student to your new role as a learning assistant. The biggest instance of transfer is likely using your understanding of how to learn to help others learn.

Consider some skills you have as a student. How might those skills be adapted to your new position as a learning assistant? For example, as a student, you need to be consistently familiar with course materials (readings, videos, vocabulary) to demonstrate your understanding in assessments (e.g., tests, exams, and/or essays). Think about how familiarity with course material directly transfers to your new role. This skill will help you get a sense of what the students know and how to help them take steps toward the right direction. Additionally, the boundaries you have as a student apply here as well. Your instructors have set professional boundaries of what is appropriate between them and you. As a learning assistant, professional boundaries are much the same between you and your students.

Beyond the content of the course, you embody different combinations of behaviors and skills that comprise a successful student. While participating in class, how you act and respond to others is a model of good student behavior. In addition to helping students learn, your role is to encourage and support behaviors that help them succeed in the class. Think of a few other skills and behaviors that are useful in the class in this exercise below.