Helping graduate teaching assistants in biology use student evaluations as professional development

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are often used as instructors in undergraduate introductory science courses, particularly in laboratory and discussion sections associated with large lectures. These GTAs are often novice teachers with little opportunity to develop their teaching skills through formal professional development. Focused self-reflection about end-of-semester teaching evaluations may be an important informal supplement to teacher training. To inform this practice, we explored the instructional behaviors that undergraduates perceived as most important for GTAs' teaching effectiveness in laboratory courses. In spring semester 2012, 1159 undergraduates in freshman-level biology lab courses rated their GTAs on 21 instructional behaviors, the GTAs' teaching effectiveness, the amount the student learned, and their expected grade in the laboratory. Using linear mixed models, we found that instructional behaviors related to the categories of teaching techniques and interpersonal rapport best predicted student ratings of GTAs' teaching effectiveness. GTAs or other novice teachers can use this information to identify specific areas for instructional improvement when considering student feedback about their teaching.