International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability

International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability - Transcript

International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability Running Head International Teaching Assistant s Knowledge towards Learning Disability

International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability Geetika Agarwal University of Missouri Columbia Columbia 65211

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability Introduction Teachers open the door but you must enter by yourself Chinese proverb The Teaching Assistant and Graduate Student Development program at the university which is under the larger umbrella of Program for Excellence in Teaching PET offers a variety of services to assist instructors in accessing the research on student learning and in developing their teaching skills It also provides a mandatory training to International Teaching Assistants about the classroom dynamics of an American Society The three day extensive workshop which is attended by over a 100 prospect TAs is followed by an optional seminary that aim to expose the TAs to cultural norms and expectations of American Society It sensitizes them to the phenomenology of a studentinstructor relationship its expectations etc This is achieved through various interactive sessions and presentations Although the program is exhaustive and enriching in its content of what to expect in a classroom and from the students there is a conspicuous absence of information on and about the students with special needs There is no mention of the students with special needs of any kind in the everyday classrooms While going through the training I found that the program was not educating the TAs about the types of special needs that the students in their classroom might have or what to do when a student approaches them to request for special services or various accommodations It was following this that I decided to undertake a class project and identify the current level of understanding in the TAs

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability The present research is aimed at looking at the level of understanding in the TAs about Learning Disability LD which is one of the primary educational diagnoses with huge implications on the educational outcome of an individual Methodology Due to absence of an rating scale to assess the knowledge of teaching assistants towards LD I developed a very open ended semi structures set of questions which asked the respondents about their understanding of LD its causality remediation and how it influenced their classroom dynamics Appendix 1 The questions were very basic and gave enough space for the respondents to express and share their understanding of the disorder The sample was taken from a class that was taking a course offered by PET entitled Tools for Teaching American Students which focuses on advanced academic listening discrete pronunciation skills techniques for leading lab sections and one on one interaction as well as give a general overview of American classroom culture The class constituted of 10 TAs and all of them responded to the survey Table 1 1 gives the demographic constitution of the sample The age of the sample ranged from 22 years to 38 years Three individuals did not mention their age in the response sheet There was one female and nine males in the sample The duration of stay for all the individuals was less that a year and ranged from two months to a year All the students were Asians of which 1 was a master s student and nine were Doctoral level graduate students Results The coding was done using NVIVO NVivo is designed for qualitative researchers who need to combine subtle coding with qualitative linking shaping

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability searching and modeling NVivo can be used for a wide range of research projects including



Discourse analysis Grounded theory Action research Conversation analysis Ethnography Literature Reviews Phenomenology Mixed methods research

Data was analyzed using the principles of the Grounded Theory method Strauss Corbin 1990 Each paragraph was reviewed for the concepts it reflected and coded Methods of open coding axial coding and selective coding which are based on making comparisons for similarities differences and general patterns were used Thus the qualitative analysis moved through the following steps The researcher read the responses several times and compiled the overall impression given by the respondent Separate coding was done for the various areas of investigation Following the investigation the themes were arrived at Because this study was exploratory the validity of the classification was done by independent coding of results by the researcher and a colleague Only the areas agreed upon were developed into themes The others where a conflict was noted were analyzed further The consistency of the final codes was highly valid

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability Following the theory all the responses were feed in the computer program and the coding was done for the four rubrics i e Causality of LD Knowledge about LD Intervention for LD in their class room and Implications of LD in their everyday class room A copy of the questionnaire has been attached in Appendix 1

The first category of Knowledge aimed at understanding the existing level of conceptual knowledge the respondents had about the disorder It included knowing what LD is and also what LD is not The responses were very diverse and I found it difficult to draw a common theme or thought amongst the responses This could be attributed the small sample size Some of the responses to the question What is Learning Disability according to you are



Students can not focus Keep reading text book long time Interfere with learning capability or process They don t know how to learn Some difficulties to learn Cant pay attention to studying Mental disorder Cant concentrate on learning Problems in learning Study inconsistently Cannot understand what his her teacher talks about in the class

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability The about are some of the statements made the respondents An important conclusion which can be drawn from these is the emphasis and recognition that the disorder interferes with the learning and studying habits of an individual Majority of the statements indicate that the studying class room understanding concentration with reading is a challenge for individuals with learning disability A word of caution needs to be sounded here Since the question had the term learning disability it is very logical to conclude that there is some sort of disturbance with learning Hence it can t be stated with certainty if the respondent actually knew what learning disability was or that they made an intelligent guess from the term given in the question

Under the second category of Causality which aimed at understanding the causal attribution engaged by the respondents there were four primary reasons that were indicated at the probable cause of Learning Disability These reasons are Biological Psychological Mental and lack of understanding Under Biological category statements like genetic problems physical problem genetic factors and changes of the specific regions in the brains were included Statements like learning methods experiences in the childhood cant pay attention to what he is studying social factors educational background family background psychological factors like personality were coded under the lager category of Psychological For the Mental category there was one statement which was coded as the statement itself i e mental problem For the fourth sub category under causality probably students can t grasp the topics and main points totally and can t grasp the main points was coded as Lack Of knowledge This implied the students lack of knowledge about effective study skills In addition to this there was another statement in the responses which I found difficult to

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability code The statement tendency that is not open to the external environment such as friends and teacher seemed to be hinting towards socialization but it isn t very clear if it could be clubbed under any of the above sub categories Hence it was decided that this statement should be kept as a Free Node i e a free code

The third category was Intervention The idea behind this question was to know what type of intervention or remediation the TAs would indulge into when faced with a student with learning disability There was a vast variety of interventions mentioned across the board which were coded under seven subcategories An eight category was also made where I coded those statements that were different from the others and couldn t be coded The first subcategory was labeled Repetition where one respondent mention repeat same topic frequently The second subcategory was Use other modes of Explanation Three respondents mentioned give some good examples try to pay attention to the main points and how it works list objectives before your study The third subcategory was labeled Find a Cure and the statements coded under this category are cure of specific problem which causes learning disability or special treatments are needed medicine can be used The fourth category was labeled Help Them Two respondents stated help them know how to learn and find a way in which they learn efficiently encourage them The fifth category was labeled Modified Instruction Four respondents mentioned intervention strategies that entailed some form of modification in the existing instruction e g make the course simple and easily understood set a lower standard for the students assistance to understand and help them start studying One of the respondents stated improve language ability and this was coded as sixth category labeled as Improving Language Ability Counseling was labeled as seventh

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability category where one respondent suggested talk with the student face to face ask why the student does this and analyze the problem together with the student find a reason and think about it The eighth category was called Miscellaneous where those statements were clubbed which I found difficult to understand in the context of the question and other responses They are good medical skills good family and special method

For the fourth category Implications there were four larger subcategories The question aimed at assessing their perception of the influence of a student with LD in their regular classroom instruction There were four sub categories under this rubric The first sub category was Hesitation on the part of the Instructor One of the respondent stated may be I am afraid of asking something to him Although only one respondent mentioned this the emotion and feeling of being afraid and unsure is very commonly elicited in people who do not regularly come in contact with people having disability This can also be because of ignorance and lack of knowledge The second subcategory was Accommodation in instruction and grading The statements that were coded under this subcategory were consider other evaluation scheme make your class interesting list main topics leave some time for answering student s questions teacher should slow down his her pace slow pace of lecture It was very interesting to see that the TAs did know innovative techniques of making the class more interesting and involve the students But I would like to point here that the above techniques are taught to the TAs during their training period and they are taught to be applied to the class as a unit The training can further be enhanced by educating them about ways of personalizing instruction for an individual student with special needs like learning disability The third subcategory was labeled Negative Implications where the theme was

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability on any indication that the TAs made about the negative impact it will have on their instruction Some of the sentences coded under this sub category are discourage teaching enthusiasm feel it is a waster of time not enough responses and reflections that will make TA hard to realize if he she state the concept or explain the procedure well or not no reaction to the teachers speech and question so that the teacher can not know if e she expressed clearly delay the process of his her teaching plan In addition to the above three subcategories there were a free codes that I wasn t able to assign with the others The statement if you can use some ways to dealing with learning disability you can improve the learning of the student The import of the statement according to me is that if we can find a way to intervene we can help the student learn but I was unable to understand how this could be connected with the implication on ones classroom

Future Implications

As is evident from the results our future instructors parents and individuals of society need to know the correct facts about Learning Disability Being school psychologists who are going to work with students and their transition into colleges we need to be mindful of the fact that their instructors and teaching assistants may or may not be aware of their condition and what implications it has in their educational achievement It would hence be worthwhile for us to not only make them aware about the disorder and how it will impact their classroom working To go a step further it would be worthwhile to incorporate a component of various educational diagnoses that they might be faced with in their classroom

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability Limitations Before making any conclusion from the present paper its very important that we keep certain things in mind These are Small sample size Limitation in language on the part of the respondents

The above two factors play a very important role in how we interpret our results With 10 students in hand we are not a good position to make generalization about the other International TAs It is further suggested that a more exhaustive study with a larger sample size be undertaken It should be also kept in mind that the TAs are not fluent with English as a language and would have found it difficult to understand and interpret questionnaire Also they might have found it difficult to express themselves comfortable in English A brief interview following the response would have added further clarification to the responses

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability References Strauss A Corbin J 1990 Basics of qualitative research Grounded theory procedures and techniques Newbury Park CA Sage Publications Inc

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability Table 1 1 Demographic Information of the Sample Age Range Duration of stay in US Gender Nationality Major 22 38 years 3 individuals didn t mention their age 2 months 1 year 1 Female and 9 Males 4 students from Korea and 6 students from China 1 Masters and 9 PhD students

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International Teaching Assistants Knowledge towards Learning Disability Table 1 2 Skeletal outline of the coding with the coding number in parenthesis

Knowledge Causality 2 1 Biological 2 2 Psychological 2 3 Mental 2 4 Lack of Understanding Intervention 3 1 Repetition 3 2 Use other mode of explanation 3 3 Find a Cure 3 4 Help Them 3 5 Modified Instruction

3 6 Improve language ability 3 7 Counseling 3 8 Miscellaneous Implication 4 1 Hesitation on the part of Instructor 4 2 Accommodation in instruction and grading 4 3 negative implications 4 4 Miscellaneous Free Nodes 5 1 Curiosity to know more 5 2 I don t know

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