Teaching Assistants Improve Student Success Dr. Philip Garone, M.A. Director Department of History October 23, 2015

Purpose Issue: Large, lower-division, mandated G.E. courses pose particular problems for student success. Large class sizes (70 or 140 students) render it impossible for faculty to provide adequate additional attention to individual students at risk. Proposed Solution: Funding Graduate Teaching Assistants for HIST 1010 (World Civilization) and 2600 (Problems in U.S. History) to provide additional mentoring and personalized attention for all students, but particularly for at-risk students. This program was first funded during Spring 2014 and was renewed for the academic year.

Process Four funded teaching assistants served a total of 379 students during A. Teaching assistants improved overall student performance by: *Providing pre- and post-exam review sessions *Maintaining regular office hours and communication with students *Working with students in class during small-group discussions of texts B. Teaching assistants improved the pass rate for the classes—in consultation with faculty—by: *Targeting students most at risk of failure/poor grades with additional mentoring (including discipline-specific study and note-taking skills, reading comprehension strategies, etc.)

End Result Student success increased measurably. 1.Percentage of students passing exams increased throughout the semester, and percentage of students earning passing grades on term papers increased over previous semesters. 2.Percentage of students passing the course increased over previous semesters. 3.Percentage of students earning A through C grades increased, while numbers of D grades declined. 4.Teaching assistants were themselves formally assessed by the students at the end of the course. Student satisfaction rates ranged from 72% to 100% on the various metrics assessed.

Lessons Learned *The presence of teaching assistants measurably improved student success for all students, not just those at risk of failure. *Regular and frequent student contact with teaching assistants, who are funded, and therefore can be hired, by the beginning of the semester, yielded the best results. *Further improvement may be achieved by increasing the number of students who avail themselves of this resource. *Students in large classes benefit from the presence of teaching assistants. This evidence argues strongly for the institutionalization of permanent funding for teaching assistants.