The LA Model was first developed at CU Boulder in 2003 and has since been put into practice at over 80 institutions around the country. See http://www.learningassistantalliance.org/ for more details. Since the LA program started at CU Denver in Spring 2012, more than 1150 Learning Assistants have supported more than 29,500 students across five departments and 442 courses.
The mission of the CU Denver Learning Assistant program is to support student learning, satisfaction, and retention in Science, Technology, Mathematics, and Engineering (STEM) courses, particularly those courses that are large enrollment, critical for success in a degree program, and/or have historically low retention rates. The goals of the program are to support:
- Curriculum & Course Transformation: to improve the quality of STEM education for all undergraduates.
- Institutional Change: to engage faculty in the transformation of undergraduate STEM courses and in the recruitment and preparation of future STEM educators.
- Discipline-Based Education Research: to transform the culture in university STEM departments to value research-based teaching
- Teacher Recruitment & Preparation: to recruit and prepare talented STEM majors for careers in teaching.
- Grow Student Leaders: to help Learning Assistant develop peer leadership skills
Learning Assistants are undergraduates who have succeeded in their STEM courses and expressed interest in helping other students learn. They are recruited by faculty in science and science education. Selection of LAs is competitive, and LAs receive a hourly wage for their work. The foundations of the LA experience are content, pedagogy and practice.