What is a student assistant?
We can distinguish between three types of student assistants:
- Seminar leaders, who hold seminar classes for courses. Seminar leaders often also have assessment responsibility for compulsory activities
- Learning assistants/colloquium leaders, who support for students' learning. Many students greatly appreciate having contact with someone who was recently a student in the subject. This is not a traditional teaching role, and the activity is not necessarily linked to a subject.
- Teaching assistants support teachers in carrying out teaching. Examples of tasks: technical assistance to students and lecturers in Canvas or in teaching rooms, and assisting in Zoom.
What to think about
In 2021, LINK conducted a survey among students who had learning assistants/colloquium sponsors. It shows that a clear connection between the various learning activities in a course is crucial for students' learning outcomes. Likewise, student assistants say that this is crucial for them to be able to do a good job. It is therefore important that faculty units support their student assistants. EILIN recommends that a symposium be held at the beginning of the semester, where work tasks and expectations are reviewed together with student assistants, course conveners and the administration.
Through their work, seminar leaders get to know a lot about how the students experience the teaching, what they find difficult, what is easy, which activities are perceived as meaningful, etc. This is valuable information for those who plan teaching and learning activities. It may therefore be a good idea to think through how course conveners access this knowledge.
Distribution of responsibilities
Faculty units are responsible for recruitment and appointment, and must ensure that student assistants receive information about:
- What tasks they will perform and which courses they will work on
- What expectations the course convener has for the assistants' work
- Confidentiality and GDPR
- their contact person at the department
- Contract and salary
- Working hours: scope, when, time frame, registering working hours
EILIN:
- Organizes pedagogic training in mid-August
- Provides monitoring throughout the semester
Pedagogical training and supervision
EILIN offers training and follow-up for seminar leaders/learning assistants/colloquium leaders. The aim of the training is to make the student employees confident in their role, and to give them some tools for working with student groups.
Preparation (1 hour)
Read selected literature with exercise(s). The exercise is in Teams
- to establish expectations
- academic writing
- Team/group processes
- To plan seminar/colloqui groups
Supervision during the semester (2 hours)
- Colleague supervision and exchange of knowledge.
Technical training
EILIN collaborates with USIT on technical training for student assistants. USIT offers regular courses, e-courses and tailor-made solutions. See USIT's course portfolio.