Letter from the Editors
Welcome to Verbal Equinox 2025!
This document showcases the learning theories, pedagogical effects, and administration behind Weber State University's emerging Learning Assistant Program.
Verbal Equinox's editorial team is proud to highlight the strengths of the Writing Center's sister program by publishing this exciting step forward in WSU's mission to promote innovative education.
Contents
- Learning Assistant Program Founders
- Learning Assistant Program Director
- Learning Assistant Program Coordinators
- From Theory to Practice
- Reflections: HIST 1700
- Reflections: ECON 1740
- Reflections: MATH 1036
- Reflections: Further LA Reflections
- Resources
Learning Assistant Program Founders
Dr. Amsel’s extraordinary career in research and program development underpins the Learning Assistant program that moves forward broadly on campus today. In his most recent role as provost, he has overseen Undergraduate Studies, Academic Support, and Institutional Effectiveness (USASIE), which focuses on academic quality and student support and includes university-wide programs.
Dr. Amsel reimagined a way forward that brings us to the present successful model of collaboration with faculty, staff, and students.
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As the Executive Director of Academic Support Centers & Programs, Carl Porter oversees a network of resources designed to empower student success. These include Learning Support, including tutoring, MLL support, Supplemental Instruction/Learning Assistants and Academic Peer Coaching, which offers comprehensive support systems for learners at all stages of their academic journey and supports faculty with peer academic support embedded in the classroom.
Carl Porter's vision moves the program forward, embracing an exciting and ever-evolving campus environment.
LA Program Director
Learning Assistants enhance the efficacy of the Communities of Inquiry in many ways, including the following:
- building purposeful connections with students
- modeling question asking
- participating in group discussions
- sharing diverse points of view
Transparent instruction unmasks the hidden curriculum and helps students understand the how and the why behind their learning.
At Weber, successful gateway course completion (typically no UWs) in the first semester is tied to student retention.
In the faculty training, we discuss best practices for maximizing the potential of a learning assistant-enhanced class.
LA Program Coordinators
Embedded support buffers academic challenges, leveraging a collaborative, actively engaging, and grounded approach for new students as they juggle multiple priorities.
Student success positively correlates with their use of academic support services and learning experiences grounded in meaningful questions and real-world contexts.
Embedded peer support is our solution to struggling students in WSU gateway courses.
Learning Assistants collaborate with faculty and actively participate in the classroom to facilitate learning and foster transferable academic skills for future success.
Learning Assistants aim to support first-year classmates in navigating both the gateway course and the college environment.
A study of NSC courses with embedded course assistants revealed impressive results, particularly for first-generation, low-income, and minority students.
From Theory to Practice
The need to provide academic support for first-year students in gateway courses is clear when comparing their high DFWI rates with other students.
Earning a drop, fail, withdraw, or incomplete grade in a gateway course is often directly correlated with students’ decisions not to return for future semesters.
Our collaboration has provided great insights into the issues of higher education and has allowed us to constructively grow our program.
Reflections: HIST 1700
Reflections: ECON 1740
Reflections: MATH 1036
Further Reflections: MATH and CHEM
Resources
- Koch, Andrew, et al. “Maximizing Gateway-Course Improvement byMaking the Whole Greater Than the Sums of the Parts.” New Directions for Higher Education, no. 180, Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 2017, 99-109. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20265
- Koch, Andrew, and John Gardner. “Transforming the ‘Real’ First-Year Experience: The Case for and Approach to Improving Gateway Courses.” The First Year College: Research, Theory, and Practice on Improving the Student Experience and Increasing Retention, edited by Robert S. Feldman, Cambridge UP, 2017, 126-154. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316811764
- Tucker, K., Sharp, G., Qingmin, S., Scinta, T., & Thanki, S. (2020). Fostering Historically Underserved Students' Success: An Embedded Peer Support Model that Merges Non-Cognitive Principles with Proven Academic Support Practices. The Review of Higher Education, 43(3), 861-885. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2020.0010
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- Backward Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998)
- Communities of Inquiry (Garrison et al., 2001)*
- Design for Learning (Rose & Meyer, 2002)
- Fostering Historically Underserved Students’ Success (Tucker et al., 2000)
- Gateways to Completion (Koch, 2017)
- Pathways out of Poverty (Gorski, 2017)
- Transparency in Teaching (Winkelmes, 2013)*