Applying a framework for characterizing physics teaching assistants’ beliefs and practices

Teaching Assistants (TAs) play an important role in supporting research-based instructional environments, yet the connection between TAs’ pedagogical beliefs and instructional practices is not well understood. We build upon a broad foundation of research on the nature of pedagogical content knowledge to develop an analytic framework for characterizing how physics TAs both describe and enact their roles as teachers. In a previous work [1], we started developing a framework for TA pedagogical beliefs and highlighted examples of emergent differences between TAs along one particular dimension, agency. In this paper, we extend this framework to include TAs’ instructional goals, and their methods and purpose of assessment. Using examples drawn from several semesters of interviews and classroom videotape, we apply this framework and describe instances of both strong and weak coordination between TA beliefs and practices.