Experience 4:
Learning Commons Biology LA
As a freshman, I took introductory courses Biology 1081 and Biology 1082. Throughout the course I formed a connection to my professor, Dr. Mosley. This led to Dr. Mosley offering me a position as her learning assistant the following semester as she saw my dedication and passion to the course content. I feel inspired to help the students as I understand what they are going through and recognize how difficult the course can be and the adjustment is as a freshman. My goal is to help ease this transition for the students and help their experience to be more enjoyable and less difficult than it was for me. Using my personal experience, I act as a mentor to help the students not only understand the material, but develop long lasting study strategies that are imperative to their success in this course as well as future courses. This position in the Learning Commons has many benefits including helping me to learn profession development skills and allowing me to earn an income. This position has also been helpful to keep my memory of the content fresh which is helpful in my upper level courses that build on these concepts as well as helping me study for the MCAT. This experience has allowed me to form bonds with not only Dr. Mosley but also my fellow LAs and the students. Many of the other LAs I work with are also driven, accomplished students on a similar path as me so I have formed friendships, mentors, and study partners. As it is now my 5th semester as an LA, I have taken the initiative to become a leader to the new LAs where I help train them, explain their responsibilities, and answer their questions.
The image I attached below includes a group activity we ask the students to complete and it shows my annotations that I add prior to class when I prepare. These annotations include hints that I use to prompt the students and break down the concepts to help them understand. I do this with all of the prs questions to encourage group discussion and guide groups to the right answer. I could not include an entire powerpoint example of my work because it contains answers that may be reused in the future and I also have a responsibility to follow FERPA. I also included a picture of the Learning Commons bulletin board where I was featured as an Employee of the week. As a learning assistant, I have felt a lot of support and encouragement from the learning commons because there are always opportunities to grow and be recognized.
