Using Clinical Teaching Assistants to Foster Student Engagement in Online Courses

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Using Clinical Teaching Assistants to Foster Student Engagement in Online Courses

Kerry Gatlin
Paulette Alexander

Abstract

The rapid growth in delivery of online courses in business programs has resulted in concern among faculty that the educational experience in online courses will be less rich and that the courses will too closely mirror independent study experiences. The authors undertook a pilot project regarding the use of Clinical Teaching Assistants in large enrollment online courses as a strategy to improve the online course experience and to encourage student engagement. Clinical Teaching Assistants, unlike graduate assistants, hold masters degrees or higher and have substantial business experience. The Clinical Teaching Assistants were teamed with full-time faculty members assigned to the various large section courses. The project was conducted over an academic year and involved over three hundred students enrolled in six different courses. Results were extremely positive. The pilot initiative was deemed a solid success by the faculty members involved, by the clinical teaching assistants, and importantly by the students. In one surprising finding, students indicated that the large online sections provided for more engagement and better feedback than they experienced in smaller traditional face-to-face classes.

Keywords

Clinical teaching assistants, Student engagement, Online courses, Large section classes, Feedback

Annotation

This article details the use of clinical teaching assistants (TAs with at least master’s degrees and professional work experience) in large enrollment courses (over 40 students) in the University of North Alabama MBA program. Clinical teaching assistants were responsible for providing feedback, assist in grading and cultivating student engagement – primarily through discussion boards. Over 300 students were polled from six different core MBA courses. 70% of students felt clinical teaching assistants led to an increase in personal participation. Over half (56%) of the polled students felt more engaged in the larger online sections than in smaller F2F sections.

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