Undergraduate STEM Learning Assistant Personas

LA personas characterize common assets that LAs bring to the practice of teaching -these include ideas about STEM teaching and learning as well as LAs' goals for teaching.Personas are realistic, though fictionalized, characters that are based on potential or real users' personal goals and experiences when interacting with a program or product.Our LA personas address the design questions: How can we recruit diverse students to become LAs?How can LA pedagogy courses support LAs to engage in student-centered teaching?We use interviews with STEM LAs at three universities in the Pacific Northwest to construct a set of four Learning Assistant personas -each with distinct goals, perspectives, and experiences with teaching, and challenges they might encounter -that collectively represent the participant LAs.This set of personas can guide pedagogy course instructors to consider LAs' assets and experiences while designing courses that promote excellent, engaging, and equitable teaching.