EPT-HUB: An interactive co-working platform fostering Engaging Physics Tutoring for teaching assistants

EPT-hub (https://ept.ethz.ch) was created to support physics TAs of introductory physics courses in their teaching duties, in order to assure high-quality physics exercise classes for the students of most of the ETH Departments. The major goals of this initiative are to:
– make teaching a joyful and rewarding experience for the TAs,
– promote active learning elements in classes held by TAs,
– enable TAs to share their teaching experiences and gain self-confidence,
– promote teaching-related professional competencies, such as presentation skills, time management, and well-being.

As a result, students are experiencing effective and meaningful learning in classes taught by TAs, which is also largely supported by research (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-015-9354-y).

To achieve these ambitious goals, we have implemented the following strategy, which is based on extensive interviews with students, TAs and lecturers:
– Supply TAs with task-focused teaching material, that can either be used directly by novice TAs or provide a stimulus for more experienced TAs.
– Offer selected and time-wise effective inputs on general topics related to teaching, including professional development.
– Collect all materials developed by TAs in a tagged database, where it is categorized and can easily be retrieved.
– Offer communication channels and community events, where TAs gain self-confidence by exchanging and sharing their teaching experience.

Within the last two years, we have worked out high-quality teaching material sets targeted at five different introductory courses that can be used by TAs in each of their classes. These ready-to-use tutorials are available as eBooks. Their focus is on active learning, including advanced organizers, concept questions, case-based calculation examples, and hands-on experiments.
The more TAs start to use our materials, the more they discuss their teaching experience and eventually begin to design new teaching material or refine the available material. TAs share their developed teaching resources such as notes, slides, and exercises, all valuable material that would otherwise be lost. We collect these items and transfer them to a tagged database on the Notion© platform. Here TAs can search for relevant resources by using keywords or classifiers. This web-based system proves to be very convenient to store teaching-related items and to make them available to future TAs.
Apart from these online activities, we are offering in-person seminars that cover pedagogical topics (student activation, class management, etc.) and professional skills (time management, well-being, etc.).
To measure achievements at the lesson level, we have developed a 2Q assessment system that monitors the learning gains and gives immediate feedback to the TAs and to the students. The 2Q system consists of two specially designed multiple-choice questions that are presented right at the beginning of the class (pre-test) and repeated at the end (post-test). These questions are based on key learning objectives of the corresponding lesson and aim to probe the higher-level competencies of the students. The answers to the pre-lesson test are not revealed and at the end of the lesson, after the same two questions have been asked again, a discussion and comparison of the answers is started. By means of the 2Q system, students as well as TAs can easily evaluate the learning progress.
Finally, we are organizing a yearly three-day summer camp. The summer camp includes many opportunities for personal exchange and features workshops on innovative teaching and professional development, that are mainly given by international experts.
EPT-hub achievements as of end 2023:
– 5 eBooks (polybooks) published.
– >500entries in a searchable database.
– 12 seminars (with > 200 participants).
– 2 Summer Camps (with >60 participants).
– 2 papers published.
– Presentations at 5 international conferences.

Links to examples of the developed teaching materials:

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Links to the eBooks with developed materials:

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https://polybox.ethz.ch/index.php/s/ZP0bsI9sd8CnI6c

Based on the services and resources developed by EPT-hub, TAs were highly successful in offering engaging and interactive classes. In combination with the additional EPT-hub community-building elements and training opportunities, TAs continuously gained teaching expertise and experienced teaching as a rewarding task. We have good evidence to believe that all our major goals have been accomplished. Moreover, we manage to successfully organize even two EPT summer camps (only one was planned as a trial).
To measure achievements at the lesson level, we have developed a 2Q assessment system that monitors the learning gains and gives immediate feedback to the TAs and to the students.
For introductory courses, student’s performance is measured by final exams that take place a couple of months after the last lecture. This situation makes it extremely difficult to consistently measure the impact of EPT-hub on learning achievements. However, we see good exam performance of students from classes of TAs from EPT-hub, even though we cannot confidently link these exam results to EPT-hub. We also collected feedback from students attending classes supervised by TAs from the EPT-hub and those TAs received very high rates in all aspects of teaching. Positive feedback from lecturers of the corresponding courses, together with feedback from the TAs themselves, show clear evidence for the success of EPT-hub.
Lessons learned:
– Getting on board a lot of people on something new is a challenging venture.
– Not being restrained to purely pedagogical topics is crucial. We have a strong focus on community building elements covering all soft-skills aspects crucial for teaching.
– It was very important to invest a lot of effort in developing teaching material (eBooks) that is well aligned with the learning goals at the specific lesson level. The high quality of that material was a major incentive for TAs to participate in the community around EPT-hub. For those courses where eBooks are available, around 80% of TAs are using them.
– After an initial phase, supported by the Innovedum Fund, EPT-hub is now funded by the Physics Department as a service in physics teaching. The general approach of EPT-hub can be adapted for any discipline/department and we are open to share our experiences. Right now, there are ongoing discussions about a potential expansion/transfer of EPT-hub.

• EPT-Hub home
• Impressions from the EPT events
• Impressions from the last EPT summer camp 2023