My Mental Model. From my initial research into the instructional practices of GTAs in a reformed discussion/lab section, I found that their practices were affected by their perceptions of their students’ desires for the course; GTAs taught how they thought their students wanted them to teach. This was, unfortunately, not in the manner that the course designer meant GTAs to teach in the mini-studio. To ensure that both instructor and students were satisfied with the class, and that the class was taught in the most effective manner, I decided that the most appropriate course of action would be to adjust the students’ desires so that they want to be taught how the class is meant to be taught. Literature has shown that if instructors introduce class activities by discussing the purpose of the activity and the benefits of engaging with it (i.e. strategies for gaining student agreement), students may exhibit less resistance to these interactive activities (Xxxxxxx et al., 2015). Although instructors may intend to implement research-based instructional strategies (RBISs), student resistance may cause them to fall back to the more traditional teaching methods that they think the students may desire (Xxxxxxxxx et al., 2012). One of the overarching goals of my research is to learn how to reduce student resistance. I believe that instructor efforts to gain student agreement could significantly reduce student resistance. By default, without the instructor trying to gain student agreement, students would probably base their agreement on their experiences of the benefits or drawbacks of reformed instruction as they take the class. However, instructors should not wait for students to discover on their own if they agree with the class format because while students are experiencing the class and deciding on their agreement, they may be resisting the reformed instruction. Thus, it is up to the instructor to adjust student expectations and agreement early in the semester so resistance never occurs.
