At universities where introductory physics labs are taught by graduate student teaching assistants (TAs), there is a need for specialized professional development for those TAs. This paper presents a specific instantiation of a model for lab TA professional development that uses a combination of cognitive apprenticeship and expectancy-value…

Increasingly, national stakeholders express concern that U.S. college graduates cannot adequately solve problems and think critically. As a set of cognitive abilities, critical thinking skills provide students with tangible academic, personal, and professional benefits that may ultimately address these concerns. As an instructional method, writing…