A Study Of Professional Growth Of Graduate Teaching Assistants In The Context Of MOOC Development

In recent years,Massive Online Open Course(MOOC)has become popular in higher education.As an online course,its massiveness,openness have not only attracted numerous learners and scholars,but also brought new challenges for the course development,online supports and consultation in class.Therefore,MOOC development asks for not only teachers' management but also teaching assistants' supports.With the popularity of MOOC in higher education in China,the graduate teaching assistants(GTAs)are playing an important role in MOOC development and application as an emerging power,in which a win-win situation in the quality improvement of college education and professional growth has been achieved;that is,GTAs have contributed a lot to the improvement of teaching quality,the reduction of teachers' workload as well as their professional growth.The research subjects are 10 teaching assistants in the MOOC development of Hunan University,namely Practical English Writing for International Communication.Based on the teaching development model put forward by Bell & Gilbert and Grounded Theory,data collected from teaching assistant journals and semi-structure interviews are analyzed.This study addresses the following three questions:1)What roles do GTAs play in the context of MOOC development?2)In what aspects have GTAs achieved professional growth in the context of MOOC development?3)What are the influencing factors for GTAs' professional growth in the context of MOOC development?Three research findings are: 1)In MOOC development,graduate assistants mainly play seven roles: assistants,teachers,learners,researchers,team promoters,course promoters,and technical managers.2)During this process,they have made remarkable growth from professional,personal and social aspects.Its main manifestations are the improvement of teaching knowledge and ability,the transformation of teaching belief,the development of MOOC management ability and research ability,the improvement of self-awareness,the change of working attitude,the enlightenment of professional affection,the establishment of social relations of equality and mutual trust.However,there are obvious deficiencies in the improvement of technical skills and self-regulation ability(regulating the pressure of assistants' tasks and academic requirements).3)The development of GTAs is influenced by their personalities,self-reflection,individual interests and needs,support from team and students,task arrangement and requirements,and job-hunting and academic pressures.The findings of this study can help to understand the needs of graduate assistants' professional growth as well as the possibility to achieve better development in the future.There still exist some limitations:(1)The sample is limited: only ten GTAs were involved in the study.(2)The investigation time is relatively short.Further investigation can be conducted with more research subjects in the future.