NEWS

Congratulations to Dr. Nicolette Maggiore! She is the group's first PhD graduate, which also means it was Ira's first participatory hooding ceremony! It was a great defense and a lovely graduation celebration of Nicolette's accomplishments over the last five years. Nicolette will stay in the Caspari group as a postdoctoral scholar working on Ira's new CAREER grant!

December 2025 

New Paper Publication!

Nicolette's work on LA-supported course design and LA-student interactions was published in Science Education! Here, we present a drivers-of-LA-action model with empirical evidence that connects across the macro level of LA-supported course design and the micro level of LA-student interactions to understand how course activity system design drives LA goals, actions, and student in-the-moment learning in interactions. Congratulations to all who contributed to this outstanding, empirical work! Check out the paper here. 

Anais and Nicolette attended and each gave a presentation at the International Learning Assistant Conference in Boulder, CO! Following the conference, they escaped to Rocky Mountain National Park for a day to reflect on all that they learned from those in the LA community. 

Undergraduate researchers Annabelle and Orrin presented posters on their work at a biology and chemistry undergraduate research symposium!

September 2025

New Paper Publication!

Julia's work on student agency and coherence was published in Chemistry Education Research and Practice! Their work found that transforming complex mechanism tasks from single-case to case-comparison problems provide students with different opportunities to enact epistemic agency and engage in coherent reasoning during discourse. Congratulations to all who contributed to this amazing work! Check out the paper here. 

Backyard BBQ at Ira's House!

August 2025

IRLI Summer Scholars Research Symposium

July 2025

Gordon Research Conference - Chemistry Education Research and Practice

Ira and Nicolette attended and presented a poster, a presentation, and a demo pedagogy lesson at the International Learning Assistant Conference in Boulder, CO! They explored a beautiful walking trail in South Boulder to wrap up a weekend full of great conversation with others in the LA Alliance and hatch green chili bagel sandwiches. 

Nicolette's work on the impact of LA facilitation on student in-the-moment learning was published in the International Journal of STEM Education! This work found that dialogic and authoritative facilitation practices led to differences in LA- and student-centered learning, and how socioemotional aspects can be added to either type of facilitation. Congratulations to all who contributed to this extraordinary work! Check out the paper here. 

Ira's work in collaboration with those involved in the Listening Project was published in the Journal of College Science and Teaching! A close analysis was done on a single episode of instructor listening, where an instructor of a 140-student introductory chemistry course (Ira) deliberately elicited and made sense of student reasoning to contribute to a collective learning process that values listening. Congratulations to all who contributed to this extraordinary work! Check out the paper here. 

Jessica's work on the implementation of LAs in large, introductory STEM courses was published in the International Journal of STEM Education! This work found that each LA developed unique practices that reciprocally shaped and were shaped by the activity system in which they worked. Congratulations to all who contributed to this extraordinary work! Check out the paper here. 

Jessica's work on student in-the-moment learning in LA-student interactions was published in Science Education! This work developed a framework to study in-the-moment learning through the lens of continuity and discourse change. Congratulations to all who contributed to this extraordinary work! Check out the paper here. 

March 2024

The group is excited to welcome a new postdoctoral scholar, Julia!! 🥳

November 2023

The group is thrilled to welcome TWO new graduate students to the group, Anais and Lee!! 🥳

July 2023

Gordon Research Conference - Chemistry Education Research and Practice

June 2023

New Paper Publication!

Carina's work on LA facilitation practices expanded the binary of authoritative and dialogic and was published in the International Journal of Stem Education! Congratulations to all who contributed to this extraordinary work! Check out the paper here. 

May 2023

Group Picnic

April 2023 

NARST 96th Annual Conference

November 2022

The group is enthusiastic to welcome Chinwendu as a graduate student! 🥳

August 2022

BCCE - Purdue University

July 2022 

Summer Research Group Picture

May 2022

Backyard BBQ at Ira's House!

May 2022 

Carina's Senior Honors Thesis Defense!

January 2022 

Spring Semester Research Group Picture

2022

November 2021

The group is so excited to welcome Nicolette as the first graduate student! 🥳

June 2021

The group is eager to welcome Jessica as a postdoctoral researcher! 🥳

2021