Articulating activity goals and objectives are a crucial part of the weekly preparation sessions. In this clip [from Chicago State University] we see two faculty and two LAs describing a particular activity in two sections of a general chemistry course. The faculty start this discussion explaining the specific objectives of the activity and where they want their students to be in their understanding.

Since LAs are farther in their studies than the students they are supporting, sometimes LAs bring in additional knowledge and more quantitative approaches to solving tasks - stoichiometry in this case. But the intent of the activity is to think more conceptually about the problem, focusing on ratios and proportional reasoning to understand the mole and molar mass. This results in a rich discussion between the LAs and the faculty about (1) why this particular conceptual thinking is so important to stress and (2) areas where students in the class were struggling with this particular idea. This discussion led the faculty to completely redesign the activity using weighable ratios of popcorn and M&Ms the following semester.