Learning Assistant Program

About Learning Assistants at Peer Connections

A Learning Assistant (LA) is an undergraduate student who assists faculty in a course by facilitating small-group in-class activities (e.g., discussions of clicker questions, problem-solving in groups, or making sense of phenomena observed in experiments).  During these activities, LAs invite students to share their thinking and support students to reflect together on each other’s ideas and to learn collaboratively. In addition, LAs provide professors insights into the student perspective about the course and how students are doing in the course and if they are understanding the course material well or not.

Learning Assistants do not hold office hours, grade, nor do they offer tutoring outside of class. However, the LAs can connect their students to other resources such as tutoring or mentoring.  

Our LA program proudly follows an internationally recognized model developed at the University of Colorado and is a member of the Learning Assistant Alliance.

What does a Learning Assistant do?

• attend SCED 174 with other LAs to learn fundamentals of teaching STEM
• assist the instructor in class with active, inclusive course activities
• attend weekly planning meetings with your LA faculty partner

Meet our current Learning Assistants to learn more about them! 

The Spring 2026 Courses with LA support are:

I'm a faculty member - how can I get a Learning Assistant to assist with my course?

If you'd like to collaborate with Peer Connections and sign up to work with a Learning Assistant, please contact Ashley Defensor at ashley.defensor@sjsu.edu.