{"id":179314,"date":"2023-06-23T10:25:59","date_gmt":"2023-06-23T20:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=179314"},"modified":"2023-06-23T14:54:12","modified_gmt":"2023-06-24T00:54:12","slug":"students-future-educators-la-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2023\/06\/23\/students-future-educators-la-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Students, future educators supported by Learning Assistant Program"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"Learning<\/p>\n

When Kaeo Lee was an undergraduate student majoring in math, he had the opportunity to help his fellow students through the University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at M\u0101noa Learning Assistant (LA<\/abbr>) Program<\/a>. In this position, he worked with small groups of students to create an active learning environment which broke down the material covered by professors, transforming the traditional way of teaching and learning.<\/p>\n

Lee was an LA<\/abbr> for math classes from 2020 to 2022 and admits the biggest challenge arose when students insisted they couldn\u2019t do math or were too afraid to ask for help.<\/p>\n

“I didn\u2019t want them to feel stressed about asking questions, so I would remind them that I was a student just like them—I just happened to like math and wanted to help my peers understand math too,” Lee said. “After gaining my peers\u2019 trust, we were able to communicate better and they realized that they were more capable than they thought. It was so fulfilling to see them have their ‘aha’ moments when they finally understood complex concepts or answered a difficult problem by themselves.”<\/p>\n