The Use of Teaching Assistants in Project Based Learning at Aerospace Engineering

Project-based learning by its nature requires a lot of staff efforts in terms of tutoring of the project groups. At the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, traditionally in the first two years of the BSc degree use is made of senior and Master students to take over part of the tutoring role from the academic staff. This is due to the fact that in the Netherlands the number of PhD students and academic staff per 100 students is relatively low in comparison to the US. This paper describes how these assistants are used in the projects, what their responsibilities are, and the need for training. The pros and cons of using teaching-assistants in project-based learning are also discussed with a clear look at the ethical side of the use of teaching-assistants. Also a close look was taken at the limitations of the use of teaching-assistants