Working with Patrisia

I worked with Patrisia a couple of times after she determined that she would benefit from additional assistance. She was not someone who would participate in class unless called upon, and she was equally as hesitant to ask in class about things that she did not understand. For her the opportunity to work with me allowed for a review of material that we were covering throughout the course, from parts of speech to more complex structures like phrases and clauses. The ability to ask me questions without the fear of being judged by her classmates gave Patrisia a comfortable space where concerns could be addressed and where learning could be had.

Certainly she became more confident and that confidence carried over into the classroom. Her performance improved though it certainly cannot be attributed to the tutoring primarily. I believe it was more a combination of additional assistance that became built into the test and classroom, and the new can-do attitude that she brought to the learning grammar. I just had to show her that this was not hard and that there was a logic to things and that it was a matter of her believing in herself and her ability.

Hours for Tutoring and Workshops

I gave a workshop 4 times to a total of 4 (different) students. They were each an hour or so long. I met Patrisia twice outside of class for a total of 4 hours approximately.

Final Reflection

When you say that modeling the right academic habits is important for new learners to the college setting, it did not register with me . Not until, anyway, I was sitting in class and one of the students, upon noticing that you were a couple of minutes late, stated "if she wants us to be on time then she should be too." This was when I got what it really means to be consistent in the kind of presentation and expectations that one has for students. If I intend to hold students to standards, it is not right for me to compromise those standards for my own benefit. How can students possibly see me with any credibility or for that matter how can they really buy into the performance I want from them if my suggestions for them are only for them? These students need to understand why it is important to do what I ask of them, and if I don’t follow the same rules, then it is difficult to stress the gravity of my statements.

Though the student was making a jest, it does have truth and when I enter my future classroom, how I present myself and how that matches how I expect them to present themselves will be on my mind.

12th Week

It is very interesting to see the progress that has been made by certain (actually by many) of the students in the class. After the first test, and the failed grades marked in red in the excel sheet which you sent, I thought that we would have many students who would fail the class. Many came into this course not prepared for not just advanced grammar, but for the basics. And I guess from the initial result and from my observation, I assumed the worst for the students. That was a mistake on my part. I would have been more than ready just to continue on with what I was doing and not take a second look at how I was delivering my information. I would have attributed failure to them. Now I see however that we need to adjust and make sure that if we see students struggling, we work to help them both through conferencing but also through adjustment of the lesson plan and of the assessment. This is not to say that we should make the information less comprehensive but that maybe students need more support—more modeling, more explanation—and that is most certainly reasonable. And it has clearly resulted in a very good end to the semester for many of these students.

My Response to Your March 31 Lesson and Self-Criticism

Garri, One of your strengths is that you do not hesitate to be self-critical. This is truly the best way for you to learn as teacher.

Your ppt. slides were nicely prepared. I could see that you put a lot of time into creating them. Good work!

Your explanations were clear. Your examples were well chosen. Only one example was a bit more complicated than it needed to be (it may have had an objective complement).

However, you offered too much new information in too short a time span without a break for students to practice doing some work on their own and in groups. You had told me that you would stop after about 40 minutes and let students do some sort of exercise on verbals. That was a very good plan and you should have stuck with it. This is one of the hardest lessons for new teachers to learn: to create a plan (timed out with activities) and then stick with that actual plan. It's an importnat teaching skill to learn.

Also, your students need a "time out" from being presented new information. Especially new grammar items.

What you need to do is to pay more attention to students as learners and less attention to the concepts that you are explaining. You need to look closely at students' faces and think about what they are experiencing. Do any students show signs of fatigue? Boredom? Tuning out? That is a sure sign that you need to stop and let students do some individual or group activity. Remember that teaching is a rhetorical activity in which audience is a crucially important element.

In the last 20 minutes, several students looked tired and looked as if they had had enough of grammar.

You are right that some students to not speak voluntarily in class. This is why i handed you the roster of names for you to use to call on students by name. If you are still learning their names, you can use that roster to match a name to a face. If you call on a student just one time -- that student will be more likely to volunteer to speak in the near future. By calling on a student, if you do it in a friendly and inviting tone, you are extending an invitation that is often needed and wanted by students who are shy or hesitant about their knowledge. Women can be especially hesitant about speaking in public. Even today, many women have been groomed from childhood to be "good girls" who listen and are polite and speak only when spoken to.

You can call on students in a non-threatening manner and let them off the hook if they don't know an answer. More importantly, you can ask questions that any student can respond to in order to draw all students into the circle of conversation. You should always call on students by name if at all possible. In so doing, you let students know that you see them as individuals and you care enough to learn their names and speak to them by name.

Also, it's a good idea to ask students to produce new sentences of their own in order to let them practice using verbals and other new grammar items. Production is a very good way for students to be active language learners.

To get students more actively involved, you can ask students to write on the board often and regularly in order to "share" that front of the room desk and blackboard space with students. That is a power space that is often "owned" by the teacher, who is the fountain of knowledge for students who are receiving knowledge. You can turn that idea upside down by moving your own self to the back of the room and moving students to the front of the room where they present a sentence and explain an analysis or something else. Let students into that power space.


Garri, there were several very successful aspects of your lesson: your ppt. slides were clear and well constructed, your explanations were clear, and for the most part your examples were clear. There was one sentence that was too complex for this lesson and should have been left out. That was the sentence that you asked me about ("have we covered objective complements?"). I would have erased that sentence from the slide altogether.

The bottom line is this: what students are doing as learners in a class is crucially important. Keep your eyes on students always. Pay attention to what they say and don't say, what they are doing, and to their body language. And if you see that students need to take a break, stop the class and give them a break of some kind. Adults really need to switch activities about every 20 minutes.

I am very positively impressed by your own self-criticism and I think you are right on target.

I do want to see you paying more attention to student learning experiences (and acting on what you observe) and less attention to your own explanations and presentation.

Your lessons are improving as you go along, and you are learning about teaching and learning. That is the most important part of this experience, not your actual performances in the class. Good work overall.

Barbara

Self-Assessment for March 31st Lesson

Self-Assessment Questions: Please comment on the following areas:

1. Your presentation of concepts in areas of verbals. What worked well? Where is improvement needed?

Verbals are difficult to teach, partly because students often go back to what they feel comfortable with, and that is calling anything that sounds like a verb, a verb. I made sure that students first were given a grounding in the terms---gerunds, infinitives, and participles—before moving forward with a discussion of the phrases that have these verbals as headwords. I should have limited how much time I spent asking students what they know about these terms. Unlike other lessons where brainstorming worked well, this time it seemed to confuse students and lead to questions that required visuals which would come later on in the lesson. The one positive is the increase of student participation; at least students are willing to voice their confusion, which allows me to answer questions that are probably running through many of their minds.

2. The homework assignment. What worked well? Where is improvement needed?

There was no homework. I think it would have been helpful to include a worksheet that students could take home. This would have given them an opportunity to review the material we had worked on in class. This is particularly true considering that the next time I taught they took a quiz on these same ideas. Some bridging gap would have been nice.

3. Your communications with students: What worked well? What areas need improvement?

Students participated. I, however, was off in terms of my enthusiasm for the subject. I did not feel well and my mind was slow to respond and navigate the logic that required of my presentation. This slow-down changed the tempo of the class, which while it did not produce a noticeable change in response from the students, certainly made me uncomfortable of how the session was moving. I am hoping that this won’t happen again, but I guess I have to accept that as a teacher I might not always be feeling 100% come class time, but as long as I make use of 100% of what I got, I’ll be fine.

4. Additional materials that you might have prepared for this lesson. Would you prepare any additional materials if you could teach this class again? What would they be?

Yes, I would have provided an exercise on verbals. I had it with me but I spent the lesson reviewing concepts and answering questions, which did not let us get to group work.

5. Student learning: How can you judge student learning during this session? Could anything be added to the lesson to help you assess your students' learning? Or to help them assess their learning?

Students were participating (though not all). It seems that there are a group of students that participate every class, and some that participate moderately. Some participate only when they are confused, and others sit quietly always. I guess the only way to reach those last students is to do group work, but whenever so far I have been introducing new material and that has forced me to spend time on making sure the concepts are clear. I could provide worksheets that they can take home, but I want to incorporate in-class work, where students can build of each other in learning. Group work seems easier when I am reviewing concepts that we have gone over instead of when I am introducing new things. I need to find a balance. .

6. Overall assessment of the class: How would you evaluate your lesson overall? Which areas are you most satisfied with? Which areas are you least satisfied with?

This was an off lesson. I did not feel that it was a step backwards in terms of my ability to effectively explain concepts to students. Thankfully I was able to further review the ideas during April 7^th class.

Week ninth

In creating the quiz, I followed the two previous ones that the class had taken. I provided what I thought was enough information for students to answer the questions, and included notes that would obviate the students' search for terms during the quiz. The directions were step-by-step, with intention to not confuse and to provide clarity in my expectations for their response. And in terms of content, sentences were kept short and simple to allow students to focus on the terms being assessed, and not to be thrown off by additional variables.

Yet there were problems with the quiz. Some of it came from students feeling confused by what they were supposed to do. Even with directions, they required--as one student suggested after the quiz was done--a model in each section that would make it clear visually what was required of them. Some students were thrown of by language: one student particularly pointed to the word "modify." Though we have used this term before, it seems to not be prevalent enough in our instruction to have been internalized by her (and most likely others). The worst problem was that my effort to make things simple was mistranslated by some students as an attempt at "tricking them," that the answer was something other than the obvious one before them (I guess that problem will manifest on a quiz regardless of my efforts).

It was very interesting hearing from the students after the quiz. There comments, particularly modeling, is something I will bring to future assessments.

Week eighth

I’ve begun to incorporate name plates in the sessions with students that I tutor for the College Now program. I often work with four students each week, a group size that lends itself to instructor/student dynamics. I stand in front of the students and attempt to find common issues within their writing (all the students work on expository essays). The name plates serve a practical purpose, allowing me to call on students without the gruffness of pointing to them. There is an intimacy created when names are exchanged that I found allows students to feel that a relationship has been established which necessitates their participation. They come for tutoring sometimes of their own volition, but sometimes their instructor sends them. My reestablishment of the intimacy that they find in their classroom allows for the space that we occupy to take on familiar features, and in so doing also the etiquette that comes with that familiar space. There is also an authority that comes with asking students to write their names down, which translates to their feeling a sense of order to the session that keeps them attentive. What’s important of course is what follows the request. But this simple acts as a strong opening for the two hours that I am with them.

Self-Assessment for March 22nd Lesson

Self-Assessment Questions: Please comment on the following areas:

1. Your presentation of concepts in areas of clauses and sentences. What worked well? Where is improvement needed?

I began the lesson by reviewing concepts that the class had gone over the session before, and I spent significant time having to work through the five basic sentences because that was not yet firmly set in the students’ minds. I do not believe this is bad, considering that without the foundation we reviewed, understanding complex sentences and clauses (adjective and adverb) would have been very problematic. But this review did prevent me from reviewing nonessential and essential clauses, though since it was reviewed the following class in detail (and for the majority of the session), I think in hindsight spending time solidifying knowledge was an appropriate course of action. There was a lot of built in interaction with the students and I thought that the new material that was introduced did not seem to confuse students (though the reality of my assumption will be clarified with the test that they are taking today and on Tuesday. Again, I think that while there was more student participation, I can do better in that department without sacrificing teaching content.

2. The homework assignment. What worked well? Where is improvement needed?

There was no homework. I think it would have been helpful to include a worksheet that students could take home. This would have given them an opportunity to review the material we had worked on in class.

3. Your communications with students: What worked well? What areas need improvement?

I made sure to involve students in breaking down of sentences because I think that is the best method of clarifying how these terms they learn are applied. There was more student participation and with repeated sentence parsing, I think that the grammar we were discussing was beginning to sink in. I think it goes without question that the more these students go over the same material the more likely they will internalize the information and thus learn grammar that they can apply in their writing.

6. Additional materials that you might have prepared for this lesson. Would you prepare any additional materials if you could teach this class again? What would they be?

Yes, I would have provided an exercise on adjective and adverb clauses.

7. Student learning: How can you judge student learning during this session? Could anything be added to the lesson to help you assess your students' learning? Or to help them assess their learning?

I think asking students to break down sentences gives me an idea of whether they understand how parts of speech function in a sentence, along with how larger sequence of grammatical units affect the sentence.

8. Student participation: How would you rate student participation and engagement in this session? What worked well? In what areas is improvement needed?

Students strangely did not respond to my request for them to put out their name plates; certainly some did, but there was inconsistency. I’m not sure why this is the case but I feel they do not treat me with the same respect as they do the professor. That of course would not be a problem in my own class, but I did not make it a point in class because I did not want to waste time on this. Anyway, I thought participation was much better and some students are really coming out of their shell and participating. I need the nameplates however to call on others, but many who did not put out nameplates also do not look at me or the screen.

8. Overall assessment of the class: How would you evaluate your lesson overall? Which areas are you most satisfied with? Which areas are you least satisfied with?

I feel that with each lesson I am becoming better in connecting with the students and teaching the material. I need to keep doing lessons and revisiting information to help students internalize what they might not have on the first exposure.

Week seventh

If there is one thing that I have come to appreciate as a co-teacher, it is the scope of commitment that a person must make when becoming a teacher. Being an educator is not an in-class only job: there is so much outside work that is done, be it lesson planning, conferencing or tutoring students. To not do those things would mean short changing the students, yet to do all those things means learning how to prioritize and manage multiple responsibilities, particularly in consideration of the fact that both k-12 and higher education teachers often hold other positions to compensate their income because they are not paid in commensuration with the amount of work that is required of them as teachers. I can take this political and speak on the lowering of education quality when the professionals who are asked to do the job cannot keep their mind solely focused on it, but that's for another time. At this time, all I can say is it would be better to have one's lesson plan laid out before the semester begins. Otherwise, it is difficult to focus on class preparation in addition to the myriad of other responsibilities that present themselves during the course of a semester.

Week six

I decided to co-teach grammar because I thought it would provide me with an opportunity to learn how to be a more effective teacher. I never thought that I would learn how to better parse sentences. I have been working with clauses and phrases and I finally have a clear picture of how they function in a sentence, and now I feel empowered to teach students about grammatical deconstruction, though I wish we would have spent more time on sentence diagramming, which would help in visually illustrating the breakdown of the sentence.

Do I think knowing grammar thoroughly is helpful in teaching grammar? Absolutely. Not because I want to tell my students the grammar terms, but because I can assist a student with any sentence, helping them examine the parts that make up its whole and in so doing, give them a better understanding about how the terms they learn in class come together in a sentence.

We need to devote more class time to working on sentence breakdown. I will have the students do that March 22, and hopefully it will be a successful exercise.

Self-Assessment for March 10th Lesson

Self-Assessment Questions: Please comment on the following areas:

1. Your presentation of concepts in areas of prepositions and prepositional phrases. What worked well? Where is improvement needed?

I like conducting brainstorming at the beginning of sessions but I wanted to add something new to the equation, which is why I included the squirrel/tree visual presentation. I thought it was an effective way to ease into the topic of prepositions, and it was a cute mnemonic device that students could use in the future. More importantly it was a visual tool that complemented the discussion of prepositions, and it was another means to draw students into participating. I am a proponent of understanding words by examining their etymological roots, and discussion of prepositions particularly benefited from a breakdown in the word; I think it cleared some of the confusion regarding when to use the word. I also liked used the Hemingway paragraph because it lent itself to a discussion of particles, verbal phrases and prepositional phrases. My biggest concern for this lesson was the limited number of students who participated. I need to give them an opportunity to practice the grammar more in groups.

2. The homework assignment. What worked well? Where is improvement needed?

I did not assign homework, but I did say that I would provide students with a worksheet on phrasal verbs because I saw that they were still confused. I have posted that worksheet in assignments and have announced to students that they can fill it out and send it to me for correction.

3. Your communications with students: What worked well? What areas need improvement?

I feel that with the powerpoint the students are less confused and that I often answer their questions before they ask them. There is less need to retrace steps and more opportunity to practice concepts. I just wish there was more participation from the students.

4. Your use of the computer and internet: What worked well? What areas need improvement?

Using powerpoint has become a great tool but at the same time a crutch. The organization that it provides me allows for a structured lesson, yet it hinders my ability to adjust when technical difficulties present themselves. I need to find a balance between creating a structured lesson that is supplemented by the visual presentation of a PowerPoint, and being flexible to talk without it.

5. Your one-page exercise. How effective was it for presenting the concepts to students? Could the flyer be improved? If so, how?

The exercise was a good way to get them talking to each other (and in doing so have them become more comfortable), and the exercise was useful to touch on the different aspects of the lesson that I planned to go over. However, there could have been a better intertwining of the worksheets and the material. One student vocalized her confusion, which was a result of the organization that I chose to use, though I do believe she found things made sense once I began to link ideas to the examples found in the exercise.

6. Additional materials that you might have prepared for this lesson. Would you prepare any additional materials if you could teach this class again? What would they be?

Yes, I would have provided the phrasal verb exercise in class so that they could have a physical copy to work on at home.

7. Student learning: How can you judge student learning during this session? Could anything be added to the lesson to help you assess your students' learning? Or to help them assess their learning?

I would include more group exercises, though I would need to start on time the lesson.

8. Student participation: How would you rate student participation and engagement in this session? What worked well? In what areas is improvement needed?

There are a number of students that are always participating while others sit quietly listening. The nameplates allow me to call on students who are quiet; however, this often means navigating through uncomfortable silences and attempting to tease out answers from the student. I think the best alternative will be to give more in-class exercises so that they could at least become vocal in their groups.

8. Overall assessment of the class: How would you evaluate your lesson overall? Which areas are you most satisfied with? Which areas are you least satisfied with?

I failed in terms of time management. The technical difficulties and my late arrival hurt the lesson. The content worked but I did not get to objects of the prepositions which was the final piece to my preposition puzzle. I cannot afford to be late again for both the students and the integrity of the lesson.

Week five

Reading Neuleib and Brosnahan's "Teaching Grammar to Writers" has made me question whether the students in Advanced Grammar will be able to transfer the knowledge that they have gained in this class to their writing. From listening to their initial introductions and reading the form that you had them fill out at the beginning of class, there are many who see this class as a means to make their writing better. But can a semester course allow for true internalization of concepts? Can presentation and review of terms be enough without further independent study? Meckel's Research in Written Composition study concludes that a semester is "a span much too short to permit development of the degree of conceptualization necessary for transfer to take place." So what can we do? I need to start pushing far more group exercises where students are given opportunity to apply what they are learning. Merely having them able to classify grammatical units is not enough; they must be able to demonstrate an ability to take rules and use them in editing. This would be a true link between focal grammar knowledge and desire to improve their writing.

Self-Assessment for March 8th Lesson

Self-Assessment Questions: Please comment on the following areas:

1. Your presentation of concepts in areas of modal auxiliary verbs. What worked well? Where is improvement needed?

I managed my time well in presenting modals, which is good considering there was so much to cover. Aside from reviewing what are modals (which I liked doing through brainstorming), we were able to better understand what are modals and to look at relationships between modals, There was a significant difference between the first lesson and this lesson, and the tool that allow for that was PowerPoint. In the future however I wish to incorporate group work into the lesson so that students feel they have more interaction with the material.

2. The homework assignment. What worked well? Where is improvement needed?

There was no homework assigned for the lesson, though I should have given that the modal exercise worksheet that I had on hand.

3. Your communications with students: What worked well? What areas need improvement?

With the Powerpoint there is less confusion, because I am more organized and I am more prepared to answer students questions, having already thought about potential grammar issues and addressed them in the visual presentation.

6. Additional materials that you might have prepared for this lesson. Would you prepare any additional materials if you could teach this class again? What would they be?

Yes, I would have provided an exercise on modal verbs that students could do in class.

7. Student learning: How can you judge student learning during this session? Could anything be added to the lesson to help you assess your students' learning? Or to help them assess their learning?

I would include a group exercise, without one I it is me talking and them answering and I want to break that dynamic and have them work together and learn through scaffolding.

8. Student participation: How would you rate student participation and engagement in this session? What worked well? In what areas is improvement needed?

The nameplates were very useful because no matter where the eyesight of the student is, I can always call on them. This keeps students paying attention. But there was far more participation this time, then there was the first class.

8. Overall assessment of the class: How would you evaluate your lesson overall? Which areas are you most satisfied with? Which areas are you least satisfied with?

This lesson was much better overall from the first class. However, I need to maintain contact with you when creating my lesson; otherwise you are left in the dark and I too do not know if there have been any changes to what you intend to do on that day.

Week four

At the moment, I have seen little student interest in meeting with me to discuss grammar issues. I assume that this is partly a result of unawareness of where their own issues lie, coupled with possibly the sense that with study all that which is now confusing will be made clear. I am curious whether come results of the first exam, students become more willing to make contact. We will certainly extend the invite, but how many will take that opportunity?

From conducting groups, I see that some students are confused by basic concepts, and though the size is 10 instead of 27, those who are struggling, I believe, hide their confusion out of not wanting to have others perceive them as falling behind. I might need to make time to speak with some of these students (or maybe I wont if the test grade tells a different story) and offer to work with them one-on-one.

Third Week

This class benefits from group work because the groups are led by a teacher who maintains the direction of the conversation. There is no worry that the content of the group work will be dominated by what you did over the weekend? As one teacher, however, it is difficult to maintain that same focus when assigning group work in a class of 27 students . Even if the teacher monitors the activity, there are always intervals when she is not and when the students can shift away from the activity given.

Now if the students are not familiar with each other, I think it is easier for them to keep on track, but when they know each other and it is a small group, then it is easier to get sidetracked. In a big class, if group work is introduced at the beginning of the semester, there will probably be in every group people who you are not familiar with and so though having a friend might distract you if you were working with just him, being part of this bigger group will keep the conversation on the assignment. As the semester continues, the students become more familiar with each other, but by that time they should have established the group activity as one focused on the assignment and not an opportunity to converse about things outside of class.

I still prefer having teachers leading the groups. It ensures that the activity will be followed through. But if you do not have the luxury of added teachers in the classroom, group work can be done if a group culture is established that is concerned with completing the work. And that can be done by making students understand that the groups will be asked to present to the class after they have finished.

Self-Assessment for February 17th

Self-Assessment Questions: Please comment on the following areas:

1. Your presentation of concepts in areas of of morphology and word formation processes. What worked well? Where is improvement needed?

I thought opening the class with a discussion of nonce words was useful in leading into a discussion of morphemes and connecting the conversation to "truthiness" was a useful way to contextualize the discussion and provide a constant referent for processes we were discussing. Similarly, the handout with word formation processes was also useful as a reference tool and allowed students to transfer examples that they and I thought up to the page.

However, I did a poor job differentiating between inflectional and derivational morphemes, and I should have had examples for each process of word formation on hand instead of trying to recall what I had read. I need to emphasize more the point that we have different prefixes and suffixes in English that allow us to create different class words, resulting in people who have never met each other possibly ending up creating the same word (though possibly with a different usage)

2. The homework assignment. What worked well? Where is improvement needed?

I did not assign homework, but I did ask students to come in having read a number of articles. Only about half the class did what was asked. And while I was not dependent on the readings, I think that had they did read they would be able to put the information in a context that would allow them to comprehend more of the lesson.

3. Your communications with students: What worked well? What areas need improvement?

I felt that students were participating and asking many questions, and that when I did call on them, they were not cut off or corrected, though I did pose additional questions to them and challenged them on their statements. What I wish I had not done was dismiss without following up the question about allamorphs. Also I expected too much that students would give me the answers I was looking for and so I was not well prepared to deal with answers that were tangentially related.

4. Your use of the computer and internet: What worked well? What areas need improvement?

I wanted to use the computer to look up on the OED, but that was met with technical difficulties. I did explain how to get on OED, but that would have been better accompanied with visuals. I also got wrapped up in answering questions and discussing morphology that I never actually showed the Colbert clip. I think that a visual would have broken up the dynamic of the lesson in a good way and allowed for the students who had not seen the clip or read the article I provided, to get a sense of what we were talking about.

5. Your one-page flyer on word formation processes. How effective was this flyer for presenting the concepts to students? Could the flyer be improved? If so, how?

The one page flyer was useful in giving students a referent for the information. I originally thought about adding examples for each process, but I do not think that would be a good idea. I think it's better to have the students think about examples and then use the space provided to write them down. This way they are actively engaging the material but there is information on the page that is acting as a guide also.

6. Additional materials that you might have prepared for this lesson. Would you prepare any additional materials if you could teach this class again? What would they be?

Yes, I would prepare a list of nonce words which would both help students to see what such words look like and provide a generated list of words to play with when we start discussing processes for word formation.

7. Student learning: How can you judge student learning during this session? Could anything be added to the lesson to help you assess your students' learning? Or to help them assess their learning?

When students gave examples and asked questions following up on what I had said, I could see that they were listening and that they were responding to the information that I was providing. If I had given them a worksheet where they would have to look at words and see which process for word formation is taking place and then collect it, I would have a better sense of what still needs clearing up for each student.

8. Student participation: How would you rate student participation and engagement in this session? What worked well? In what areas is improvement needed?

Many students were participating. But I wish I was not going to the same students for answers. I did sometimes ask students who were sitting quietly but for the most part, I went to the ones who were raising their hands. I need to make all students feel that they need to be listening and ready to respond, and the way I see to do that is to ask those who are trying to avoid the discussion by sitting behind others, or sitting in my periphery.

8. Overall assessment of the class: How would you evaluate your lesson overall? Which areas are you most satisfied with? Which areas are you least satisfied with?

I thought the structure of the lesson was good and allowed for ample opportunity to interact with the class. I do wish I could have better assessed the class by having them complete a worksheet (maybe I should have assigned that as homework since the lesson was not designed for group work, which is what I would have set up if they were to do such an assessment in class). In the future, I need to be better prepared to answer questions about peripheral morphological terms that might be brought up, and I should better differentiate between inflectional and derivational morphemes, maybe by creating a handout on them. What I fear is that students became confused by my lesson, though I believe if there is a positive to this lesson, it is that the students had an opportunity to talk about words at their inception, and to think about words in terms of trends and not as ever present in our dictionaries.

Second Week

A student had asked why the perfect tense is called perfect and we had no answer. I still do not have a definitive response, though the explanation might be in the fact that "complete" is one of the definitions to the word. Nonetheless, the question raises a couple of issues for the teacher.

The first of which is that the script that you have prepared will be challenged, often by questions that veer so tangentially from the direction you were going that an answer for their question is not at the ready, and if it is, it is often a long one that would eat up the clock. In response to this situation, I see two things needing to happen: (1) there must be consideration taken for unexpected questions when creating the lesson plan; one must think about how students process the questions you pose, seeing how they might interpret and respond to them. Also (2) there needs to be a culture established in the classroom of having students act as equal participants in the discovery of information. It should not be the teacher's job solely to provide the answer; students need to know that some questions are theirs to research, and that the answer they do discover is welcomed and encouraged in the classroom.

The other issue is potentially being frustrated by the question, and because of that fumbling the rest of the lesson. A teacher needs to learn to shake off a bad moment and continue with the game plan. And most importantly the students need to see that the teacher is in control of the class and that though questions are welcomed, those questions wont derail the lesson, though there probably would be occasions when an abandoning of the lesson in favor of restructuring the class around a question that is posed is OK.

First Week

I understand the importance of introductions: familiarity goes a long way in making the environment conducive to learning. But for most of my time in school, those introductions have been structured within a dynamic that creates a separation between teacher and student. The teacher would introduce herself and then have everyone introduce themselves to the class, though it would always be directed to her given the arrangement of classroom space. There would not be that extra step taken to have students interact with each other, becoming acquainted with a person who would act as the first tether connecting the student to the rest of the class. And so without that social element, the comfort space which comes with really knowing your classroom peers would not be established. This is not to say that students whose personality tends toward introvert would suddenly become active talkers, but the familiar space would create an atmosphere that was removed of some of the timidity that comes with first day orientation.

That was the case in this class. Students seemed far more relaxed and willing to listen and respond after they had introduced themselves to other students. Though the conversations with each other were brief, it allowed for a more intimate getting-to-know-you. This idea of knowing your classmates was further reinforced with the arrangement of chairs in two semi-circles which created a space where students had an easier time seeing each other (though not everyone) and though the students often would still address the teacher, the fact that the traditional arrangement of space was broken at least added a different feel to the class, though I'm not sure whether it will impact their learning.

Your Blog

Hi Garri,
This is a good place for you to post your lesson plans for upcoming teaching dates. I can respond to your lessons here and you will have a running record of our dialogue
Please post comments from Weeks 1 and 2 and continue to post at least one observational comment here each week (during the week). I will check your blog for your comments and respond to them regularly.
Barbara