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.