Jackson CO #1

  Date/Time: Wednesday, 6/23, 9:00am

Topic/Skill: Composition, specifically definition essays for paragraphs, Group 1

Teacher Presentation: The professor spent the first 15 minutes of the lecture reviewing the previous day's topic and leading into today's topic. He gave an example of a definition paragraph he had written about coffee and illustrated the steps taken to write such a paragraph. Then, he gave the students about 15 minutes to begin writing a paragraph of their own, checked in after that time, then gave them a little more time to finish up. 

Classroom management: The professor presented nice and slow, making sure that his speech was comprehensible and he said each thing in 2 different ways to make sure students understood. After every few minutes, rather than asking if students had any questions, he would ask, "Do you need anymore information about what I have just presented," which I thought was an interesting and effective way of checking in with students without making them feel stupid. He did not reprimand those who were late to class, but simply invited them to sit down and begin participating. 

Materials: The professor used minimal materials, just a canvas page with a quiz, which were both projected onto the whiteboard. All the students could follow along on their own laptops. The quiz was actually where students would submit their work, but it appeared to be untimed so as not to rush them and give them as much time as needed to feel comfortable writing their paragraphs. 

Student Participation: There were 6 students in class and one on zoom. Everyone seemed engaged and active, and no one seemed to hesitate if they had questions or were unclear about what was going on, about which I was quite impressed. This class was focused on writing so there was not a whole lot of discussion, but students still appeared very engaged. 

Feedback provided: This class was for very elementary students, so the majority of the feedback was correcting comprehension errors from the presentation at the beginning of class. In addition, the professor corrected basic punctuation, like capitalization and comma placement, in addition to explaining terms that students were unclear about or using incorrectly. 

Lessons learned about teaching: I was quite surprised by how active and unafraid to ask questions the students were, especially for being of such a low level of English. To me, this was encouraged by the professor's ability to talk slow and methodical, explaining everything and encouraging students at every step of the way. Whenever there were questions, he would go over and read what they wrote and made sure to complement some part of their work before moving on to any criticism. This method of teaching illustrated to me just how powerful positive reinforcement can be to helping students take control of their education and be unafraid to ask about anything they are unsure about.