Observations
As a second semester teaching assistant, one of our responsibilities included observing one colleague and being observed in return. I observed another English 101S class and recorded the day. I've linked below my observation of Jenna's class and my thoughts on the observation experience.
Peer Reviewing Lesson Plans
Our first semester, we built lesson plans to deliver to our classes. The second semester, we either built new plans, revised the old plans, or did a little of both. We got a chance to take a look at some of the lesson plans that first semester UTAs had written for their classes and provide constructive comments. We were encouraged to comment on organization, effectiveness of the lesson, and to offer any other insight we might have gained during our first semesters.
The first lesson plan that I peer reviewed covered an introduction to the rhetorical analysis project. My peer had an amazing lesson plan with some incredible strengths. She had her students look over old versions of the project and assign grades to them in order to get an idea of what a cohesive rhetorical analysis looks like. She also gave her students a taste of accountability while doing this, which also got them to think about what kind of work produces the grades that they were assigning to the papers given to them. I made minor revisions on this lesson plan. It didn't need much more than that.
The second lesson plan introduced new concepts before the digital forum assignment. It incorporated an activity that used stasis maps, which helps students consider all sides of their perspectives and stakeholders when writing the digital forum. There were only a few aspects of the entire lesson that I felt the need to comment on, and even those were tiny comments that required only a little fine tuning to resolve.
Both lesson plans were undoubtedly successful. The activities looked engaging enough to promote participation between the students and their teaching assistants. I hope that my comments made a difference, but my peers' lesson plans were amazing from the first drafts.
The first lesson plan that I peer reviewed covered an introduction to the rhetorical analysis project. My peer had an amazing lesson plan with some incredible strengths. She had her students look over old versions of the project and assign grades to them in order to get an idea of what a cohesive rhetorical analysis looks like. She also gave her students a taste of accountability while doing this, which also got them to think about what kind of work produces the grades that they were assigning to the papers given to them. I made minor revisions on this lesson plan. It didn't need much more than that.
The second lesson plan introduced new concepts before the digital forum assignment. It incorporated an activity that used stasis maps, which helps students consider all sides of their perspectives and stakeholders when writing the digital forum. There were only a few aspects of the entire lesson that I felt the need to comment on, and even those were tiny comments that required only a little fine tuning to resolve.
Both lesson plans were undoubtedly successful. The activities looked engaging enough to promote participation between the students and their teaching assistants. I hope that my comments made a difference, but my peers' lesson plans were amazing from the first drafts.