Você está na página 1de 2

To: Kate Perkins Tenure Committee and Kate Re: Classroom Observation February 5, 2014 On February 4th, I observed

Kates one and a half hour English 121 class on writing a process paper. Teaching Style Kate scheduled a number of different activities to help break up the class time. They included class writing time, a computer presentation, a kinesthetic activity of making a paper airplane, a small group activity, and lecture. This made it easy for students to pay attention and the time went by quickly. The students had two opportunities to write during the class time. Students seemed to write without fear (meaning they seemed to be able to write upon request as opposed to getting stuck and worrying about an inability to write.) The second opportunity to write was when students worked on the planning paper they were preparing for their process paper. They had worked on this paper for homework, and their homework for the next class was to continue to work on this assignment. Kate circulated through the classroom while students were writing, and students welcomed the help and attention and asked her questions. All were encouraged individually. From what I overheard, students were glad to get this help. When students were encouraged to participate (Come now, dont be shy), they rose to the occasion. They were clearly attentive and willing to engage. Students seemed to enjoy the class and Kates teaching style. Teaching Content The material covered emphasized the importance of providing sufficiently specific information necessary for a good process paper and the importance of addressing a target audience. Kate demonstrated the difference between poor and better process directions using an activity of making a paper airplane. She introduced two sets of directions using the projector. The first instructions were confusing after the first two steps were read. When almost no one was able to make the airplane using these directions, Kate gave a second set of instructions which relied heavily on illustrations coupled with directions. Most students were able to use these instructions to produce the airplane. While this was a fun activity and was useful to differentiate strong versus weak process steps, it seemed a bit content light. It might have been improved by, after the exercise, developing a list of criteria made one set of directions better than the other.

Kate discussed audience and listed a number of possible demographics that can be used to identify ones targeted audience. While this was good, she could have strengthened her presentation by talking about how the form, style, and content must be substantially different depending on the audience. Again, some examples and a list of some criteria would have helped her presentation. Pointing out how the form, content, and tone of a text would be substantially different if one were writing to the governor about how to run a campaign to raise the minimum wage versus if one were writing directions to elementary school students about how to milk a cow or something similar could have helped make her point. While Kates lesson plan was good inclusive and appropriate the depth of presentation raised questions for me. Since our students often have the capacity of a combination of a high school and college student this question may be one for the department as a whole. However, it seemed to me that Kates lesson was pitched to the lowest common denominator. Should other observers agree with this comment, Ive no doubt that Kate would be able to ratchet up the depth of her content.

Você também pode gostar