Writing

GTA/Adjunct Observation Form

Instructor:
Holli Downs
Class Level:
English 1013 Section: 34
Special designations: None
Observer:
Dr. Scott

Instructor rank: GTA
Term:
Spring 2015

Date: 4/1/15

Use of Class Time
# of students present on time: 17

# of students enrolled: 24
Did most students arrive on time?


Yes
Did instructor arrive by the scheduled start of class?
Yes
Did instructor start class on time?


Yes
Did instructor use all available class time?

Yes
Did instructor post or distribute an agenda? Yes
Indicate what percentage of class time was alloted to each focus of learning below:
Lecture (including instructions) Negligible (010%)

Discussion


Light (1133%)
(check all that apply below)
Students doing most of the talking, guided by instructor
o
Students doing most of the talking, unguided
o
Instructor doing most of the talking
o
Instructor asking questions, students answering, and instructor elaborating at length before next
o
question
Video/multimedia instruction Negligible (010%)
(check all that apply below)
Students & instructor passive (footage plays uninterrupted)
o
Instructor actively annotates multimedia (pausing to comment, etc.), but students mostly passive
o
o
Instructor and students both taking action periodically
Activity/exercises

Heavy (5175%)
(check all that apply below)
o
Individual
Collaborative
o
Writingcentered activity (inclass essays, freewriting, journal entries, sentence combining, etc.)
o
Talkcentered activities (peer review, collaborative planning, etc.)
o
Tests, quizzes
o
Competitive activities (debates, etc.)
o
Critical thinking exercises (puzzles, problemsolving)
o
Grammar, usage, sentenceconstruction exercises
o
Other
o
Dead/inefficient/inactive time Negligible (010%)
o Comment on any dead or wasted time, or observed inefficiencies affecting a large portion of the class:


Narrative (optional): Before class even starts, Ms. Downs has the basic features for the Explaining a Concept genre
listed on the left side of the board and an agenda on the right side. Between them on an overhead, she is using the
document projector to show which exercise from the textbook she is using. She hits the ground running, forecasting
the agenda and issuing instructions for students to back up their comments on the discussion board. (I may have
misunderstood, but it looks as though they reuse the same discussion board forum for the early stages of each
assignment, and she wants it cleaned out each time they reboot with another assignment. The students are not
confused, so I'm guessing this is routine.)

Once they are done saving their discussion board posts, Ms. Downs uses the textbook's example of a concept paper
(about love) as a model, showing what the first step from the overhead exercise would have looked like if Toufexis,
the author of the sample essay, had completed it. The first step in question is to define the concept. This takes maybe
a minute. Then Ms. Downs has the students do the same step using their own paper topics. The second question is
when experts first became aware of the concept or when experts first became interested in the particular narrow
question about the concept that the paper is focusing on. Students have to do some initial research to answer this
question. By the time this step is done, most students have two sentences. In each case, students move from a model
and quick runthrough to applying lessons to their own projects in real time a pedogogically sound practice. When
students ask interesting questions, she makes the most of them: "______ asks a good question: 'Are we looking for the

person who *invented* racism?'" She steers students toward reformulating the miniprompt, in this case, as "Scholars
began studying racism in earnest _____(when and under what circumstances)____."

Finally, she has the students write a few students about why their concepts are important to people, after which
students team up to review what they have and to brainstorm research questions. The class ends up in three groups,
rolling chairs to cluster up at three points around the classroom. Recognizing that the teams are likely to lose track of
instructions after being split up, and realizing that it's almost impossible to address students collectively in a room
like this after they've grouped up in three separate circles (the circles are closed to anyone at the head of the class),
she moves from team to team, starting with the fastest to form, giving each team the next set of instructions
separately. The instructions: share ideas for concept papers with peers; explain what you have so far; come up with
67 research questions to pursue outside of class.

When one group (the last one to fully form) starts to lag because half of the members are still queued at the printer,
Ms. Downs sees and addresses it: "Since some of you are still picking up material at the printer, why don't those of
you who are done start now?' In that manner, she ensures no dead time and keeps the teams on task. (She seems to
recognize that the exercise's primary value is to the person who is speaking, not to those who listen thus it's more
important to manage the time to ensure everyone ends up speaking than to ensure that everyone hears everything.)

During the huddlings, Ms. Downs moves actively among the teams, prompting additional questions. When one raises a
fairly broad concept (belief), she encourages them to help define the concept by thinking about what *isn't* belief,
and this ultimately leads to a smallgroup discussion of how that topic might be narrowed. When one of the students
in the group starts raising points about how lots of "facts" might really be beliefs, she acknowledges the move by
saying, "You might not realize it, but you sound like a real postmodernist right now." This sort of recognition is,
according to the literature on cognition and motivation, more effective than praise and more effective than ignoring
what was said. It encourages more thinking of that sort without tying ego to such activities and so that the student is
less likely to feel personally threatened by making errors.

During one of the team discussions, a student asks how long the papers have to be. Ms. Downs answers "900 to 1400
words." The students seem to deflate, intimidated by the size of the papers. Ms. Downs' response is a model for other
faculty, being neither concialiatory nor defensive: "It's okay. We'll work through that. By the time you're done with
these exercises, you should have lots of material to draw from. *In fact, I think we'll talk later about how we might go
beyond that a bit*." (Emphasis added). Student: "Beyond what? Do you mean even more pages?" Ms Downs, grinning:
"Yes!" Having delivered the news that students might be encouraged or expected to turn in papers longer than the
stated range, Ms. Downs leaves the group and the students there are paradoxically more comfortable. In her
response, Ms. Downs has shown both that she is highly confident in their ability to meet the length goals (or more!)
and that she thinks a richer, longer paper is a good thing thus, complaining about page counts isn't likely to get a lot
of traction with her. She's supportive and encouraging without yielding. She has also, of course, taken the moment as
an opportunity to reinforce the value of the activities at hand.

The student discussions in all three groups are ontask, rich, lively. Students talk about realism and Barbie, the
situation in Ferguson, research directions. When all of the teams have completed, she scatters them back to their
seats and takes the front of the classroom again.

"Was that helpful?" she asks. A chorus of YESSES.

"Could someone tell me *how*?" she asks, pushing them from simple evaluation to metacognition, and she collects
several answers. When one of them refers to collecting multiple "perspectives," she says, "I like that word
'perspective,' and that's a good segue to research, because that's what you're doing when researching. You're
collecting the perspectives of experts in the field." And with that metacognitive transition, she moves them swiftly
into researching answers to the questions they just developed. She quickly introduces them to Google Scholar as a
tool and then sets them loose to search. Students are to save links to their sources to the discussion board.

During the research step, she remains active, moving smoothly among students who have questions and looking over
the shoulders of those who are working silently, occasionally making remarks: "Those are good questions."

TeacherStudent Interaction
On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 is best; 3 is normal), rate how ontask students were in the class you observed:
5Exemplary degree of ontask behavior
Note any of the teacherstudent relation issues in this dropdown list, if they exist: None
Note any of the delivery or publicspeaking issues in this dropdown list, if they exist: None

Expertise/Understanding of Material
On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 is expert, 3 is acceptable, 1 is a problem), rate the instructors command of the material covered
during class: 5Expertlevel

Pedagogical Approach
On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 is expert, 3 is acceptable, 1 is a problem), rate the quality of the instructors teaching strategy:
5Expertlevel

A 5 typically means that the faculty member ensures students learn through focused and welldesigned
activities that enable them to practice the skills they need. A 5 indicates, in other words, that the faculty
members approach to the class leaves little room for distraction or offtask behavior and ensures students
are engaged in the learning process.
High reliance on lecturing or passive, presentational modes might warrant a 3 if the lecturing is engaging
and organized and the talks focus on pedagogically productive principles or concepts that is, a 3 typically
indicates that students who come to class focused, prepared, and ready to pay attention will probably learn
something, even if other students are Facebooking.

A 1 indicates that even students who come prepared to learn and with solid habits are likely to learn little
or to learn the wrong things.

Overall Evaluation
How would you rate the overall quality of the learning experience you observed? Superior
Comment on observed strengths and areas needing improvement. Offer advice for future development.
Ms Downs' teaching is wellgrounded in an understanding of both the subject matter and pedagogy. She uses the book without
being trapped by it, taking portions of its exercises and combining them with her own scaffolding and examples to create
engaging and learningrich classroom activities. Her class is active: students are always working writing, reading, thinking,
questioning. There is no deadtime and yet the class never feels rushed or breathless.

Ms. Downs' delivery of material is confident, articulate, professional, and encouraging. Each class I have seen her teach, this
one included, has been highly organized. She opens with a clear agenda; the class progresses according to short, firm
instructions provided one step at a time, so students don't choke on instruction overload. Instead, they have a chance to iron
out any confusion, to catch up, and to explore the hidden challenges and complexities inherent to each step. Because the steps
are cognitively rich, students find they have followup questions, uncertainties, or ideas to test.