This was a very interesting assignment for me because I have been TA-ing for the same professor that I had for ENGL101, so I have never experienced being in another English class. I observed Erin’s ENGL101 class, which meets for an hour and fifteen minutes every Tuesday and Thursday in a physical classroom. I used to be in the same situation, except now my Thursday class meets online. They are in a pretty big classroom and I think that her class has more students than mine, but I did not actually count every student, so I can’t be sure.
I showed up about 5 minutes early, and when I walked into the classroom, I asked who their TA is, but Erin was already in the room. She told me to sit behind her, while she sat in the front row with the students. This is different from the classroom layout in my class because our room is much smaller, and I sit with the professor, facing the students. This can be a little awkward sometimes though because I sit in front of the chalkboard and sometimes block the text. In her class this is not an issue, yet because the desks are more spread out, I noticed that there was not much interaction amongst the students at the start of class. If the students talked to each other, it was very quietly, whereas in my class, the students are typically talking with each other or to me and the professor before the start of class.
I was very impressed at Erin because she was acting as the professor for the day. Typically, when I give a lesson plan, it will only take up 25-30 minutes of class time, but she took up the whole 75 minutes with a lecture about her students’ rhetorical analysis theses. She didn’t even need a PowerPoint to help her think of her points. During the lecture, the students were pretty engaged and even shared some of their own experiences with writing. When they went into breakout sessions, they tended to get quieter, as they did with the start of class. This is the opposite of what I am used to because my students are typically pretty loud during breakout sessions, yet are much slower to answer questions during the lecture part of the lesson plan.
Overall, I thought this was a very interesting exercise to see what it is like being a TA for another English class. Erin was amazing at leading the class on such an important topic as their rhetorical analysis theses! I feel like I learned a lot from her about facilitating the students during and after giving her lecture. It was also really cool to see how different professors present almost identical material to different classes.
I showed up about 5 minutes early, and when I walked into the classroom, I asked who their TA is, but Erin was already in the room. She told me to sit behind her, while she sat in the front row with the students. This is different from the classroom layout in my class because our room is much smaller, and I sit with the professor, facing the students. This can be a little awkward sometimes though because I sit in front of the chalkboard and sometimes block the text. In her class this is not an issue, yet because the desks are more spread out, I noticed that there was not much interaction amongst the students at the start of class. If the students talked to each other, it was very quietly, whereas in my class, the students are typically talking with each other or to me and the professor before the start of class.
I was very impressed at Erin because she was acting as the professor for the day. Typically, when I give a lesson plan, it will only take up 25-30 minutes of class time, but she took up the whole 75 minutes with a lecture about her students’ rhetorical analysis theses. She didn’t even need a PowerPoint to help her think of her points. During the lecture, the students were pretty engaged and even shared some of their own experiences with writing. When they went into breakout sessions, they tended to get quieter, as they did with the start of class. This is the opposite of what I am used to because my students are typically pretty loud during breakout sessions, yet are much slower to answer questions during the lecture part of the lesson plan.
Overall, I thought this was a very interesting exercise to see what it is like being a TA for another English class. Erin was amazing at leading the class on such an important topic as their rhetorical analysis theses! I feel like I learned a lot from her about facilitating the students during and after giving her lecture. It was also really cool to see how different professors present almost identical material to different classes.