KELSEY SPITALNIC 388V Portfolio 

I observed an ENGL101 class from 5:00-6:15pm in Tawes 1107. This class has about 20 students in it.  Walking into this class and sitting down gave me instant flash backs to my ENGL101 experience three years ago.  One large difference between my experience taking this course and this course that I observed was the presence of a UTA.  The UTA for this class is Emily Wescott.  She had a good presence and brought a positive energy into the room.  As many of the students walked in and sat in silence, she asked questions about how their week was.  I thought she had an approachable persona and friendly personality.  I think this is a positive quality to have as a teaching assistant.  It is important for students to respect authority but to not be intimidated.

 

At the beginning of the class the professor explained the plan for the day: a rhetorical analysis group exercise, which would be led by Emily, and then a draft workshop to work on their current assignment.  The atmosphere for this class started with a slow and quiet start, but as the professor explained the assignment, she did a good job of working to engage students by asking questions as she talked.  She asked questions that involved reflecting on what they learned in the previous weeks that were still relevant for today’s activity.  This resulted in some participation.  As she was speaking, Emily was sitting and acknowledging the student responses, and paying attention without having her laptop or phone out.  Emily also explained the group activity, split everyone into groups, and made sure that everyone understood the assignment.  

 

Once the students split into groups, both Emily and the professor would walk around the classroom and sit down in the middle of a group.  They would listen or ask some questions to help spark conversation.  Although the classroom was not completely active, I think the group activity did a good job of helping students warm up to their environment.  When each group shared with the class, Emily led the discussion and called on each group and tried to encourage each member to contribute to the discussion.  She asked them for examples from their reading based on the prompt they were given.  I liked how she tried to “push” the students by asking them questions that were relevant to their current train off thought. She also brought in her own ideas to give another perspective to the class discussion.

 

Listening to their discussion about rhetorical analysis made me think about how many different types of education in English there are.  I find that in technical writing the focus is on audience, professionalism, clarity, and concise communication while this class focuses more on analysis and ideas behind each piece of writing.  As a science major I think I am in the right position as a UTA for technical writing. 

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After the rhetorical analysis discussion, the student split into their pre-assigned partners for the peer review workshop.  This workshop was a standard workshop with guided questions and exchanging papers to make notes and discuss.  During this time, Emily and I had a chance to discuss our classes and personal experiences.  Emily is interested in pursing and English education degree.  She enjoys being a teaching assistant and wants to teach when she is older.  It is interesting that people with many different backgrounds and interests in terms of career and education experience are teaching assistants at the University of Maryland for the English department.  I think this helps bring diversity to the education system.  We also have such different experience as teaching assistants.  Her class is blended learning while mine is completely online.  I think that there is a lot more pressure with an in-class aspect as a teaching assistant, but for my schedule and experience I appreciate the online opportunity.  

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Overall, I was able to witness an example of what I thought was a good undergraduate teaching assistant.  It was clear that she was attentive and enjoyed the class.  She also made a strong effort to stay involved and keep the students engaged.  When she was presenting and explaining her activity she seemed very confident and open with the students.  I have not had a class of this size or with an undergraduate teaching assistant who was involved with what was going on in the class aside from chemistry and biology labs, but those are a much different experience/environment.