So What is 388V?
What is ENGL388V?
This course is an Undergraduate Teaching Internship with the English department. Students have an active role in the classroom as a UTA, and participate in a weekly seminar with other English UTAs.
What is the 388V seminar?
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Discussion-based class led by UMD English professor
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Collaboration with other UTAs
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Small-group lesson planning on significant elements of English education
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Opportunity to test-drive potential lesson plans
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Online discussion boards related to weekly education topic
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Comfortable and inclusive environment
Seminar
What does a UTA do during class?
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Responsible for preparing lessons
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Collaborate with other members of the UTA team
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Work closely with professor to ensure that objectives are met
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Grade minor assignments
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Aid with technical elements of the course
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Answer day-to-day student questions
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Provide experienced advice to students and professor
During Class
What are the benefits of being a UTA?
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Further master basic academic writing skills
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Gain teaching experience
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Build professional relationships with faculty
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Foster relationships with students outside of your major
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Improves confidence in public speaking skills
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Fulfills Scholarship in Practice requirement (GenEd)​
Benefits
assignments
Class Observations
Overview:
One of our major assignments this semester was participating in a class observation of another returning UTA. We were matched up with one other classmate, and given the task of observing them. They were also instructed to observe us. During the class, we took handwritten notes on what we saw as an observer, and also what we thought about as a fellow UTA. After the observation, we each wrote reflections on what we learned from their class. You can access my findings here. Also, here is a blank template for observing a classroom.
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Reflection:
The class observation was a new experience this semester. As a new UTA, observations
were not in the curriculum. At first, I was nervous about being observed because I felt
like I was being judged. Afterwards, I benefited from the experience because I was able
to self reflect on how I believed I performed.
I had previously spoken with the UTA that was observing me to let him know when he
should arrive and where the class is located. He sat with the rest of the students so he
could have a good view of the entire class environment. As soon as he entered, I noticed myself paying extra attention to how I acted in the classroom. I was more focused on making sure all of the students were engaged, and I found myself paying more attention to how the professor led the class. It was a strange experience at first, since I knew that the “quality” of the review that my observer gave me was not relevant, but I still felt very critical of my performance.
This forced me to self-reflect on how I thought my teaching methods were. Specifically, I felt like I needed to interact more with the students during group work. I was able to realize this shortcoming without being criticized by anyone. Simply the presence of someone observing me in the classroom helped me to realize one of my weaknesses as a teacher.
Even in the following weeks, I continued to pay more attention to how I interacted with the students. After devoting more effort to interacting with the class and asking them how their work was going, I noticed that my presence in the classroom was different. Students began to see me as more of a leader, and the number of emails I got outside of class with questions increased. Students viewed me as someone that cared about how they were doing in the class. At the beginning of the semester I had outlined this as one of my goals, so it was a great feeling to know that I had accomplished it.
This assignment allowed me to meet one of my
major goals
as a UTA
peer review
Overview:
Another major component of being a returning UTA was providing advice to new UTAs. The easiest outlet for this was to peer review their lesson plans. Each returning UTA was assigned lesson plans from 4 different new UTAs to peer review. The returning UTAs were able to view some advice and tips before they presented their lesson plans to their students.
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Reflection:
Being able to review the lesson plans was very exciting and rewarding. Not only were we able to provide the new UTAS with advice on their lesson plans, it was also a beneficial way to collaborate and brainstorm potential new ideas for lesson plans.
I was assigned to review lesson plans for 4 students. Reviewing one lesson plan at a time, I began by reading through and getting a general idea. Then, I went back through and paid particular attention to the following areas...
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From the lesson plans that I reviewed, most student's methods were very straight-forward.
If I gave advice, it was to be more specific with their methods.
Moving forward, I think it would be interesting to see if the students used my advice,
or kept things how they were originally. Some of my edits were preferential and could
have been interpreted in many ways.
Finally, I enjoyed this lesson plan because I was able to learn some new ideas for tactics
with my class. I read one lesson plan that was very specific for how the students would
form their groups, which is something that I had never thought about before. I had always
had students forming groups of 3 or 4 students. Due to these observations, I tried to think about activities for partners, or larger groups.
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Objective: For this section of the lesson plan, I reference Dr. Bob Kizlik’s article on writing effective learning objectives. He focuses on three main areas: conditions, behavioral verb and criteria. The conditions define the environment where the student will perform the task. The behavioral verb must be a student behavior that is observable. Finally, the criteria must be specific enough that the observer can distinguish between students that have and have not met the objective.
Time Estimate: When I was a new UTA, I found this challenging. I found that a lot of students over-estimated how long their lessons would take.
The most
reviewed
area was the
objective