Classroom Observation Paper

University Writing Center (UWC) and Academic Success Center (ASC) are two of the university facilities that help students enrich their academic experience. While UWC assists students in improving their written and oral communication skills through one to one consulting sessions, online resources, and workshops, ASC works to enhance students’ intellectual performance through academic coaching, supplemental instruction, drop-in tutoring sessions, and peer mentoring. Both of the organizations take a collaborative learning approach to encourage students to develop necessary study skills for academic success and increase student retention. ASC offers various student development programs; however, our focus for this proposal will be on drop-in tutoring services offered by ASC.

“Both tutor and tutee benefit from the non-hierarchical, complementary relationship that enables both partners to refine and expand their writing and communication skills” (Jones 3). Writing centers are providing further opportunities not normally found within traditional classroom. Clarence Sherran, who was a coordinator for the writing center at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa, declares that, “[People] often assume that [the] ways of knowing, and learning, talking, reading and writing about knowledge, are transparent and easily acquired by students if they have met the required standards” (136). Having writing centers offers a greater boost of learning for students by the use of collaborating with one another, which I believe gives a positive edge and the main motivation to keep writing centers in

In 1984, Stephen North penned a landmark essay, “The Idea of a Writing Center.” In it, he wrote about writing centers’ struggles to be understood and emphasized the transactional, synchronous conversation about writing that most writing centers focus on as their mission. Current writing center scholarship still cites this article regularly. Its content has withstood the test of time, and the writing center experiences North transcribed are still relevant today. We work with many students who are well prepared for a writing center session, and of course, we have our regular clientele who clearly find value in our assistance. But we also frequently work with students who don’t understand what we do. Here at Union Institute & University, students send us brief emails, simply attaching a paper. Some include a note; some don’t. Sometimes students ask us to edit their papers or they’ll ask us to correct an essay and return it. Sometimes they tell us who they are;

This week I did both an interview and a small observation of my third grade host teacher's classroom. I was first able to interview my host teacher. Miss A does use many of the techniques for teaching words that were listed on my observation form. Specifically she uses crossword puzzles, dramatizing, word sorts, possible sentences and dictionaries. She also uses many techniques that are not listed on the observation sheet as well. She does a lot of repetition with her students. She has them right there words in rainbow colors, in vowels and consonants colors, in alphabetical order and many more that I didn't see. Miss a believes that " they are all useful for different students. Some students feel like crosswords are helpful and others feel like pictures are helpful" () I would completely agree with her statement in this regard. I do think it's good to have many different options for the many different students you have in your class. Miss a believed that there were a lot of benefits to wide reading. She make sure that the children are provided with a variety of texts especially her students who are ELL students. She mention specifically that it "helps build their schema for Content areas such as social studies and science and the vocabulary that goes with that."()

Some inner-city writing centers have hired tutors directly from their high school’s honors program. However, in other instances, hiring high school writing center tutors from across the academic spectrum may also prove beneficial. If a writing center hires a variety of students, it would not be the “good students” talking down to the “poorer students.” With a variety of high school tutors, those students being consulted may feel more of a connection to someone who is in an academically similar position, and if such a connection can be made, better communication can be

I will use the writing center again; One believe it will help my writing as much as possible to get done. The author desires to make the suggestions and understand if she improves before submitting her rough draft by her classroom. The white board through our classroom gave this author trouble, so this lady gave up on the way the white board which the writing consultants keep pointing it out to use, since I choose email: So much easier and less trouble using it so far. I am not ignoring the advice of the writing tutors, one happens to take a different tour to get help. Approximate several say there is more than one way to arrive at a place so she took the route not many would take. Later on she is desperate in receiving the highest possible score for the assignment. The author will use the writing center again, even though this student knows the whiteboard may still give her trouble, but will try it once more. If it still does not work I will use the writing center email another time. Even though it is against the advice of each writing consultant the three times have gotten back to her and checked her

I am currently on our school-wide data team that uses data to find trends within our school population. One trend that became readily apparent to our team this year was that our move-in students were underperforming and that there were large gaps in their data due to the late entry into our building. Therefore, I wanted to delve deeper into this idea of mobility and how it impacts test results. I specifically wanted to look at this across the three middle schools in my district, Gahanna Jefferson Public Schools, because the three districts differ in student populations. I was not surprised by the results but rather reaffirmed in my thinking. I first wanted to see if certain schools would have higher mobility rates than others so I did a comparison of three years to see the percentage of students who were in the

Peer-tutoring is a collaborative activity that allows the exchange of knowledge to occur outside of a classroom setting. As a peer tutor, I do my best to establish a safe space where students can share their writing insecurities and self-develop as writers. During my sessions, I focus on establishing a comfortable work environment to encourage meaningful dialogue and allow tutees to articulate their writing needs. By establishing a welcoming work environment, I can engage in meaningful discussion with tutees and familiarize myself with their writing so I can effectively implement a tutoring approach that suits their needs as writers. My tutoring philosophy mainly focuses on gaining familiarity with the tutees writing and personality through

Because of the many different types of students and tutors, collaboration is “hardly a monolith” (Lunsford 95), which means that many different methods for fostering collaboration must be developed. The best tutoring strategy is a flexible collection of different techniques focused on creating a collaboration with a tutee. For example, sometimes students come to sessions without a completed rough draft. Then, the tutor should attempt to help the student brainstorm by asking questions, listening actively, and expressing interest (Ianetta and Fitzgerald 77). Alternatively, an introverted student could come into the writing center and respond minimally to open-ended questions. In this scenario, the writing tutor might consider reading the students body language in order to gauge the mood of the session (Ianetta and Fitzgerald 64). According to The Oxford Guide for Writing Tutors, “Experienced tutors … continue to have sessions that genuinely surprise them” (Ianetta and Fitzgerald 80). With any level of experience, a tutor must continue to be flexible when trying to facilitate collaboration because of the interpersonal nature of

As a tutor, it is important to know these cues when working with a student and apply different methods that will work perfectly for each student. This will show students that tutors do not treat all their clients the same and that each problem they have has its own way in uniquely being solved. This especially relates to non-English speaking students because they are not familiar with our grammar rules and text, they would be taught with a more hands-on approach than a native speaker, who the tutor would be able to guide. Being hands-on is very different than taking control of the session. Often tutors have the problem of editing their student's paper instead of improving the student as a writer, but they should not be the primary fixer, in this case, forcing the student to take control of the session. The article, “Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work,” explains that tutors often become “editors” or fixers when working with students. They explain that to avoid this stigma, tutors must make the student the primary agent in the session while the tutor takes on a secondary role of keeping the writer focus on his or her work (Brooks,

As the many weeks have passed, and the several eye-opening tutorials have come to completion, I can presently pronounce some growths, experiences, and insights from my second semester as a writing tutor. Overall, there has been a positive atmosphere once again throughout the Writing Center and from all the students who come to visit it. Also, there has been a whopping amount of new learning styles that I have dealt with in the Writing Center this semester. However, none were so unique and eye-opening as one particular session that I had a few weeks ago.

I observed a five-year-old from my church for the language development observational case study. She wanted to show me how to do some art projects. Therefore, most of the language used was either descriptive or directive. She typically told me what she was going to do right before she did it or told me to help her with something, either with a question or just telling me to do something. Most of her phonemic pronunciation was fairly accurate. I have not seen her in a little while, so this is improved since the last time I spoke with her. However, the θ and ð sounds were not quite correct all of the time, but I could still understand what she meant. I am not concerned about a language delay as some slight mispronunciations are still common

While observing I was able to observe some of the things that the text was talking about when it comes to the student’s disability. When it came to the emotionally impaired students there, the boys did outnumber the girls in the class that had this type of disability. I was also able to see one individual externalizing his behavior and take it out on another student in the class. He was clicking a pencil against the desk, his teacher asked to stop once and he did for a little but then it picked back up, a fellow student now asked him to stop, and he yelled at him and told it wasn’t his place to ask him to stop. I also saw that when it came to having pairs, he was always the last one to get chosen. The two main goals for the educator in this

“Hey Nathan, do you have a few minutes to talk?” “Sure” The conversation then continued as I began to explain to my seventh grade English Language Arts, Resource Specialist Program (RSP) Co-teacher, Nathan Poole, the teacher observation and evaluation process assignment. I explained to him that this observation and evaluation would not be part of his formal observation with the principal, but would use the school districts official observation and evaluation forms (Little lake City School District Observation and Evaluation Form). Moreover, I expressed that it would be a wonderful learning opportunity for me to experience as I go through the administrative leadership program. Without hesitation, he agreed and we scheduled dates to meet for

Professor Klein has instructed our class to conduct a research interview with a tutor from a different University. I have had the opportunity to work with Georgia State 's one of a kind writing tutor, who is also an upcoming graduate student, graduating from Georgia State himself. The purpose of this interview is to conduct a study with a writing tutor, and take notes of their point of view about the process of writing, the change in perception, and the versatile ability to assist all students. Once I arrived at the Georgia State Writing Studio, I was welcomed with open arms ready to conduct my research interview. Before starting the interview process with Mr. Shelat, I first took notice of his attire, he wore a shirt, tie, and a nice