8/9/2019 Mariony Medina Observation Letter

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DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Facultad de Artes y Ciencias

Universidad de Puerto Rico

Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez

Apartado Postal 9265

Mayagüez, Puerto Rico 00681-9265

(787) 265-3847 – Ext. 3064

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Faculty of Arts and Sciences

University of Puerto Rico

Mayagüez Campus

PO Box 9265

Mayagüez, Puerto Rico 00681-9265

(787) 265-3847 – Ext. 3064

December 1, 2014.

Mariony Medina

UTD Observation

Dear Mariony,

This letter serves as documentation of my observation of your INGL 3103 section on October 22nd at1:30pm in Chardón 222. As we discussed in our individual meeting, you did a very good job in your

observed teaching and you should be proud of the work that you are doing here in the Department of

English. As a second semester Graduate Teaching Assistant, I was impressed with your strength and

creativity in the classroom and your thought-provoking lesson on argument. Overall, this was a very good

class and I commend you on your work as a GTA. Below are some strengths of your class and some

suggestions for the future.

The strengths of your class were:

• All the students in the classroom heard your voice loud and clear.

• You moved around the classroom, making great eye contact with your students.

• Your activities and energy were fantastic and kept students motivated to learn and participate.

• You had great control over your classroom. Students responded to you well and you were able to

move your students into action with a fairly detailed lesson. They listened and followed directions

and became deeply involved in the activity.

• Your understanding of the material and how to relate with your students is an excellent asset.

Your knowledge of the content area is noticeable and you should be commended for this.

• Your activity required strong planning that went over a few days and you were able to keep

students on task and create a very stimulating activity for them to use their oral English skills in

the writing classroom.

• You provided a good activity that made students use deep critical thinking and motivated them to

use English in new ways to express their thoughts in a more academic manner.

Some suggestions for the future:

• The activity was excellent but had one flaw. All students were not able to participate in the

argument portion and did not offer questions as part of the audience. In the future you should plan

for all students to participate.

• You have magnificent control of your classroom and considering that it is disproportionately male

dominated, I see why you need the control. However, you need to have just a bit ore flexibility in

PATRONO CON IGUALDAD DE OPORTUNIDADES EN EL EMPLEO – M/F/V/I

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER – M/F/V/H

8/9/2019 Mariony Medina Observation Letter

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listening to students’ needs. Their petition to work together in answering the question was a good

one, but which may have taken up a bit more time. Even though you told them they should not

• share answers, they did, so being flexible from the beginning would have shown your ability to

negotiate with your students on these issues.

• Also related to classroom control is how much talking you are doing compared to the student talk.

At the beginning of the activity you seemed to be more in control and to talk more than needed.Sometimes its good to watch and let students take some of the control over the activity.

• Last, and this is a problem all teachers encounter, there were two students sitting by me who were

almost oblivious to the class activity. They sat in the back of the room discussing surfing while

you were engaged with the other students. My question for you is: How can you make sure all

students are engaged in the activity and when they are not how can you focus their attention?

This was an excellent class and I think you are doing a fantastic job! Again, I was impressed with the

depth of thinking your students used in the argument activity you planned for them. It is obvious that they

have worked with you in other thought provoking activities such as this one. Keep up the good work andplease feel comfortable coming by to talk whenever you feel the need.

Sincerely,

Ellen Pratt, PhD.

University Teacher Development, Professor

Department of English

University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez

I read this evaluation and believe it is a fair assessment of my performance during the above mentioned

observation.

_____________________________ __________________

Mariony Medina Date

PATRONO CON IGUALDAD DE OPORTUNIDADES EN EL EMPLEO – M/F/V/I

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER – M/F/V/H