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

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER M/F/V/H

March 4, 2014


Willie Young
UTD Observation

Dear Willie Young,

This letter serves as documentation of my observation of your INGL 3104 section on Tuesday, March 4th
at 2:00pm in Chardn 125. As we discussed in our individual meeting there were many things that you
did well, as well, as some things that I would like to see you improve. As a third semester Graduate
Teaching Assistant, you have shown great growth over the past two semesters. I think that the
Intermediate English II is an excellent compliment to your approach to your students and you looked
extremely comfortable in front of the class. As in semesters past, you were dynamic and got students to
build on their own understandings of slavery and understandings of slave narratives, and relating it to the
larger context of the class. Below are some strengths of your class as well as some suggestions to reflect
on as you continue your third semester as a GTA.

The strengths of your class were:
You moved around the classroom, making great eye contact with your students.
Your speech is clear for all the students to understand
The structure of your class was very good. You had various activities for students to engage on
and you used your understanding of pop culture and successfully weaved it into the classroom.
You did an excellent job in getting different students involved in answering questions related to
slavery and the Fredrick Douglas Narrative.
Your understanding of the material is obvious by the questions and the examples you provided to
the students.
The class was fun and also tied into the larger course objectives.
The course content was clearly linked to the objectives and students were made aware of these
connections throughout the lesson.

Suggestions for future reflection
Think about creating guide questions to assign for homework when students go home at night to
read. This will facilitate your class discussion the next day. You can collect the homework at the
beginning of the class and it can serve as your attendance or even a homework grade. This will
keep students reading.
Define clear expectations from the students as to what is expected within the given time period.
Tell students before starting an activity how long they will have to complete the activity and
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
Facultad de Artes y Ciencias
Universidad de Puerto Rico
Recinto Universitario de Mayagez
Apartado Postal 9265
Mayagez, Puerto Rico 00681-9265
(787) 265-3847 Ext. 3064
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
University of Puerto Rico
Mayagez Campus
PO Box 9265
Mayagez, Puerto Rico 00681-9265
(787) 265-3847 Ext. 3064
PATRONO CON IGUALDAD DE OPORTUNIDADES EN EL EMPLEO M/F/V/I
AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER M/F/V/H
whether or not they will hand it in. Telling students they will hand it in is generally less effective
than telling them that you are going to randomly select people to participate and share.
Be conscious of how long your discussions of readings take. You started off great as you were
using your own notes to guide the class discussion and questions, but half way through you
abandoned the notes and the discussion portion of the class dragged on.
When assigning group work or individual work it is important to model your expectations so
students understand what is expected of them. The last activity the directions were good, but
oftentimes students do not really understand until they see what is expected of them. Provide an
example.

This was a very good class and I think that you have shown great improvement from last semester. Im
continually impressed with your connections to your students and your ability to get them involved in the
larger class discussion. You are doing a fantastic job and I hope you continue to reflect on your best
practices and try to weave some of the suggestions above into your future lessons.

Keep up the great work!

Sincerely,


Kevin S. Carroll, Ph.D.
University Teacher Development, Professor
Assistant Professor
Department of English
University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez
2014 Program Chair, AERA, Division G





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



_____________________________ __________________
Willie Young Date