Brian_CO1

My first class observation was a speaking class with Whitney Harvey. The students had brainstormed and come up with topics in a previous class, and were making outlines for a presentation that they were to give the following day. After some brief instructions at the beginning of class, the students paired up and began working on their outlines while Whitney and I walked around and listened. This was the first time that I've been on the other side of a group activity in class, and hovering over student's shoulders and listening to their conversations was pretty awkward at first, but it's something I'm sure I'll get used to. As we walked around, students asked us questions, and I observed Whitney use the "excuse me?" method of correcting students several times. During the student's group work, Whitney showed me her notebook, which was covered with post-it notes. Each had a student's name and comments about their speaking written on it. During the class, she would make notes on each student's performance, and give them the post-it note when the class ended. She explained that verbal corrections often went in one ear and out the other, but when students had something written down for them to study, her feedback had more effect. This seemed like a great idea to me, but may be limited by the size of the class (there were less than 10 students in this one).