May 6, 2015

In the Spring 2015 semester, Emily Lamielle enrolled in HIED 6/76594 with Dr. Susan Iverson. This
course centered on an internship in College Teaching. To complete this course, Emily worked with me as
a teaching assistant for a F2F College Writing II, English 21011, class. This class had fifteen students of
varying writing abilities, so it was a good test of how Emily would learn to interact with a class. I feel that
this was an excellent program for Emily. She was able to observe, be mentored, and teach for a full 15week semester to prepare her for her own classroom experiences. In the course of our time together,
Emily progressed from a very knowledgeable English content expert to a teacher who is confident not
only in her field but also in presenting the material to a class of college students.
I met with Emily late in the Fall 2014 semester to coordinate her coursework for the spring semester. I
scaffolded her teaching as follows:

Weeks 1 - 4: Emily observed me as I taught the first course module of the course. I gave her short
10-15 minute mini-lessons to present to the class so she could get accustomed to teaching. We
then discussed the session and I offered insight and suggestions for improvement.
Weeks 5 - 8: Emily used my syllabus and taught the second module. I observed her throughout
these weeks, and we again discussed each session to prepare her for being on her own for the rest
of the course.
Weeks 9 - 15: Emily created and taught her own module. I asked her to create her own
assignments and daily lessons as well as grading materials. She did not use any of my materials
though she used them as a guide for the course theme and course requirements. The three lessons
she created and taught were:
o A literature review/annotations assignment in preparation for the required long research
paper
o Individual conferences with students
o The long research paper
o A multi-modal assignment and oral presentation

This scaffolding worked well for Emily as she built her confidence and skills through the early weeks,
giving her numerous opportunities to discuss student, teaching, lesson, grading, etc. issues important to
conducting a class on her own.
Emily had no trouble with the material she was asked to teach. Her degree and background in tutoring and
work with the Kent State Academic Success Center prepared her for presenting the material well and
working with students to meet their needs. At first, she was frustrated when students did not understand
what she was teaching or did not complete an assignment as it was taught, but through my conversations
with her, she realized most of the class had not had writing training before this and their different learning
styles needed to be considered in the lesson plans. From these conversation, she learned how to
successfully present materials in a variety of ways, such as with a visual (PowerPoint), class discussion,

Department of English
P.O. Box 5190 Kent, Ohio 44242-0001
330-672-2676 Fax: 330-672-3152 http://www.kent.edu

collaboration, workshop, and even presenting the assignment a second time from a different angle to
reinforce a concept. She became more adept presenting her lessons as the semester progressed, and in her
end-of-the-semester evaluations, the students noted and appreciated this improvement.
Emily's class lessons showed tremendous improvement from her first few minutes in front of the class
until her full class lessons. The class ran from 9:15 to 10:30 twice a week, so Emily needed to prepare
carefully for her lessons. At first, when the first lessons were only a short time, Emily did her preparation
but did not write anything out. She relied on her content knowledge, but she did not allow for the time
commitment, the student interaction (or lack of), or her nervousness in front of the class. She learned that
ten minutes was a lot longer than she anticipated, the students were reluctant to talk in class, and she
became flustered as the first two unfolded. We talked a lot in the first few days of the class to plan how to
avoid these issues. I feel having these happen so early in her teaching were helpful as she was able to
build from these shortcomings. I asked her to prepare lesson plans, which she diligently created and
shared with me a few days before the class so I could offer suggestions or other strategies to help teach
the lesson and include the students in the learning for a more active classroom. She then revised and
resubmitted the lessons plans. As the semester moved along, she seemed to use this as a benchmark she
did not want to meet again and worked very hard to improve at least one area in each lesson.
One area Emily struggled with this semester was student interaction. At first, she tried to be too
authoritative, and we worked on being more inviting or informal to put the students at ease and receptive
to learning. Instead of her telling the students, "I want you to do . . .," we worked on ways make the
assignments less personal to her and more focused on the students and their writing improvement.
Interaction was also challenging because she wanted to help them too much. It was easier for her to tell
them what to do rather than help them figure out how to do it themselves. I feel this is a result of her oneon-one tutor training, so I helped her see that she would burn out too quickly if she spent so much time
with single students and others would get left behind. She worked hard on this during her final weeks and
was able to successfully workshop with the whole class most sessions rather than just a few students to
show her improvement. Finally, her lessons centered on active student discussion and engagement with
the material and the class objectives. The students were often reluctant to talk, and this frustrated her. She
was friendly and helpful, and the students were eager for her to work with them during workshop
sessions, but they did not want to talk during her class lessons. She worked on this all semester and did
improve her connections with the students in her discussions by the end. This is a hard skill for many
teachers to perfect, so I feel Emily will succeed in engaging her students and find the balance needed as
she becomes more experienced in front of the class.
Grading was another challenge for Emily. As an excellent student and writer, seeing average college
writing was a surprise to her. Her training prompted her to provide a lot of explanation and instruction in
her grading, so we discussed other ways to help students where she was not doing more work in the
grading than the students did for their writing as well as placing the learning more on the student lessons.
I explained how most new teachers have to find their own personal grading system, and this course gave
her a start on finding hers as she condensed her written comments to students. She also became adept at
addressing assignment issues at the start of the class to reiterate the learning objective or offer another
strategy to help students with their weaknesses. She continuously worked on this for each assignment, and

I am confident this will be a strength as she finds her individual strategy for grading.
Emily is dedicated to her studies and becoming a successful teacher. This is her strongest trait and what
will make her an excellent teacher when she has her own class. She was professional at all times with
students, colleagues in my department, and me. She was curious about all aspects of her experience and
did not hesitate to ask or discuss anything related to the course, her teaching, or the students. She reached
out to me both F2F as well as by email as she was anxious to provide a successful experience to the
students and learn as much as she could from me. She welcomed suggestions and accepted critiques well
as she worked on her teaching strategies and implementation. Even when asked to revise an assignment or
a lesson, she accepted it as a learning experience and made sure to find a way to improve the task. Her
friendliness and openness will be an asset in the classroom as students will feel comfortable with her and
encouraged to do their best for her.
Because Emily was able to move slowly into total classroom teaching, she was able to learn so much
from this experience, and this fits her learning style well. Emily leaves this class with many new skills
and a continued desire to provide an engaging and successful learning experience to her students. I
foresee her continued education will sharpen her teaching style. She is ready for her own class, and based
on my work with her this semester, she will showcase her teaching skills and student interactions.

Beverly Neiderman
Beverly Neiderman
Faculty Mentor/Instructor of Record
DL Coordinator
Department of English
Kent State University
bneiderm@kent.edu
330-672-1745
Spring 2015
College Writing II