Glory J.

Soto
Dr. Ellen Pratt
INGL 6996
31 October 2014
Peer observation of Mariony Medina
On Wednesday, October 22, 2014, I observed Mariony Medina teaching INGL 3103
(Intermediate English I), section 092. Mariony teaches her class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and
Fridays from 3:30 p.m. to 4:20 p.m. at Chardon 222. The classroom was equipped with a
computer, internet, and projector.
Mariony Medina is on her second semester. Observing her class helped me analyze the
techniques Mariony has in her classroom and how at this point of the semester, students respond
to her approaches in the class.
When I entered the classroom to start my observation, Mariony was organizing the
classroom chairs in a particular way for an activity she was going to do that day. She received
her students in an enthusiastic way and gave the instructions of sitting anywhere since she was
going to later on assign them specific groups. At the beginning of class, Mariony took
attendance, and immediately noticed that some students were missing, thing that might alter the
activity projected for that class.
Mariony was working on the argumentative unit, and during this class she was going to
have a debate. The topic of the debate was chosen in their previous class and students needed to
come up with some questions that would question a position: in favor or against the topic.
Although Mariony had previously divided and selected the students that were going to be in
favor, against, and audience, students were missing which changed a bit the amount of students

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in each group, but Mariony improvised in a great way and rearranged the groups in a proper and
fast manner.
Mariony explained to me that before this class, they had a lesson on what an argument
consist of, what were valid evidence, how to make a strong claim, and other important aspects of
argumentative writing. In the classroom Mariony also did a list of topics for a debate and
afterward they vote on one to be discussed on this class. The topic chosen was Rivalry between
Concentrations and Professions.
After dividing the group according to the list she had, Mariony immediately noticed that
this section was not going to respond to the debate the same way her previous section did.
Students assured that all were in the same position regarding their point of view on the topic of
the debate and they suggested doing a forum instead of a debate and discussing the questions
already established for this topic as a whole. The students suggestion was well received and
Mariony proceeded to do a forum.
She began doing questions (which were already formulated) to group one, group two was
also asked a different set of question. Students made connections with daily life issues and
compared both points of view. They felt identified with the topic since they face this kind of
rivalry every day. When it was time for the audience to ask their questions, they got shy over the
fact that someone had to take the lead. As awkward that could be, Mariony provided an
approximately 20 second silent space, which impulse student initiative and participation to break
the ice. While talking about this topic, different points of views regarding priorities in
professions, who dictate priorities, reputations, and rivalry, were exposed. Mariony made an
excellent job in expanding and promoting critical thinking beyond what they said. It was
amazing how students branched out subtopics from the main one. For example, they talked about

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how intelligence is stereotyped many times by a persons profession (Engineers super smart
people, Physical Education Teacher not so smart people). A student made an interesting question:
What is intelligence? This question triggered student participation and most of them agreed
that definition of intelligence is relevant depending on the person.
Mariony asked another of her questions: What would you like to study, something that
will make you rich or something to make you happy? This question made students think beyond
the role that a profession plays in ones life, and one student felt identified because he was
actually going through this situation.
After an entire class, talking, sharing ideas, exchanging points of views, and going back
and forth with this topic, Mariony highlighted the importance of supporting a particular point of
view based on evidence and in a diplomatic and respectful way. Mariony dismissed her class.
DOMAIN A: Planning and preparation
When it comes to this particular class, the classroom needed to be arranged in a way that
students would be facing each other to have a formal discussion on the main topic. Mariony
arrived early to the classroom and set of the chairs in the recommended way.
The class that I observed was a continuation class. A unit was already discussed and
students were going to put on practice the knowledge they had already acquired regarding
argumentative writing. As part of the activity, Mariony prepared in advance by having the group
already divided when starting the class. Instead of wasting probably five minutes of class time in
dividing them into groups, she immediately started the class by placing them in the group
assigned.
Besides students having their questions to ask and discuss in the forum, she also
formulated her own set of questions which intention was to expand students points of views.

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Although this class was a discussion class, Mariony uses frequently the webpage
Schoology as the education platform for her class. During the class, Mariony made reference to
the webpage, the discussions, and assignments they had submitted. As officemate of Mariony, I
have witness how she combines teaching with her educational platform and how the outcome
benefits the class in various ways such as anticipating student opinions, submitting assignments,
and expanding class discussion.
DOMAIN B: The Act of Teaching
At the beginning of class, Mariony took attendance and she knew all her students.
Knowing her students made the process of taking attendance a faster one which is beneficial
when it comes to time.
Mariony engaged with her students in the target language: English. Great deals of
discussions were made completely in English. In a few occasions students felt like speaking in
Spanish only because they did not knew how to say a particular idea or opinion in English.
Before switching to Spanish, they literally asked Mariony for permission because they really
wanted to expose their point of view. Mariony agreed in having them switch to Spanish, since
one of the main goal was to have them react and participate of the forum, but she continued
talking in English, encouraged, and reminded students that although some exceptions were made,
they needed to talk in English to increase their speaking skills and expand their vocabulary.
Having a debate/forum is a great activity where students can voice their opinion, but at
the same time can be a difficult task since group control needs to be reinforced due to different
points of view regarding a particular topic. Mariony managed to have students under control by
conferring turns and allowing everybody to speak. She always made clear how important it was

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DOMAIN C: Reflection On and Assessment of Teaching
When students suggested doing a forum instead of a debate, Mariony was open to student
recommendations and applied it to the class. Though she had something planned out, she took
into consideration the students need and preference. She was willing to change her plan and
made the class more about what the students wanted. Mariony was open to different points of
view and encouraged students to think upon what others had to say. By doing a forum, she
managed to have students working and exchanging ideas as a whole, which increases students
confidence when it comes to being active in the classroom.
DOMAIN D: Fulfillment of Professional Responsibilities
Mariony is my officemate and we are constantly exchanging ideas and activities we have
done in our classrooms with our students. She recommended the webpage Schoology and I am
actually using it with my students and it is a great resource. After observing her, I could actually
confirm that she applies the techniques we learn throughout the semester in Course Coordination
and University Teaching Development (UTD). Mariony will present on Saturday, November 1,
2014 Passport to Stories from Around the World in We Teach Too Mini Congress, as part of
her second semester DEMO. Besides this, she is constantly asking for advice and guidance to
other teaching assistants and professors. For the debate class, she consulted Julio Vega on how
she could approach students with a debate and he offered her advice since he has done it
previously and this was her first time.
After evaluating this class, I thanked Mariony Medina for the opportunity of observing
her class. We had a brief discussion on the things she did in his class and how I have done it in
mines. She explained how different her two sections are and how active is her previous section
versus this section in which they are more easy going. We talked about how she planned out

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something and how unpredictable a class can be and change from one minute to another.
Observing a second semester peer that is teaching the same course I teach shows me a different
perspective since I am constantly evaluating myself as an educator. Although I am one semester
ahead from her, it is amazing how much I have learned from her. This is something I value a lot
from this program; it is a constant learning process.