TA e-meeting: October 30, 2011

Hi Ladies,

Hope each of you enjoyed the Halloween weekend!

I.  Open floor
II. Persuasion Lessons
i. Oct 31
ii. November 2
iii. November 3
III. Grading
i. Papers
ii. Speeches

I. Questions, thoughts or concerns?

II.  Big thanks to Molly for taking on the responsibility of revamping our persuasion lectures.  She did a great job!
i.  Remember, the activity for this day's (Oct 31) lecture requires the students to reflect on an advertisement that persuaded them to feel/do something.  Please send an email to your sections this afternoon and tell them to bring advertisements to class!...Also, at the end of class please 1) distribute the topic approval form for the persuasive papers/speeches (which will be due on Wednesday) and 2) remind students to read "Love is a Fallacy," which will be used in the Nov 2 activity.
ii.  To be honest, I hated our logical fallacy power point, so I'm glad it's been nixed in favor of the activity and video examples.  I'm looking forward to hearing how this lecture goes for each of us!
iii.  There is a lot of content in this lecture.  In the past, I have struggled to finish the material in time.  Be sure to pace yourself so you can get to the "putting it all together" examples at the end.  These examples are really useful to the students, especially those that struggle with organization.

III. How have each of your progressed with...
i. ...grading the papers?  I'm finished (only because I locked my self in the office last weekend).  I awarded quite a few As.  I think it's because several of my students submitted 2-3 rough drafts, so they received lots of feedback from me before they wrote their final draft.  Everyone else?
ii. ...with grading speeches?  Have you emailed speeches to your students?  Please remind your students they they can earn 5 points of extra credit for writing a self-review of their speeches.  The syllabus says that these self-reviews are due Oct 31, but I think we should extend the deadline.  Thoughts?

I never know how to end these things...so have a nice day!

Camille

Counterarguments--Nov. 4 lesson

I uploaded one more day's lesson to the folder on Learn@UW. The powerpoint is basically the same, and the activity is a pretty straightforward "lightning round" of arguing:

Split the class into groups, and have each group pull an argument out of a bag. Give the group 5 minutes to come up with valid counterarguments. Have each group share the argument/counterargument with the class. Repeat as time allows.

I left the list of counterarguments blank because I'm not being very creative right now, but my thoughts were to briefly give background information on a topic and then come up with ten or so arguments for them to counter in groups.

Enjoy the easy day today, and have a great weekend!

Meeting with Don

Hi ladies,

I talked with Don and he is happy to meet with us. However, he is very busy this week. He could meet with us generally on Monday mornings or he could do some kind of e-meeting. What do we think?

-Haley

Demo speeches

Demo speeches begin on Monday! This is my favorite part of the semester. It's (almost) two weeks of not teaching, and the students (usually) demonstrate some really cool processes.

A few things:

• We will tape the each of our students' speeches using the Flip cam in Rm 111.  I'll set up the Flip cam and the tripod every morning and make sure that it has a fresh set of batteries.  That being said...
• The Flip cam does not have the best battery life.  Once upon a time, we had a rechargeable battery pack for the Flip, but it went ka-put; since Flip cams were discontinued earlier this year, we can't purchase another one.  So, we will be energizing the Flip with regular batteries.  I'll try to keep a stockpile in Rm 111.  I would advise checking the battery level of the Flip before each student begins his/her speech (I once had the camera die in the middle of a presentation...not good); also bring a back-up pair of batteries with you to class.
• At the end of each class day, I will upload all of the videos in the camera to the computer in Rm 111 closest to the door (next to where Heather sits).  The Flip software is very easy to use; please come by at your convenience and label your videos (section number and student name is usually enough).
• Make sure that you email your students their videos (Molly and Haley, I can show you how to do this.)  Students have the opportunity to write a one-page self-review of their speeches for five points of extra credit.
• As for grading the speeches:  Rubrics are in the TAC. You will notice that there are two rubrics to a page. In the past, when I've graded a student's speech, I used the one rubric to jot down notes and the other rubric to make my official marks that I gave back to the student.
• Peer reviews...are kinds of a pain.  The forms are in the TAC.  In the past, we've administered a new PR form to students every day of speeches and asked them to review one of the days presenting students...It's a lot of paper, especially for something we're not even grading.  What do y'all think?

Enjoy your football Saturday.  I'll be in m room hiding from tailgaters  :-)

TA e-meeting: October 9, 2011

Hi Ladies,


OK, I'm kind of late with this. Sorry!

I. Open floor
II. Peer reviews
III. Sign-up sheets
IV. Demo speech practice day
V. Draft conference room assignments


I. As always...

II. Tomorrow we have in-class peer-reviews. Please distribute copies of the review form (in the TAC) to your students. When students are done, have them staple the review form to the paper they reviewed and give it back to the author. Students should be able to review 1-2 papers depending on how fast they work.

III. Tomorrow, if you haven't already done so, please pass around a sign-up sheet for draft conferences (which will be held on Friday, Oct 14). I won't tell you how long to make your conferences but, in the past, we have scheduled them in 15-10 minute blocks. Also, please pass around another sign-up sheet for the upcoming demonstration speeches. If possible, try to cap speeches at four per day.

IV. Wednesday is demo speech practice day. Last semester, we put the students in groups of two or three and let them practice going through the steps of their respective processes. Make sure the students stay on task! Don't let them use the time to sit and talk about nothing.

V. Friday is draft conference day....long, long draft conference day. Here are our room assignments so far:
Camille--Rm 135
Meg--Rm 137
Heather--Rm 111
What we have left is Molly and Haley's office and the grad student lounge. Molly and Haley, can you decide among yourselves, who will go where? Also, I know neither have you have conducted draft conference before, so please drop by the Rm 111 this week if you have questions!


OK. That's it! Ah....I can't believe the weekend is over! :-(

TA e-meeting: October 3, 2011

Hi Ladies,

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  Sorry this post is so late!

I.                    Open floor

II.                  In-person TA meeting #2

III.                Week 5 review

IV.                Week 6 overview

V.                  Additional  readings and activities

I.                    Any general questions and/or comments?

II.                  Almost all of you have noted that we should have another in-person TA meeting.  I agree. Some of us have spoken informally about some of the challenge we are facing in presenting the content to students, but I think we should meet and address these issues collectively…. I will send out a Doodle link this week so we can schedule something!

III.                How did the organization and interviewing lectures go for everyone? I think my students broadly grasped the content; however, I wish the course provided more time/opportunities for the students to practice some of the concepts and techniques in the material before they jump into outlines and rough drafts…How did your students like Vidal?  When he left yesterday he said he enjoyed himself and would love feedback from our students.

IV.                This will be out last week of lecturing until Week 10.  This week, we will quickly introduce the students to informative/demonstrative speaking through two presentations: one that’s concerned with content and organization (Oct 3), and one that’s focused on style (Oct 5).  Both presentations include examples, which I highly recommend that you show.  In past semesters, I’ve found that, when it comes to the speeches, students learn best by example.

V.                  Big thanks to each of you for contributing additional readings/activities to the TAC and blog!  Anything that can help the students put the concepts into practice is a plus!

That's it...I'm going to bed :-)