GTA Experience

My Roles and Responsibilities

In my GTA role for SPLH 571, my responsibilities included:

Tracking student observation hours on Master Clinician's Network
Leading discussion based lab activities related to that week's clinical observations and lecture readings
Completing the grading and providing feedback for all course assignments
Communicating with students in response to course questions

Service Delivery Model

Fall 2021: This course was a semester long undergraduate course taught in-person.

GTA Philosophy

My role as the GTA for this course was very different than my role during my directed teaching experience. In the GTA role, my goal was to clearly communicate expectations, develop a collaborative learning environment within the lab discussions, and to provide feedback to facilitate student learning. I strove to be an approachable instructor by frequently reminding students of my availability in office hours and my willingness to provide feedback on student progress on assignments. I also went over expectations for assignments in class and drew student's attention to the rubrics provided for the assignments. In this way I hoped to encourage them to attend to the rubrics as they worked on their assignments to ensure they included all necessary components.

Master Clinician's Network

One of the course requirements for SPLH 571 is completion of 25 clinical observation hours. This requirement also ensures that students complete the 25 clinical observation hours required by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (AHSA) for certification. Students in this course complete observation hours virtually using Master Clinician's Network. ASHA mandates that observation hours be guided, meaning that students receive feedback on their observation experience to check for understanding. My role in this was to confirm students had completed the observations prior to lab on Friday, provide an engaging discussion during lab to fulfill the ASHA requirement for guided observations, and approve hours after participating in lab. For students who needed to miss lab, I provided them with a recording of lab so that they could respond to the classroom discussion from the recording in order to fulfill the guided component.

Friday Morning Labs

One of my largest responsibilities for this course was leading discussion in Friday morning labs. The discussion each week was centered on the observation videos that the students were assigned for that week. I chose to structure the discussion each week in the same way so that students in class had consistent expectations for what would occur in lab. I hoped that this would foster a collaborative learning environment as students would be able to reflect on the expected discussion points each week prior to class. I believe the consistency allowed for students to better prepare for lab while completing observation videos. The method I selected for discussion was the TQE Method. TQE stands for thoughts, questions, and epiphanies. Within the discussion, students were encouraged to identify their thoughts, questions, and epiphanies first through broad questions, then through more narrow questions. The chart below was provided each lab as a visual support for beginning the discussion.

The steps of the TQE method as I used for lab are as follows:

Students completed the assigned observations prior to lab.
During lab, each observation for the week was discussed individually using the following steps
- Students completed 5-6 minutes of small group discussion on the observation identifying thoughts, questions, and epiphanies related to the observation. During this time, I walked around the room to answer questions or provide feedback within small groups.
- At the end of the small group discussion, students posted 1 or 2 main points of discussion to a web-based word document shared with the class. This document was projected onto the screen in the classroom.
- At this time, large group discussion began. I asked students to identify a discussion point from another group they found intriguing or to share thoughts from their own group's discussion.
- After large group discussion was complete for the first observation, the process was repeated for the remaining observations from that week.

I like the TQE method, because it provided a way for students to generate a variety of ideas about the observations. I wanted them to reflect on more than just questions related to the observations, and to identify their feelings, professional opinions, and "aha" moments as well. Additionally, the TQE method allowed for the students to lead the discussion by both identifying their own ideas or relating to the ideas of a peer to bring to large group. By allowing students to select the topic for the large group discussion portion, they were able to direct the course of their own learning related to the observation. Topics that students selected ranged from teaching strategies, setting up the environment of sessions, session management techniques, workplace procedures, data management, and goals.

The format of the discussion, providing both small group and large group formats, also ensured that all students engaged with the material even if they did not feel comfortable speaking in the large group.

Grading and Providing Feedback

Like my experience in SPLH 838, rubrics were an important part of the grading process in this course to ensure consistent grading across students and to provide students with clear expectations of what should be included in the assignment. While I did not write the assignments or rubrics for this course, the opportunity to complete the grading for this course allowed me to gage student learning along the way and provide specific feedback to students and to observe if any class trends emerged where I needed to provide additional support. I will provide examples of each of these experiences below.

Identifying Area of Need Based on Class Trends in Assignments

The 3-2-1 Journals assignments were completed monthly. The purpose of the 3-2-1 Journal taken from the assignment description:

"The intent of the journal is for personal reflection, growth in critical thinking skills, problem solving, and overall preparation for clinical work. Your entries should demonstrate breadth and depth of thought and should refer to both concepts and specifics as they relate to your learning. "

Within the 3-2-1 Journal, students were asked to share and actively reflect on three teaching strategies they observed in sessions, two pieces of data they took and one thing they learned from Friday morning labs. In order to meet the requirement of active reflection, students were asked to not only list items, but to think about what could have been done instead in the sessions or to what other clients the data or teaching strategy might have applied.

When I graded the first 3-2-1 Journal assignment, I observed an overall trend of students not demonstrating understanding of the various teaching strategies discussed in the lab. Part of this was due to the fact that explicit instruction in teaching strategies in lecture had only recently occurred. To support students in correctly identifying and describing teaching strategies the observed in clinical observation videos, I developed a guide to assist them in understanding and applying teaching strategies. I reviewed the document in the next lab session. In this way I was able to review teaching strategies, provide a whole class support, and provide the same feedback to all students. I also provided students with hard copies of the document so they could have it available when completing observations. This document can be viewed below.

Teaching Strategy Observation Sheet.docx

Student Specific Feedback

In addition to students being able to access the graded rubrics for feedback on assignments, I provided specific feedback on assignments through comments on the documents. I aimed for my feedback to be specific and clear. This was for both strengths observed and for areas of improvement. Additionally, if applicable, I provided examples within my feedback. Below are feedback examples from student work.

Team Project 1

The purpose of the Team Projects was for students to have an opportunity to work in a collaborative effort to apply what they had learned in class about assessment of skills, goal writing, teaching strategies, and session planning to a case study. Below is an example of student work and the feedback I provided for the first team project. In my feedback, you will observe that I address specific components that are unclear and offer suggestions about how to improve clarity and specificity.

Synthesis 1

Students completed two syntheses assignments over the course of the semester. These assignments were done independently and were meant to assess each student's understanding and application of course content. In the example of student work and my feedback below, I focused on a one particular question within the first synthesis. In this series of questions, students were asked to describe their method for taking and transcribing language and speech samples for different targets. In the feedback, I give praise for what she did well, clearly explain what components are missing from her answers, direct her back to the reading for more information, and express a willingness to meet with her to answer any questions.

Correspondence with Students

One of my responsibilities was responding to student questions through email correspondence. Most of these emails were content specific or student specific needs. I provided general announcement reminders for when assignments were provided orally during labs. In my correspondence, I made an effort to be specific, provide rationale behind my answer, and welcome additional questions. Below are examples of email correspondence I had with students:

Regarding Feedback On an Upcoming Assignment:

Email from Student:

Hi Susan,

We’ve decided as a group that we would appreciate feedback on our semester goals section of the project!

Thanks again,

Response

Hello,

Thank you for understanding and providing me with a specific question. I am more than happy to provide feedback. I copied and pasted your semester goals below. I will add comments in blue next to your goals.

Semester Goals:

1A: Claire will identify and correctly use 10 new descriptive words to her vocabulary in a 20-minute conversational sample with the clinician. This will be accomplished in 4 months. This goal contains all the SMART components. By identify, do you mean define? If that is the purpose you are hoping for, a conversational sample doesn’t seem to fit as a measurement. Maybe define and use 10 new vocabulary words in a sentence in a structured activity? Or if you want to use a language sample, “Claire will use 10 new vocabulary words in a 20 minute conversational play sample with the clinician” and don’t worry about the identify/define.

1B: Claire will provide grammatically correct responses to 5 different open-ended questions asked by the clinician 80% of the time over a 30-minute session. This will be accomplished in 6 months. Increase specificity for this one. Three word grammatically correct? Four words? What context will the open ended questions be asked about? Anything or about a book you are reading?

2A: Claire will follow successfully follow 2 step directions provided by the clinician to complete a task I would change “to complete a task” to “within structured therapy activities 70% of the time. This will be completed in 2 months.

2B: Claire will successfully complete a task with 4 step directions provided by the clinician with 60% accuracy in 4 months’ time. Is this just completing one 4 step direction with 60% accuracy (like 2-3/4 steps) or are you wanting her to complete repetitions of 4 step directions.

3A: In order to improve memory skills, Claire will correctly identify 5 matches in a 15-picture matching game with the clinician. She will accomplish this in 3 months.

3B: Claire will successfully recall 2 events from her day leading up to her session in a 15-minute conversation with the clinician. This will be completed in 3 months. I would suggest adding a level of support to this goal, such “with use of visual support such as a day planner.” Compensatory strategies are important for memory and this will help you in providing context to the activities.

Finally, the rubric requires that you provide 3 STGs for each LTG. So be sure to add three more STGs to your plan in order to meet this requirement.

Let me know if I can clarify any of my feedback or if you have additional questions.

Susan Koerner, M.S. CCC-SLP

Correspondence Regarding Student Specific Reminders

Hi,

Just wanted to check in about your observation videos that need to be completed. For this semester, you still have Bob B/Evan (44 min) and Karen/Lorene (26 min). Julie and I were looking at the total hours for students and realized even with these two observations completed, you are short on the 25 total hours needed for certification. We think it may be due to a glitch in MCN that occurred when you re-enrolled in this course. I have a sheet saying you completed the video observation for Eilizabeth Schoen Simmons/Ryan last spring, however we cannot find official documentation of this in MCN. Julie has re-assigned this one for you. Please fill out the questions for this observation also. If you can remember it from last spring, you can fill it out based on those recollections and let the video run.

We apologize for the inconvenience. In order for Julie to be able to sign off on your 25 hours, it has to be completed officially on MCN.

I hope your move preparations are going smoothly!

Susan Koerner, M.S. CCC-SLP

Student Feedback

At the end of each semester, students in the course had the opportunity to give anonymous feedback of my instruction. This was done through a form that first asked students to rate nine areas of instruction on a five point scale (1 being strongly disagree, 3 being neither agree or disagree, and 5 being strongly agree). A total of 54 students responded to the survey. Above is a chart that outlines the areas that students rated as well as a summary of their feedback. Feedback summary provided as percent of students who provided the answer strongly agree or agree when asked about my skills in each content area.

Additionally, students had the opportunity to provide additional comments. Below are the comments students gave:

"You were really responsive to emails and I can tell you are passionate about SPLH."

"Thank you for your passion in this class/lab. You have inspired me to do more research in AAC."

"She was helpful and engaging in lab and I enjoyed having her as a GTA."

"Susan was awesome, kind, flexible, and understanding. She talked through things in a way that made content easy to understand."

"The feedback she gave throughout the semester was very helpful!"

"She always gave helpful anecdotes and was very engaging during class! Great teacher and very talented in her work!"

"I appreciate her flexibility and understanding with me, since I had a difficult semester personally. She helped make sure I got everything done."

Supervisor Feedback

At the end of my GTA experience, Dr. Gatts rated me at the level of outstanding (highest level) in all areas: teaching and presentation ability, quality of work, oral and written communication, accountability and self-management, subject knowledge and learning ability, and overall performance as a GTA.

When asked to describe my strengths, Dr. Gatts wrote:

"Susan provided outstanding written and verbal feedback to students on assignments, in class, and through informal interactions. The written evaluations provided by students regarding her performance were overwhelmingly outstanding! Susan dealt with students who needed accommodations well. She also had to manage some academic misconduct and appropriately turned that over to me for consultation."

When asked to describe areas in which I can improve, Dr. Gatts wrote:

"Susan managed some uncomfortable situations very appropriately this semester. In discussion, it was identified that she would have handled the communication in an appropriate way and, on a few occasions, drafted an email or presented to me how she wanted to present the information. She did very well and just needs to continue to gain confidence in her ability to manage these situations."

Reflection

My experience as a GTA for this undergraduate course provided me with the opportunity to practice preparing discussions, clearly communicating expectations with students, providing clear and specific feedback on assignments, and accommodating students.

My main responsibility for this course was to lead class discussions clinical observations to ensure that observations were guided to meet ASHA requirements. As the class size was large both semesters and the rooms were lecture halls, I had to get a little creative to engage students in both large and small group discussions. Most students actively participated in these discussions without support, however a few students were difficult to engage. Due to the layout of the classrooms, some groups were impossible for me to check in on regularly. If I were to lead this class again, I would come up with a system that would give groups opportunity to move around the classroom that way some were not always in the back. Additionally, I would enjoy creating more application-based activities. While the open discussion allowed for students to direct the discussion topics, aligning with Adult Learning Theory, students also seemed to enjoy the opportunity to apply skills observed on a small scale, such as practicing data collection.

Communicating clearly with students both in email and within feedback on assignments was a priority for me from the first semester. I believe that my practice giving clear feedback as a GTA for clinical experiences was an asset to me in this course. When I gave feedback, I always tried to give examples. If I found myself giving the same feedback to a student multiple times, I also encouraged them to come to my office hours or schedule a time to talk to me about the course content they were struggling with. Communicating with undergraduate students can be different than communicating with graduate students, as expectations for each group are different. I appreciate that my experiences in this course helped me to practice this skill with undergraduate students, and am pleased that the student feedback I received reflects an overwhelmingly positive response from students.

The aspect of this GTA position that was a challenge for me both semesters was accommodating students while still maintaining high expectations and boundaries. I sought feedback from Dr. Gatts several times throughout both semesters in this area. I wanted each student in the course to be successful, however I also learned that setting boundaries with support I provide to be healthy. Dr. Gatts was helpful to me in determining what support was appropriate for me to provide, and which levels of support were not an effective use of my time or resources. For example, setting clear expectations about when I would respond to emails after hours or over the weekends. These experiences will be invaluable for me moving forward as an instructor.

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