Peer Observation of Teaching Effectiveness

Date of Observation: 2/2/2017

Observer: Chiz Tamaki
Instructor Observed: Larry Medwetsky
Class Observed: Pediatric Aural Rehabilitation (Audiology)
Time: 5:40 - 8:20pm (Class started at 5:30; I joined at 5:40.)

Goals of the Lesson:

Two topic areas were covered today; Counseling, and Effects of Hearing Loss on Speech and
Language. The class period, from my perspective, was broken up into the following sections:
Quiz from readings, 10 min
Review of last weeks class, 4 minutes
Counseling, 47 min
Break - 10 min
Effects of Hearing Loss on Speech and Language, 40 min
2 short breaks, ~5 min each, were taken during this section
Preview of next week - 1 min

Familiarity with Subject Matter:

Dr. Medwetsky was quite familiar with this subject matter. Dr. Medwetsky thoroughly explained
the concepts relevant to counseling, and was fluid and natural in answering student questions.

Teaching Methods Used:

The following methods were used throughout the class period.
Quiz ~10 min. I was not present for the quiz administration; but was present when Dr.
Medwetsky reviewed the questions and answers. The students were tested on the
reading materials.
PowerPoint presentation/lecture.
The font on each of Dr. Medwetskys slides were readable to me from the
students seats, although slightly larger fonts would be more comfortable (my
preference)
Dr. Medwetskys slides are characterized by a list of full sentences.
Dr. Medwetsky explained that he does this so that students, especially
those who are hard of hearing, do not need to divide their attention
between note taking and listening/comprehending.
Dr. Medwetsky uses bold-face and underline to indicate key concepts
Dr. Medwetsky used the animation feature on PowerPoint to make one
sentence appear at a time.
Rather than reading each sentence, Dr. Medwetsky flawlessly narrated
the concept, which was well-represented with the sentence.
It may be because of my ESL background, but following speech
and text that are supposed to match but actually do not was a
 dual-task challenge for me. To me, less words on the slides would
have helped me to quickly grasp the topic, then to fully pay
attention to the speech.
Graphics were used sparsely.
Several photos/cartoons on one slide were used, and served as a
breather or time to break up the serious mood of the lecture.
One figure of the rib cage that was used to explain the breath support for
speech was effective, and would have been even more helpful if it was
displayed much larger on the screen.
An audiogram with phoneme representation was large and clear, and was
well-explained.
Occasionally, Dr. Medwetsky blacked out the screen, as he posed questions to
class. It appeared to bring students attention to Dr. Medwetsky.
One Minute Questions, ~5 min.
One minute questions were posed at the end of each unit. These questions
targeted the representative concepts either covered in the lecture, and were
crafted simply. They elicited active responses from students.

Classroom Management:
Typical of SLCC classrooms, students were seated in a semi-circle, with one large
monitor in front of the room. The computer was located to the left front of the classroom
(students perspective), windows to the left, and door to the right back.
Dr. Medwetsky moved around the room as he presented; but I noticed he spent the most
amount of time at 3 locations; the greatest amount of time was spent about 3-4 feet in
front of students sitting closer to the door, somewhere between the screen and the
computer, and 3-4 feet in front of students sitting closer to the windows.
The RedCat classroom amplification system was utilized in class, with its speaker
situated behind the hard of hearing student, who was sitting close to the door.
I noticed the share mic was not functional.
The HoH student was mildly assertive when she needed repetition by another
students comment; she seem to do well when the comments were
straightforward.
Paraphrasing each students comment would most likely be helpful, not only for
the HoH student but for all students.
Student participation in the class were observed in the following ways:
Intentional design: 2 sets of One Minute Questions were built into the class,
where questions were posed, and students were expected to orally respond.
Posing questions: Questions were posed as part of the lecture. E.g., Does
anybody remember; How many watched the movie [x]?; What kinds of
things can you?; How many of you heard of Piaget?.
All but one of the questions were answered by volunteers. About way
into the class, Dr. Medwetsky asked the one student that had not spoken
 yet to answer the question. She answered that question, and did answer
3 more questions voluntarily during the remainder of the class.
Between One Minute Questions and in-lecture questions, all 10 students
verbally answered at least 2 questions each, in 2.5 hrs (mean =3.5
answers per student). This mean does not include the 3 questions that
only required hand-raise (e.g., How many of you?.)
Participatory activity: Classifying phonemes by manner and place involved
students actually producing sounds and recognizing where their tongues are. I
did not count, but it appeared that the vast majority of the class was participating.
Spontaneous: 5 students volunteered to speak, not in response to posed
questions by the instructors, but to make comments or to ask questions.
Positive and affirmative responses:
You bet. Excellent Perfect; nodding; eye contact/smile
Very rarely students provided incorrect responses, but when they did, Dr.
Medwetsky asked follow-up questions to probe the understanding.
After the first break, Dr. Medwetsky was highly attentive to students fatigue. As soon as
he spotted a yawn, he stopped the lecture for a 1-minute break (it was more like 5
minutes). This type of break happened twice.
Dr. Medwetsky had a bowl of candies in class, which was passed around throughout the
class. It seems that students had finished dinner before class, but this slight energy
boost in class seemed to be enjoyed by many.

Summary and Impression:

This is an evening class scheduled for 2 hours and 50 minutes. I observed many effective
strategies, which include planned questioning (One Minute Questions), candy bowl, moving
about the classroom, calling on a student who has not spoken, providing encouraging feedback
to students responses, occasionally turning off the PowerPoint, and taking frequent breaks. It
was apparent that students feel comfortable in the classroom, and that theyve understood the
concepts presented in class.

Dr. Medwetskys intent to create an accessible PowerPoint slides is well-taken. However, the
highly-spelled-out PowerPoint did not seem to lead to students being not on their laptops (and
some were observed with e-mail, chats, or social media browsers open). While this is a
challenge for all instructors, I would like to challenge Dr. Medwetsky to find ways to make the
class more difficult for students to wonder off to the internet world.

Overall, it was a pleasure to observe Dr. Medwetskys class, and I look forward to future
observations.