Class Observation - Peer Evaluation

Instructor: Dr. Karen Garrido-Nag

Peer Observer: Dr. Carol LaSasso
Class Observed: HSL 813: Language Development and Disorders I
November 27, 2012 11:00-12:20 HMB A107

Goal of the Class Session

The goal of this class session was to overview child language stimulation and intervention techniques. Three models
of intervention (i.e., clinician-centered, child-centered, and hybrid) were described and discussed. Nine focused
language stimulation techniques (i.e., expansion, expansion-plus, intent contingency, scaffolding/modeling,
questions, event casting, recast, redirect, and intent contingency techniques) were described and examples were
given. Four language intervention strategies (i.e., sabotage techniques, communicative temptation, contrived
misunderstanding, and contrived confusion, were described with examples.

Format

The format of the class was lecture combined with small group activity. A 45-minute lecture, accompanied by 34
power point slides, was followed by a 20-25 minute, small, focused group activity where students worked together to
devise examples of interventions they might use to address a specific short term objective and share them with the
entire group.

Teaching Style

Dr. Garrido-Nags teaching style can be described as confident, poised, low-key, friendly, flexible, and participatory.
She uses humor liberally to keep students engaged. Varied teaching-learning strategies used by Dr. Garrido-Nag in
this course include: power point lectures, case studies, classroom observations, scoring of a published standardized
test portion, language analyses, creating mini-reports and preparing a final report following the Gallaudet clinic
manual for diagnostic reports. I was impressed with the repeated links of theory to clinical practice. It is obvious that
Dr. Garrido-Nag enjoys teaching, and the students I observed appeared to both enjoy Dr. Garrido-Nag personally
and value being in her class.

Rapport

Dr. Garrido-Nag has established excellent rapport with each of her SLP students. Prior to the class I observed, she
inquired about what students had done over the weekend and joked with them. She knows all of the students by
name and is familiar with their clinical experiences. She used that knowledge to link concepts she was discussing to
specific clinical experiences of the different students. Students were observed to feel comfortable when giving
opinions or taking a chance on answering a question for which they might not have a correct answer.

Organization of Class

Dr. Garrido-Nags class was very well-organized and demonstrated good time-management. She began the class by
reviewing the content of the previous class, linking diagnostic data collection to goals for the client. She concluded
the class by reviewing the days lecture. Students had copies of the powerpoint slides on their laptops prior to the
lecture, and thus, did not need to take many notes, which allowed them to participate more in class discussions.

Mastery of Content

Dr. Garrido-Nag has the appropriate educational preparation to teach HSL 813. She received her Ph.D. in 2012 from
the Graduate Center, CUNY earlier this year, has taught this course for 2 years, and she appears to be very
comfortable with the content of the course. She re-phrased or gave excellent examples of concepts that were initially
not clear to some students.

1
Syllabus

The HSL 813 syllabus is clear, well-formatted, and conforms to CGE requirements. Office hours (2-4:00 on
Wednesday) are appropriate. Contact information (office room number, phone, and email), university policies
(Academic Integrity, ADA) and Gallaudet strategic goals are included. Full references are provided for required and
recommended readings. One suggestion: many of the powerpoint slides used in the observed class included
citations (name, year), but were not referenced in the syllabus. I would suggest that these be added. The course
schedule, including dates, topics, and assignment due dates is clear. Several sections of this syllabus (pages 4, 7,
and 9) address course expectations. I would suggest combining these and/or titling the second section, which is now
titled Course Expectations and Grading to Grading. Note that the first list does not include attendance, which is
included in the second list. The section on Grading appropriately includes the relative weighting of course
requirements, numerical equivalents for grades, excellent detail for the two course projects, and appropriately
detailed rubrics to be used for grading the two projects. For Project 1, you might want to indicate the length of the
paper and be clear about whether a single paper will be submitted from each group or each student needs to submit
a paper.

Communication

All of the students in HSL 813 are hearing; thus, communication was entirely oral. Dr. Garrido-Nags volume, rate of
speech, and articulation were appropriate, and she is a good listener. If a student asked a question that was not
completely clear, Dr. Garrido-Nag rephrased the question to be sure that she understood it before answering. She
also used appropriate wait time after she asked a student a question. If a student did not know the answer to Dr.
Garrido-Nags question, Dr. Garrido-Nag prompted the student. If the student did not know the answer, the student
was not made to feel unprepared.

Powerpoint slides were generally well-prepared. Most contained the appropriate amount of information. For the most
part, Dr. Garrido-Nag allowed students to read the slides before discussing them and did not read from the slides.
There were a few typos (misspellings, spacing, and subject-verb agreement). For example, slide 5 (requirements is
misspelled), slide 33 says: Develop an intervention contexts, and on slide 22, a space is missing between
stimulation and techniques. Given the large number of slides, I would suggest using numerals for the various lists
(e.g., focused language stimulation techniques) and perhaps outlining the entire presentation. On slides that are
discussing a topic on the previous slide, for clarity, I would add continued to the header/title of the slide.

Summary Evaluation

I was very impressed with Dr. Garridos organization, teaching style and strategies, knowledge of child language
development and disorders, and her relationships with her students. She is a valuable asset to HSLS and its
graduate students.

Class Observation Report Submitted December 3, 2012

______________________________
Carol J. LaSasso, Ph.D., Professor