Teacher-Mentor Program

The Southern Polytechnic State University Composition Committee has established a teacher-mentor program for adjuncts and temporary instructors. Each semester members of the composition committee will be assigned a different teacher to observe. The expectations of these observations should match the guidelines set up in the ENGL 1101 and ENGL 1102 syllabi. Again, our goals are not so much evaluation (although this is part of it) but rather to encourage teacher-talk about matters of curriculum development, composition pedagogy, student interaction and classroom management. We agreed to follow these guidelines:

Observe the classroom at least one time (if not two) during the semester.
Meet with the teacher at least once to discuss feedback on classroom observations.
Write an observation memo at the end of the semester for the teacher’s file.
Make yourself available to the teacher for discussion and questions.

It is the composition committee member’s responsibility to contact the teacher at the beginning of the semester to explain the program, gather course materials, and set up observation dates.

It is the adjunct/instructor’s responsibility to provide syllabi, class plans, assignments, etc. to help contextualize the observations.