MY TEACHING PORTFOLIO
My Teaching Statement
Sample Course Schedule
SAMPLES OF MY WORK
PHONETICS ASSIGNMENT
This is an activity where I pair undergraduate students together in my Phonetics course. My purpose is to have the students apply their knowledge of phonetic transcription in connected speech. I have added a reflection portion to stimulate the students’ critical thinking regarding differences in transcription they might have with their partner and how that might affect diagnosis and treatment.
Learning Objective: The students will demonstrate the application of the broad and narrow transcription conventions. They will compare their transcription to their partners and make a hypothesis regarding how that might affect the diagnosis and treatment of the client.
Activity Set-up: The students will work in pairs for this activity. Each pair will transcribe a speech sample from the same video chosen online; however, they will do this portion separately. Upon completion, the students will compare their transcriptions to their partners and answer the following questions:
- Did you and your partner's transcriptions match for the most part?
- If there were differences, did you notice a pattern?
- Why do you think you might have chosen different symbols?
- How might this affect this child's diagnosis and treatment?
Submission Format: The transcriptions and reflections will be submitted to the Learning Management System (LMS). The transcription portion will need to be in a word document or PDF, but the reflection portion can be written or via audio file.
Peer Review/Discussion: When these are completed, the students will meet with their partner again to discuss the differences in the transcriptions to determine if any changes need to be made.
Grading Expectations: I will grade the transcriptions broadly. Most of the focus will be on the reflection portion of the assignment in order to help the clinicians begin to think critically about speech sound disorders.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT ASSIGNMENT
This activity is an opportunity for students to demonstrate their understanding of language development within various cultural and linguistic populations. Because of the specific format of the assignment, students will need to identify the most pertinent information and communicate it in a professional environment.
Learning Objective: The students will demonstrate their understanding of the five components of language within a cultural or linguistic population of their choice. By creating this infographic and sharing it with their peers, the students will have a rich resource that can be used to help them to differentiate language differences vs language disorders when making clinical decisions as Speech-Language Pathologists.
Activity Set-up: The students will create an infographic that will be aimed toward an audience of Speech-Language Pathologists. This infographic will cover the five components of language within the student's chosen cultural or linguistic population. The student will summarize the origins of their chosen population and then will compare and contrast the similarities and differences between their focus and Standard American English.
Submission Format: The assignment will be submitted as an Infographic to the Learning Management System and then added to a shared Discussion Board that will be accessible to the entire class.
Peer Review/Discussion: The students will review each other's work and be responsible for commenting and/or asking a question on at least 3 of their classmates' submissions.
Reflection: The students will reflect on their choice in their reflection journals, discussing their own performance, one other student’s performance they admired, and any improvements they would like to make.
Grading Expectations: I will grade the submissions on content, professional language, and presentation. I will grade broadly on the comments and reflections to encourage engagement with these portions.
STUDENT FEEDBACK
from students at Curtin University and The University of Houston
University of Houston, clinical graduate student
- "Dr. Schaff gave great suggestions when I was in need of assistance. She was always available and understanding when issues occurred. She was always providing resources that could help my client. She is a remarkable CE and I feel grateful to have her this semester. Thank you Dr. Schaff for all your knowledge and kindness."
University of Houston, Phonetics undergraduate student
- "Her knowledge and passion for the course show through her teaching. She is also very kind and does her best to make sure her students not only understand the material but succeed in the class as well."
University of Houston, Language Development undergraduate student
- "She always keeps us up to date on research being put out. She will even share online resources for SLPs. She answered any questions the student had. If questions or confusion about a topic came up and if she didn’t know or wanted to clarify it for us she would get back to us, review it next class period or send out an announcement on Blackboard which further explained the questions. She gave out very useful assignments. For example, we made infographics on different topics, and after submitting we had a folder to share our topics with the rest of the class and we canUni save them and use them as a handy file for the future. My favorite one was the language dialects, these infographics can be made into a file folder for future reference. It is important for speech-language therapists to understand where a child or person comes from before diagnosing with a language disorder."
University of Houston, Phonetics undergraduate student
- "I like how the quizzes make up most of the assessments and the final is more of a project than an exam. Really gives us the chance to learn through trial and error and learn from the quizzes. I never dreaded the class or felt like I was in over my head, like I usually do with other classes when it comes to testing. I knew there was enough room to make a mistake and learn from it."
Curtin University, First Clinical Year student
- “Allyson was extremely supportive and really prompted us to use our own clinical thinking to decide on what assessments/therapy approaches etc to use instead of simply giving us the answer. At the time- you really just want someone to give you the answer, but in the long run, you realize that by not being given all the answers, you have developed the ability to plan and rationalize, and critically reflect yourself, which is what we will be expected to do next year and in future years as clinicians.”
Curtin University, Second Clinical Year student and Mentor to First Clinical Year students
- “The CE was amazing. Supportive and had very good teaching methods. Very generous in giving advice and even clinical opportunities outside of placement. Appreciated that I was given a lot of independence and opportunities to take the lead in discussions/debriefs with First Clinical Year students. I was also able to take on an individual client. Extra learning opportunities were valuable.”
