My Case Study
Step 1: Propose and Describe Your Case
The student I chose to do my case study on is a ninth grade regular geometry student who I will refer to as Heather. Heather is one of the students I have not quite figured out yet. She seems to be friends with a group of students in my class and gets distracted by her peers frequently throughout the hour. When I ask her to stop talking, she ignores my instruction and continuously talks to her peers with her back turned to the front of the room. I usually have the whole class wait for her to turn around with her feet under her desk and lips zipped before I continue class discussion. Recently I tried moving her seat so she sits closer to me to see if her behavior changed, but so far it has not. She has also told me numerous times that I “pick on her” or “am out to get her.” However, when another one of her friends is acting the same way, I ask them to do the exact same thing and I wait to restart the class until they do so. Heather usually says this in front of the whole class, and I reply by letting her know those are not my intentions in front of the entire class and usually in private I let her know she is appreciated and that I wish she would make better choices in my class.
Heather usually gets her work done and when she feels like she might be getting called on she prepares an answer that she is confident with and verbalizes it, although I tell the students to think quietly to themselves. Heather does good work, when she is working in my class. However, when she is not working, Heather distracts her peers and then 4 or 5 students get no work done. I would like to know how to get Heather to do quality work at all times.
When looking at Heather’s grades I found that Heather has a C in German II, a C+ in Earth Science, a B- in English, a C in geometry, an A in Gym, and an A- in U.S. History. Knowing that one of her lowest grades is in my class, I would like to see the way other teachers engage Heather in class. I have noticed that Heather also seems to have fairly low self-efficacy in math, and verbalizes her hatred of math by saying things like “I hate math” and “I’m just not good at math.” I would like to know how to change the way she thinks about math, and I think after this case study, I might be able to figure out how to motivate her.
Heather seems to have this same attitude every day in my class. I am always out to get her, she always hates math and she is usually always talking with her group of friends instead of focusing on the work.
Step 2: Analyze the Situation
After reviewing many different aspects about this student, I came to a few conclusions. Heather started acting like a “victim” when she sat closer to her friends. I noticed that her grades also went from a B- to a C when she was in the seat nearest to her peers. I did move her closer to me and mixed up her group, but that is when her behavior became more extreme and she started to mimic things I do. I feel as if one possible hypothesis for Heather’s actions could be to get attention from her peers. I think that the times Heather was engaged in my lessons was when there was the chance either my mentor teacher or I would cold call on students by using cards and announcing that to the class. As I noticed in the article by Lemov (Engaging students in your lessons) Cold calling can be a benefical way to check a student’s level of understanding on a certain learning objective. When I did use the cards on Heather she did not refuse to answer the question or play as a victim. This makes me think she also thinks the system of cold calling is “fair” because every class member has a card to be called on and we shuffle the cards in order to have the pick be truly random. I think Heather seems to have a whole issue on the idea of “fairness” and maybe that is why she doesn’t understand why she is always getting called out for her behavior, since she thinks others act the same way.
I also noticed that Heather’s lowest grade was in math and it has been that way for a while. This makes me think Heather has low self-efficacy in math. Whenever we work on group tasks she usually gets distracted by her peers, so having engaging group activities may not be the best for Heather. She usually blames her actions on her ADD (which I noticed she is prescribed to Adderall, but says she forgets to take her medicine on the days she “acts out”). I think she also may get discouraged when she fails at something in mathematics. I noticed in the article “why students don’t like school,” Willingham mentions the ways students treat failure as a part of learning. In our class we emphasized at the beginning that it is okay not to know something, but it isn’t okay not to try. I think that by starting fresh at the new semester and really emphasizing that idea, Heather might get that idea in her head and realize it’s okay not to know something, it’s okay to fail, as long as you can make that into a learning experience. We allow students to retake skill checks (quizzes) and tests. I think this makes these events more of a learning experience because students can always go back and prove to me that they understand the material by coming in and making corrections to their skill checks and tests, then retaking it and usually it helps improve their score. I think that if I could get Heather to learn from her skill checks and tests and not get discouraged, she could really become much more confident in math. Overall, I am excited to learn more about Heather as time goes on now that I have ideas why she acts the way she does.
Step 3: Consider Alternative Solutions
I found that the biggest problem I had with my student was that she tended to talk to her peers during discussion and she was always upset when I would call her out for not behaving well during class.
One of the courses of actions I have taken this new semester has been moving her away from her peers. I did this because one of my hypotheses was that she acts a certain way to get attention from her peers. By moving her near people that she does not know as well, I have found that Heather is naturally more quiet and more focused on the math, rather then the social aspect of class. Moving her seat seems like such a little change, however it has drastically changed my interactions with her and she no longer blames me for calling her out. She no longer seems to have negative feelings for me and she does not try to evoke any reactions from me. When I moved her seat, I put her more towards the back of the room and I find myself interacting with her less. This is one drawback I have noticed so far. I have also noticed that she is less of herself. I am unsure if that is because she is now taking her ADD medication daily or because she feels like I have neglected her by placing her near the back of the room. The risk of moving Heather was that I thought she might influence the students’ around her (because it seems like that happened before).
Another course of action would be to work on building her self-efficacy in mathematics. Heather is a very smart student but she does not seem to have much confidence in mathematics. I think working with her one on one and giving her positive feedback. I could also surround her by positive students or perhaps students she could help. If she could see that she knows this stuff and that she can actually help others learn the material, this could be beneficial to her attitude towards math. A drawback for giving her one on one attention would mean I might neglect other students that would also need this in my class. A drawback to her sitting next to someone who may need more help would be that if she became friends with that student, she might start talking to them frequently and distract them from learning, forcing me to “call her out” for talking during class which would start this cycle all over again.
I think the best combination would be to have Heather sit closer to me, so she can get that reassurance she needs, but next to someone she could help. This would build her confidence by showing her she CAN do this and she will get more attention from me so she has the initial confidence to share her ideas with classmates. She will also be away from her friends, so that will make her less talkative and prone for getting in trouble. Overall I think this would be the best plan for Heather.
Step 4: Final Reflection
When I implemented my plan, I decided to have Heather sit in the back of the class away from students she would get distracted by. I also planned to start building up her confidence in math.
I had Heather come in after school for extra help, since she had missed a few days and I thought this would be a good time to work with her one-on-one to build up that confidence. I think this was very powerful. I got to get to know her better, relate to her and tell her that she does really well understanding tricky concepts. I tried to give her praise whenever she earned it, and she earned it frequently. She ended up getting an A on the test that covered the topics we reviewed after school. I think that this shows that the after school help helped build her confidence and thus was a success.
Sitting her in the back of the room without the distraction of her friends has also been beneficial for her focus in class. She has not been distracted by side conversations and when I have come around to check on student work, she has always had a decent amount done and she has asked me questions that have shown me she has been thinking about the problems that need to be completed.
This evidence has helped me see that my plan is effective, but there are still some things I wish I had done differently. Although Heather has gotten more confident and has been less distracted by her peers, she has been not participating as much as I would have hoped. I thought that by building up her confidence by giving her praises and complements she would feel more comfortable sharing her knowledge with the rest of her peers.
I think that my hypothesis from step 2 was addressed within my enactment. I used cold calling by using random cards that are shuffled through and whenever I did call on Heather, she would answer the question and explain her reasoning. She also has not been playing the victim card and I am thinking this might be because she has been getting distracted by her peers as much as she used to.
Overall, I think my plan worked well. I think with teaching there are always going to be things I wish were different, but I think with this plan I found that my initial goals were reached. My next goal for Heather will be having her play a more active role in class discussion, but my goals from my current plan were met.
Now I can work with Heather without her feeling like the victim because I have learned more about her through this case study. I also know now that building her confidence is as easy as giving her praise for the things she does well on. I also learned that by having her away from peers and using my random calling system more frequently she feels like less of a victim and more as an equal in my class.
The student I chose to do my case study on is a ninth grade regular geometry student who I will refer to as Heather. Heather is one of the students I have not quite figured out yet. She seems to be friends with a group of students in my class and gets distracted by her peers frequently throughout the hour. When I ask her to stop talking, she ignores my instruction and continuously talks to her peers with her back turned to the front of the room. I usually have the whole class wait for her to turn around with her feet under her desk and lips zipped before I continue class discussion. Recently I tried moving her seat so she sits closer to me to see if her behavior changed, but so far it has not. She has also told me numerous times that I “pick on her” or “am out to get her.” However, when another one of her friends is acting the same way, I ask them to do the exact same thing and I wait to restart the class until they do so. Heather usually says this in front of the whole class, and I reply by letting her know those are not my intentions in front of the entire class and usually in private I let her know she is appreciated and that I wish she would make better choices in my class.
Heather usually gets her work done and when she feels like she might be getting called on she prepares an answer that she is confident with and verbalizes it, although I tell the students to think quietly to themselves. Heather does good work, when she is working in my class. However, when she is not working, Heather distracts her peers and then 4 or 5 students get no work done. I would like to know how to get Heather to do quality work at all times.
When looking at Heather’s grades I found that Heather has a C in German II, a C+ in Earth Science, a B- in English, a C in geometry, an A in Gym, and an A- in U.S. History. Knowing that one of her lowest grades is in my class, I would like to see the way other teachers engage Heather in class. I have noticed that Heather also seems to have fairly low self-efficacy in math, and verbalizes her hatred of math by saying things like “I hate math” and “I’m just not good at math.” I would like to know how to change the way she thinks about math, and I think after this case study, I might be able to figure out how to motivate her.
Heather seems to have this same attitude every day in my class. I am always out to get her, she always hates math and she is usually always talking with her group of friends instead of focusing on the work.
Step 2: Analyze the Situation
After reviewing many different aspects about this student, I came to a few conclusions. Heather started acting like a “victim” when she sat closer to her friends. I noticed that her grades also went from a B- to a C when she was in the seat nearest to her peers. I did move her closer to me and mixed up her group, but that is when her behavior became more extreme and she started to mimic things I do. I feel as if one possible hypothesis for Heather’s actions could be to get attention from her peers. I think that the times Heather was engaged in my lessons was when there was the chance either my mentor teacher or I would cold call on students by using cards and announcing that to the class. As I noticed in the article by Lemov (Engaging students in your lessons) Cold calling can be a benefical way to check a student’s level of understanding on a certain learning objective. When I did use the cards on Heather she did not refuse to answer the question or play as a victim. This makes me think she also thinks the system of cold calling is “fair” because every class member has a card to be called on and we shuffle the cards in order to have the pick be truly random. I think Heather seems to have a whole issue on the idea of “fairness” and maybe that is why she doesn’t understand why she is always getting called out for her behavior, since she thinks others act the same way.
I also noticed that Heather’s lowest grade was in math and it has been that way for a while. This makes me think Heather has low self-efficacy in math. Whenever we work on group tasks she usually gets distracted by her peers, so having engaging group activities may not be the best for Heather. She usually blames her actions on her ADD (which I noticed she is prescribed to Adderall, but says she forgets to take her medicine on the days she “acts out”). I think she also may get discouraged when she fails at something in mathematics. I noticed in the article “why students don’t like school,” Willingham mentions the ways students treat failure as a part of learning. In our class we emphasized at the beginning that it is okay not to know something, but it isn’t okay not to try. I think that by starting fresh at the new semester and really emphasizing that idea, Heather might get that idea in her head and realize it’s okay not to know something, it’s okay to fail, as long as you can make that into a learning experience. We allow students to retake skill checks (quizzes) and tests. I think this makes these events more of a learning experience because students can always go back and prove to me that they understand the material by coming in and making corrections to their skill checks and tests, then retaking it and usually it helps improve their score. I think that if I could get Heather to learn from her skill checks and tests and not get discouraged, she could really become much more confident in math. Overall, I am excited to learn more about Heather as time goes on now that I have ideas why she acts the way she does.
Step 3: Consider Alternative Solutions
I found that the biggest problem I had with my student was that she tended to talk to her peers during discussion and she was always upset when I would call her out for not behaving well during class.
One of the courses of actions I have taken this new semester has been moving her away from her peers. I did this because one of my hypotheses was that she acts a certain way to get attention from her peers. By moving her near people that she does not know as well, I have found that Heather is naturally more quiet and more focused on the math, rather then the social aspect of class. Moving her seat seems like such a little change, however it has drastically changed my interactions with her and she no longer blames me for calling her out. She no longer seems to have negative feelings for me and she does not try to evoke any reactions from me. When I moved her seat, I put her more towards the back of the room and I find myself interacting with her less. This is one drawback I have noticed so far. I have also noticed that she is less of herself. I am unsure if that is because she is now taking her ADD medication daily or because she feels like I have neglected her by placing her near the back of the room. The risk of moving Heather was that I thought she might influence the students’ around her (because it seems like that happened before).
Another course of action would be to work on building her self-efficacy in mathematics. Heather is a very smart student but she does not seem to have much confidence in mathematics. I think working with her one on one and giving her positive feedback. I could also surround her by positive students or perhaps students she could help. If she could see that she knows this stuff and that she can actually help others learn the material, this could be beneficial to her attitude towards math. A drawback for giving her one on one attention would mean I might neglect other students that would also need this in my class. A drawback to her sitting next to someone who may need more help would be that if she became friends with that student, she might start talking to them frequently and distract them from learning, forcing me to “call her out” for talking during class which would start this cycle all over again.
I think the best combination would be to have Heather sit closer to me, so she can get that reassurance she needs, but next to someone she could help. This would build her confidence by showing her she CAN do this and she will get more attention from me so she has the initial confidence to share her ideas with classmates. She will also be away from her friends, so that will make her less talkative and prone for getting in trouble. Overall I think this would be the best plan for Heather.
Step 4: Final Reflection
When I implemented my plan, I decided to have Heather sit in the back of the class away from students she would get distracted by. I also planned to start building up her confidence in math.
I had Heather come in after school for extra help, since she had missed a few days and I thought this would be a good time to work with her one-on-one to build up that confidence. I think this was very powerful. I got to get to know her better, relate to her and tell her that she does really well understanding tricky concepts. I tried to give her praise whenever she earned it, and she earned it frequently. She ended up getting an A on the test that covered the topics we reviewed after school. I think that this shows that the after school help helped build her confidence and thus was a success.
Sitting her in the back of the room without the distraction of her friends has also been beneficial for her focus in class. She has not been distracted by side conversations and when I have come around to check on student work, she has always had a decent amount done and she has asked me questions that have shown me she has been thinking about the problems that need to be completed.
This evidence has helped me see that my plan is effective, but there are still some things I wish I had done differently. Although Heather has gotten more confident and has been less distracted by her peers, she has been not participating as much as I would have hoped. I thought that by building up her confidence by giving her praises and complements she would feel more comfortable sharing her knowledge with the rest of her peers.
I think that my hypothesis from step 2 was addressed within my enactment. I used cold calling by using random cards that are shuffled through and whenever I did call on Heather, she would answer the question and explain her reasoning. She also has not been playing the victim card and I am thinking this might be because she has been getting distracted by her peers as much as she used to.
Overall, I think my plan worked well. I think with teaching there are always going to be things I wish were different, but I think with this plan I found that my initial goals were reached. My next goal for Heather will be having her play a more active role in class discussion, but my goals from my current plan were met.
Now I can work with Heather without her feeling like the victim because I have learned more about her through this case study. I also know now that building her confidence is as easy as giving her praise for the things she does well on. I also learned that by having her away from peers and using my random calling system more frequently she feels like less of a victim and more as an equal in my class.