Learner Case Study
April 2012
The first half of the semester it has been a blessing for me to be able to visit South Childhood Center, a particularly diverse public school environment. I was able to interact specifically with Ms. Miller's second grade classroom. The learner that Ms. Miller recommended I focus on throughout my observations was an African American boy named Billy. "Billy is subtle," the PE teacher told me one day after school, "you wouldn't particularly know he was at risk." Ms. Miller informed me that at fall conferences Billy's mother told her that he repeated first grade at another school, and the two of them then decided to get him tested for learning disabilities. Observing Billy has helped me exercise what I have learned in the classroom at Calvin, allowing me to recognize Billy's strengths in motor ability. My time in the classroom has also led me to believe that Billy has particular troubles with attention and language. These two potential weaknesses also seem to be having an effect on other areas, including his memory and higher order thinking skills. Billy's weakness in attention and language arts seems to be threatening to affect him in all areas of the classroom.
South Childhood Center has classrooms ranging from preschool to a number of second grade classrooms, such as Ms. Miller's. Small, two story houses, with front porches no more than ten feet from the road, line up down the streets before reaching the school. During the 2009-2010 school year, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics (2012), there were about 413 total students with a 13.3 student to teacher ratio. Around 66% of these students labeled themselves as being of Hispanic decent, 17% were named white, and 11% were defined as African American. The prevalence of the Hispanic community is evident from the main sign of the school as well as other public places, such as signs in the front office, which communicate through both languages.
Once you travel from the main office, down the stairs, throughout the hallway, and into Ms. Miller classroom, you witness twenty-three colorful nametags marking the desks filled with students. Two windows face the wall opposite the main door, with a reading table, bookrack, and Ms. Miller's desk against the wall. A small bathroom is connected to the classroom, and students get up to use it during the class period without permission. A sink with a water fountain, and cupboard area fill the wall nearest the door. The white board is on one of the walls between these two sides of the room. The door to the classroom is always open, and a dividing wall between Ms. Miller's class and the neighboring teacher's is always open about five feet also. Teachers with questions for Ms. Miller, reading helpers, RTI professionals, student teachers, and special education helpers move into and out of the classroom throughout the day. Does this open classroom feel create a strong sense of community, or just develop more distractions for the students?
Often throughout the class Billy will spend a significant amount of time looking around the room, out the window, at other students, or out in the hallway. The longer the activity, the more Billy's attention wavers. Often this time is equal, if not exceeds, the amount of time Billy spends focused on his reading, worksheet, or Ms. Miller's lesson. During reading group, Ms. Miller constantly has to lightly hit Billy's book and remind him, "Where do you need to be looking?" In the book "A Mind At A Time," author Mel Levine (2002) explains how the mental effort control of our attention system determines the amount of energy necessary to finish a task, and also helps us stay focused on activities that we may not necessary find interesting. Levine (2002) also explains how more specifically alertness control "enables a student to be vigilant in the classroom, to concentrate on important incoming information, to feel a sense of being engaged or tuned in during a school activity" (Pg 59). Billy appears to struggle with either or both of these subsets of attention, mental effort explaining his tendency to have a hard time both starting and finishing work, and alertness control highlighting his inability to stay alert and tendency to become uninterested quickly.
Billy also becomes distracted by unimportant details and appears to go through phases of concentration. Once during the middle of his work on an assignment in class, Billy drastically stopped to pick up an eraser crumb on the desk of a student neighbor and examine it, finding much more interest in it than his worksheet on landforms. One day while in line, Billy slowly weaved back and forth, reading the signs and looking at pictures on doors, and then commenting on what he thought about them. Billy's head would look up within two seconds of hearing someone talking in the hallway. He would also trace over the letters in the word bank on his paper, instead of doing the actual problems. Another day during class Ms. Miller had to spend two minutes attempting to take Billy's focus away from a piece of trash on the ground, explaining to him that he needed to throw it away. Visual and auditory distractions are two areas that Levine (2002) describes as a weakness for individuals with problems in their selection controls and appears to be an area that Billy himself struggles with. According to Levine (2002) some students with a weakness in their selection control "have trouble filtering out certain kinds of useless sensations..." (Pg 65). This could explain Billy's inability to finish a paper without daydreaming or becoming distracted. Span control is described as when a student has trouble keeping attention or has uneven shifts in their concentration, which also appears to be a common occurrence for Billy (Levine, 2002). There are several areas that Billy appears to have problems in, specifically in the mental energy and intake control areas of attention.
One area that Ms. Miller and the school have recognized as a weakness for Billy, other than attention, is his ability in language arts. "Academically Billy struggles with language arts," Ms. Miller explained to me, adding "He is still low across all subjects." This was confirmed through my observations of Billy in his morning RTI group. Pearson Learning Solutions (2011) highlights in their educational writing how RTI "incorporates a multilevel method of intervening before the devastating effects of school failure take their toll" (Pg. 102). This system is being used early on to help Billy with his struggle in basic reading.
During Billy's RTI group he seemed to only be able to recognize words he had visually memorized, being unable to sound out words he was unfamiliar with, such as "dime." Billy was often unable to differentiate long e versus short e, such as in "men" which he labeled as having a long e. Billy also could not sound out the word "cry," which was labeled by the RTI professional as "a sight word." While reading with Billy and another student I found that Billy often would mix up the word "why" for the word "who." He would constantly make the same mistakes where he missed one letter or sound in a word. He would also say a word that started with a completely different sound than the one he was reading. When I would ask Billy to name the first sound in the word he would be unable to. Billy's inability to sound out new words, as well as explain the sounds in the words he did have visually memorized suggests a weakness with phonemes. "Phonological awareness" is the term that Levine (2002) uses to describe children who have a difficult time with their ability to detect the distinct language sounds in a word (Pg. 131). I feel that the first level of language described in Levine's (2002) book may be what Billy struggles with.
While reading with Billy, another common occurrence was skipping lines and words. This has me wondering if Billy's language and reading is rooted in his attention problems? Also could it go the other way, are Billy's attention problems the reason why he fell behind in language? Which came first, or does Billy have weaknesses in both? Billy's lack of ability in other subject areas could have the possibility of being rooted in his weakness in language arts, therefore hindering his ability to understand other subjects.
After reading a story together with Billy, I found that he was unable to remember the order of events and subjects in the story as well as the rest of the children. The areas of the story he had the best memory of were those that we talked about or made comments on while reading. Billy appears capable of recalling verbal instruction however. While listening to Ms. Miller lesson on quotations Billy was able to remember where they were used and the concept a few minutes later during his work on a homework sheet. Billy remembers directions, showcasing his short-term memory, and can also recount the movements of a dance taught in gym class, making use of his long-term memory. Billy's attention seems to be kept more through aural interaction and relation than through visuals or reading. Once Billy starts reading or having to write, his attention slides. Could this not be a problem with attention and instead be a language or reading issue? Billy's brain may be using all of its mental energy in recognizing phonemes and language rules, therefore not having enough focus left for memory of what is happening in the story. Attention and memory are two systems of our mind that fully depend upon one another, so this along with Billy's limited attention control may be taking away from his brain's intake of the material.
Higher order thinking was characterized in class by Professor Sevensma (2012) as "a sophisticated mental process that regulates our most basic cognitive processes to permit more efficient and effective learning and performance." Billy was able to showcase ability in higher order thinking through his understanding of the concept of quotations, but showed weakness in his capability to creatively think of a diverse set of examples on a quotation assignment. In Billy's reading group Ms. Miller took the students on a "picture walk" having them form beliefs and a basic outline about how they felt the story was going to be carried out. Billy was quiet for most of this exercise, which may show a lack of confidence or ability in his higher order thinking. Billy also had trouble understanding the concept of culture and was unable to critically think and form an opinion on the food of other countries. Billy's rule-based thinking was also weak in RTI when he could not explain the rules behind grammar.
Higher order thinking functions are maintained by our attention controls, an area already identified as troublesome for Billy. Billy may not be able to form concepts or opinions because of the dependency that higher order thinking has on both memory and language (Sevensma, 2012). Because Billy is falling behind in his language arts abilities, and has been shown as having potential memory issues connected with this incapability, Billy's higher order thinking may possibly be at risk. Does Billy have any trouble with higher order thinking when it involves hands on activities that take place outside of an environment focused on literacy? More examination will be needed for me to fully understand Billy's potential weakness in higher order thinking, and its connection to him as a learner.
Taking Billy outside of the main classroom and into another outside environment, gym class, is where I saw him thrive. Billy's main strength and joy appears to be in the use of his gross motor abilities, which is defined as the use of the large muscle groups (Levine, 2002.) This was evident in that Billy was one of the last people out in a game called "the last one standing," in which the physical education teacher swung a rope under the student's feet and had them jump over it. Billy's attention problems appear to have little to any affect on him while he is in gym. The evidence of his label "at risk" fades into the distance during gym class.
When asked about Billy the physical education teacher stated that he "has never been a problem...that's the great thing about PE, students can succeed in areas other than the classroom." Levine (2002) explains how "efficient motor output also helps accomplish some important academic skills (Pg. 171). The skills that Billy is strengthening through his interest in motor activity include determination, prediction, imagination of how a task can be completed, good spatial processing, improvement of active working memory as well as problem solving skills, active spatial processing, and an overall sense of confidence in ability and mastery of an activity (Levine, 2002). Billy's strength in gross motor abilities could strengthen and help his in class capability. I wonder if Billy plays any sports or is active in his motor abilities outside of school? Could Ms. Miller or the PE teacher find ways to combine Billy's interest in physical activity with his main language arts and math concepts?
Through my observations I have found that Billy has problems with his attention, particularly in starting, finishing, and continuing his motivation to complete a task. He also has trouble with visual and auditory distractions. This has led me to conclude that it is possible for Billy to have problems with the alertness and intake control of his attention system. I also have noticed signs that Billy has a weakness in his language abilities, particularly in his phonological awareness. Billy is unable to sound out new words, as well as tell the phonological principles behind the sight words he knows. The combination of Billy’s language difficulty and potential attention disorder appear to be having an affect on his memory and higher order thinking skills as well. Billy's strength appears to be physical activity, particularly in his gross motor abilities. This could give Billy an outlet to gain confidence and potentially be used as a tool to strengthen other academic areas. A combination of these weaknesses, Billy's strength in motor abilities, and his humorous nature combine to create Billy's personality as a learner.
The first half of the semester it has been a blessing for me to be able to visit South Childhood Center, a particularly diverse public school environment. I was able to interact specifically with Ms. Miller's second grade classroom. The learner that Ms. Miller recommended I focus on throughout my observations was an African American boy named Billy. "Billy is subtle," the PE teacher told me one day after school, "you wouldn't particularly know he was at risk." Ms. Miller informed me that at fall conferences Billy's mother told her that he repeated first grade at another school, and the two of them then decided to get him tested for learning disabilities. Observing Billy has helped me exercise what I have learned in the classroom at Calvin, allowing me to recognize Billy's strengths in motor ability. My time in the classroom has also led me to believe that Billy has particular troubles with attention and language. These two potential weaknesses also seem to be having an effect on other areas, including his memory and higher order thinking skills. Billy's weakness in attention and language arts seems to be threatening to affect him in all areas of the classroom.
South Childhood Center has classrooms ranging from preschool to a number of second grade classrooms, such as Ms. Miller's. Small, two story houses, with front porches no more than ten feet from the road, line up down the streets before reaching the school. During the 2009-2010 school year, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics (2012), there were about 413 total students with a 13.3 student to teacher ratio. Around 66% of these students labeled themselves as being of Hispanic decent, 17% were named white, and 11% were defined as African American. The prevalence of the Hispanic community is evident from the main sign of the school as well as other public places, such as signs in the front office, which communicate through both languages.
Once you travel from the main office, down the stairs, throughout the hallway, and into Ms. Miller classroom, you witness twenty-three colorful nametags marking the desks filled with students. Two windows face the wall opposite the main door, with a reading table, bookrack, and Ms. Miller's desk against the wall. A small bathroom is connected to the classroom, and students get up to use it during the class period without permission. A sink with a water fountain, and cupboard area fill the wall nearest the door. The white board is on one of the walls between these two sides of the room. The door to the classroom is always open, and a dividing wall between Ms. Miller's class and the neighboring teacher's is always open about five feet also. Teachers with questions for Ms. Miller, reading helpers, RTI professionals, student teachers, and special education helpers move into and out of the classroom throughout the day. Does this open classroom feel create a strong sense of community, or just develop more distractions for the students?
Often throughout the class Billy will spend a significant amount of time looking around the room, out the window, at other students, or out in the hallway. The longer the activity, the more Billy's attention wavers. Often this time is equal, if not exceeds, the amount of time Billy spends focused on his reading, worksheet, or Ms. Miller's lesson. During reading group, Ms. Miller constantly has to lightly hit Billy's book and remind him, "Where do you need to be looking?" In the book "A Mind At A Time," author Mel Levine (2002) explains how the mental effort control of our attention system determines the amount of energy necessary to finish a task, and also helps us stay focused on activities that we may not necessary find interesting. Levine (2002) also explains how more specifically alertness control "enables a student to be vigilant in the classroom, to concentrate on important incoming information, to feel a sense of being engaged or tuned in during a school activity" (Pg 59). Billy appears to struggle with either or both of these subsets of attention, mental effort explaining his tendency to have a hard time both starting and finishing work, and alertness control highlighting his inability to stay alert and tendency to become uninterested quickly.
Billy also becomes distracted by unimportant details and appears to go through phases of concentration. Once during the middle of his work on an assignment in class, Billy drastically stopped to pick up an eraser crumb on the desk of a student neighbor and examine it, finding much more interest in it than his worksheet on landforms. One day while in line, Billy slowly weaved back and forth, reading the signs and looking at pictures on doors, and then commenting on what he thought about them. Billy's head would look up within two seconds of hearing someone talking in the hallway. He would also trace over the letters in the word bank on his paper, instead of doing the actual problems. Another day during class Ms. Miller had to spend two minutes attempting to take Billy's focus away from a piece of trash on the ground, explaining to him that he needed to throw it away. Visual and auditory distractions are two areas that Levine (2002) describes as a weakness for individuals with problems in their selection controls and appears to be an area that Billy himself struggles with. According to Levine (2002) some students with a weakness in their selection control "have trouble filtering out certain kinds of useless sensations..." (Pg 65). This could explain Billy's inability to finish a paper without daydreaming or becoming distracted. Span control is described as when a student has trouble keeping attention or has uneven shifts in their concentration, which also appears to be a common occurrence for Billy (Levine, 2002). There are several areas that Billy appears to have problems in, specifically in the mental energy and intake control areas of attention.
One area that Ms. Miller and the school have recognized as a weakness for Billy, other than attention, is his ability in language arts. "Academically Billy struggles with language arts," Ms. Miller explained to me, adding "He is still low across all subjects." This was confirmed through my observations of Billy in his morning RTI group. Pearson Learning Solutions (2011) highlights in their educational writing how RTI "incorporates a multilevel method of intervening before the devastating effects of school failure take their toll" (Pg. 102). This system is being used early on to help Billy with his struggle in basic reading.
During Billy's RTI group he seemed to only be able to recognize words he had visually memorized, being unable to sound out words he was unfamiliar with, such as "dime." Billy was often unable to differentiate long e versus short e, such as in "men" which he labeled as having a long e. Billy also could not sound out the word "cry," which was labeled by the RTI professional as "a sight word." While reading with Billy and another student I found that Billy often would mix up the word "why" for the word "who." He would constantly make the same mistakes where he missed one letter or sound in a word. He would also say a word that started with a completely different sound than the one he was reading. When I would ask Billy to name the first sound in the word he would be unable to. Billy's inability to sound out new words, as well as explain the sounds in the words he did have visually memorized suggests a weakness with phonemes. "Phonological awareness" is the term that Levine (2002) uses to describe children who have a difficult time with their ability to detect the distinct language sounds in a word (Pg. 131). I feel that the first level of language described in Levine's (2002) book may be what Billy struggles with.
While reading with Billy, another common occurrence was skipping lines and words. This has me wondering if Billy's language and reading is rooted in his attention problems? Also could it go the other way, are Billy's attention problems the reason why he fell behind in language? Which came first, or does Billy have weaknesses in both? Billy's lack of ability in other subject areas could have the possibility of being rooted in his weakness in language arts, therefore hindering his ability to understand other subjects.
After reading a story together with Billy, I found that he was unable to remember the order of events and subjects in the story as well as the rest of the children. The areas of the story he had the best memory of were those that we talked about or made comments on while reading. Billy appears capable of recalling verbal instruction however. While listening to Ms. Miller lesson on quotations Billy was able to remember where they were used and the concept a few minutes later during his work on a homework sheet. Billy remembers directions, showcasing his short-term memory, and can also recount the movements of a dance taught in gym class, making use of his long-term memory. Billy's attention seems to be kept more through aural interaction and relation than through visuals or reading. Once Billy starts reading or having to write, his attention slides. Could this not be a problem with attention and instead be a language or reading issue? Billy's brain may be using all of its mental energy in recognizing phonemes and language rules, therefore not having enough focus left for memory of what is happening in the story. Attention and memory are two systems of our mind that fully depend upon one another, so this along with Billy's limited attention control may be taking away from his brain's intake of the material.
Higher order thinking was characterized in class by Professor Sevensma (2012) as "a sophisticated mental process that regulates our most basic cognitive processes to permit more efficient and effective learning and performance." Billy was able to showcase ability in higher order thinking through his understanding of the concept of quotations, but showed weakness in his capability to creatively think of a diverse set of examples on a quotation assignment. In Billy's reading group Ms. Miller took the students on a "picture walk" having them form beliefs and a basic outline about how they felt the story was going to be carried out. Billy was quiet for most of this exercise, which may show a lack of confidence or ability in his higher order thinking. Billy also had trouble understanding the concept of culture and was unable to critically think and form an opinion on the food of other countries. Billy's rule-based thinking was also weak in RTI when he could not explain the rules behind grammar.
Higher order thinking functions are maintained by our attention controls, an area already identified as troublesome for Billy. Billy may not be able to form concepts or opinions because of the dependency that higher order thinking has on both memory and language (Sevensma, 2012). Because Billy is falling behind in his language arts abilities, and has been shown as having potential memory issues connected with this incapability, Billy's higher order thinking may possibly be at risk. Does Billy have any trouble with higher order thinking when it involves hands on activities that take place outside of an environment focused on literacy? More examination will be needed for me to fully understand Billy's potential weakness in higher order thinking, and its connection to him as a learner.
Taking Billy outside of the main classroom and into another outside environment, gym class, is where I saw him thrive. Billy's main strength and joy appears to be in the use of his gross motor abilities, which is defined as the use of the large muscle groups (Levine, 2002.) This was evident in that Billy was one of the last people out in a game called "the last one standing," in which the physical education teacher swung a rope under the student's feet and had them jump over it. Billy's attention problems appear to have little to any affect on him while he is in gym. The evidence of his label "at risk" fades into the distance during gym class.
When asked about Billy the physical education teacher stated that he "has never been a problem...that's the great thing about PE, students can succeed in areas other than the classroom." Levine (2002) explains how "efficient motor output also helps accomplish some important academic skills (Pg. 171). The skills that Billy is strengthening through his interest in motor activity include determination, prediction, imagination of how a task can be completed, good spatial processing, improvement of active working memory as well as problem solving skills, active spatial processing, and an overall sense of confidence in ability and mastery of an activity (Levine, 2002). Billy's strength in gross motor abilities could strengthen and help his in class capability. I wonder if Billy plays any sports or is active in his motor abilities outside of school? Could Ms. Miller or the PE teacher find ways to combine Billy's interest in physical activity with his main language arts and math concepts?
Through my observations I have found that Billy has problems with his attention, particularly in starting, finishing, and continuing his motivation to complete a task. He also has trouble with visual and auditory distractions. This has led me to conclude that it is possible for Billy to have problems with the alertness and intake control of his attention system. I also have noticed signs that Billy has a weakness in his language abilities, particularly in his phonological awareness. Billy is unable to sound out new words, as well as tell the phonological principles behind the sight words he knows. The combination of Billy’s language difficulty and potential attention disorder appear to be having an affect on his memory and higher order thinking skills as well. Billy's strength appears to be physical activity, particularly in his gross motor abilities. This could give Billy an outlet to gain confidence and potentially be used as a tool to strengthen other academic areas. A combination of these weaknesses, Billy's strength in motor abilities, and his humorous nature combine to create Billy's personality as a learner.