TE

803 Case Study - AZ

Case Study Proposal Template

In the case of Matthew, a student of mine:

Description of Concern:

My student (who shall be referred to as Matthew) is difficult academically. Since day one of the first
semester, he has struggled to complete assignments, often not turning things in at all. He even failed
to do an entire personal narrative assignment, which we spent nearly a month working on both in
class and outside of class. He is very polite and kind, and this is sometimes frustrating, as when I
speak to him about his lack of work on assignments, he is very receptive and polite but then never
actually comes through. Ive tried to have him stay after school or come in during academic advisory
numerous times. He always says he will come, but never does. I have also contacted his mother, and
only received spotty response from her, expressing concern, but not really helping in any way. His
biggest issue is actually not doing work. Additionally, when he does do work, the quality is quite
low, so its difficult for him to make up for the assignments he doesnt turn in. He failed my last
semester, and I now have him again and dont want the same thing to happen. I have looked at his
other class grades, and he is failing almost all of the other ones as well.

Hypotheses/Interpretations of Behavior:

One interpretation of Matthews behavior is that he simply doesnt care about school and doesnt
care if he does poorly or fails. He might just go home and think that he would rather receive a poor
grade or a failing grade than actually put in the effort to do anything. Matthew usually does not
object to doing work in class (although the quality is poor, he does do it), so I know there is some
disconnect between doing work in school and doing work at home.

Another interpretation is that Matthew lacks confidence in his ability, and thinks that others dont
care about him either. His mothers response to my emails and calls of concern was that it is
difficult for her to keep track of him, because of the hours that she works. This saddened me,
and although I understand that she works unconventional hours, I realized that Matthew likely does
not have a lot of support at home and is at least not being encouraged or monitored for success in
any way there. From this, he might have gained the feeling that what he does doesnt really matter
or that no one really cares about his academics at all. Additionally, having a low level of skill for
writing might also be contributing to his lack of confidence, so that he would rather simply not do
things than acknowledge how difficult they sometimes are for him to do. I think he has fallen into
the routine of being somewhat forgotten or ignored as he is quiet and polite, so its easy for
teachers to just let him skate by at a failing grade and not think much of him.

Here is the hypothesis that, for the moment, I have decided upon:

When I first experienced issues with Matthew, I thought that the he doesnt care interpretation
was the most likely one. However, after spending more time with him and thinking more about him,
I think that the second interpretation is more likely. I want to help Michael gain a better set of skills,
and mostly boost his confidence by showing him that many people care about him and want him to
succeed, including myself. I want to encourage him with this additional support so that he
eventually fosters his own self confidence and realizes that he can get better with small steps
completing assignments at home, working on things after school or in other classes, and eventually
even improving skills. I think he is seeing the big picture as too intimidating, and falling into the

TE 803 Case Study - AZ

crutch of just not doing assignments so I want to show him that even if he can just complete
assignments, he will do a lot better in the class and then we can go from there with improving his
skills.

I have already taken the initiative of recommending Matthew for a class called English Essentials.
This class serves as a class for students who struggle with basic English skills where they have
more attention from their teacher and can use the class to work on homework and assignments for
their regular English class. This has been the first step of my action plan, and Matthew has been
successfully added to the class. To execute my action plan fully, I am going to work diligently to
communicate with his English Essentials teacher. By keeping her up to date on our assignments, she
can provide an extra push of encouragement to help him complete them, as well as helping him
with some basic skills. I am also going to work more diligently to contact his mother as I sort of
fell out of the habit of it last semester. Perhaps most importantly, I want to make sure that I give
Matthew positive attention whether its about school, or merely just a small side conversation
just to show him that I do care about him and know him. Im hoping that by having all of these
positive adult role models in his life and feeling that we actually care about him, he will work harder
to succeed and start to feel confident in his own ability to pass the class. Additionally, I am working
this unit to try to make these classic texts as engaging as possible, with lots of activities and
journal reflections, etc.

Action Plan: In light of the questions I answered in my proposal, here is what I might try:

When I first experienced issues with Matthew, I thought that the he doesnt care interpretation
was the most likely one. However, after spending more time with him and thinking more about him,
I think that the second interpretation is more likely. I want to help Michael gain a better set of skills,
and mostly boost his confidence by showing him that many people care about him and want him to
succeed, including myself. I want to encourage him with this additional support so that he
eventually fosters his own self confidence and realizes that he can get better with small steps
completing assignments at home, working on things after school or in other classes, and eventually
even improving skills. I think he is seeing the big picture as too intimidating, and falling into the
crutch of just not doing assignments so I want to show him that even if he can just complete
assignments, he will do a lot better in the class and then we can go from there with improving his
skills.

I have already taken the initiative of recommending Matthew for a class called English Essentials.
This class serves as a class for students who struggle with basic English skills where they have
more attention from their teacher and can use the class to work on homework and assignments for
their regular English class. This has been the first step of my action plan, and Matthew has been
successfully added to the class. To execute my action plan fully, I am going to work diligently to
communicate with his English Essentials teacher. By keeping her up to date on our assignments, she
can provide an extra push of encouragement to help him complete them, as well as helping him
with some basic skills. I am also going to work more diligently to contact his mother as I sort of
fell out of the habit of it last semester. Perhaps most importantly, I want to make sure that I give
Matthew positive attention whether its about school, or merely just a small side conversation
just to show him that I do care about him and know him. Im hoping that by having all of these
positive adult role models in his life and feeling that we actually care about him, he will work harder
to succeed and start to feel confident in his own ability to pass the class. Additionally, I am working
this unit to try to make these classic texts as engaging as possible, with lots of activities and
journal reflections, etc.

TE 803 Case Study - AZ

Here is some literature that gives me some ideas for and supports my action plan:

A Middle School Dilemma: Dealing With "I Don't Care" by Foster Walsh
American Secondary Education Vol. 35, No. 1 (Fall 2006) , pp. 5-15
Published by: Dwight Schar College of Education, Ashland University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41219808

This resource was very helpful it described this student to a T, and offered some broad but
attainable suggestions for dealing with apathetic students. The suggestions were: 1, get to know
your students, 2, take time to talk to students, and 3, dont take student antagonism and inaction
personally.

Reflection (after Lead Teaching and enactment of Action Plan):

Inventory of things I tried:
-Filled out recommendation form for Matthew to be enrolled in English Essentials class
-Discussed Matthews 3 biggest struggles/areas for improvement with Essentials teacher (email
conversation)
-Verbally told Matthew I was glad to have him in my class again this semester
-Granted Matthew an extension on his speech (due to absences)
-Emailed Matthews mother about his speech asking for him to work on it (we exchanged a few
emails and she assured that she would help him get it done)
-Emailed Essentials teacher about Matthews speech she helped him work on it during their class
-Verbally greeted Matthew in hallway
-Checked in with Matthew after two days, and let him promise to do the speech the following day
-Matthew gave speech and performed quite well
-Verbally encouraged Matthew after class and told him his speech was very interesting
-Emailed Matthews mother positive remarks about his speech and how I hoped we could all work
together to help him this semester
-Verbally asked Matthew about his parents restaurant
-Provided positive feedback on formative assessment
-Emailed Essentials teacher to update her on new paper assignment (a few emails exchanged on
what he should be working on)
-Emailed Matthews new tutor regarding new paper assignment, sent him copy of assignment and
asked to remain in close contact in order to help Matthew
-Provided positive feedback on formative assessment
-Verbally acknowledged how excited I was to receive work from Matthew (he used to never turn
things in), even if the quality was not extremely high
-Verbally greeted Matthew in hallway
-Emailed all 10th grade parents regarding paper assignment

Here is an Inventory/Reflection of what I have tried:
1. Have I made numerous and varied efforts to connect empathically with the student?

I have attempted this more this semester stopping Michael when I see him in the hall to talk to
him. Ive asked him about his parents as they own a restaurant, and talked to him about how he
gets sick of eating there all the time. Ive also met his girlfriend a few times, and made an effort to
verbally say hello to him every time I see him in the hall. He came in to see me after his speech and

TE 803 Case Study - AZ

asked how bad it was (kind of laughing). I assured him that it was actually great, and he did a
fantastic job and I was proud. I think this helped him feel more confident.

2. Have I provided numerous and varied opportunities for the student to learn? What
specific strategies have I tried?

I have been providing strategies of reading aloud in class, as well as watching the movie version of
the play to offer other outlets for him to understand the content if he is struggling in reading it on
his own. Additionally, his English essentials class has been extremely helpful, (also tutor), as he has
had an additional outlet of a teacher to actually sit down with his assignments and offer him the
time that I sometimes dont have in our larger class.

3. What have I said directly or indicated indirectly to the student that might help to change
attitudes, behavior?

I think my simple hellos and positive attitude Ive shown him has helped. Last semester, I kind of
fell into the habit of ignoring Matthew or at least being somewhat frustrated by his lack of effort.
Now I am trying to be much more understanding and empathetic not taking things personally, and
greeting him with a positive attitude even when hes tardy. I also gave him a few extra days to
complete his speech and I was suspicious that he might be offering excuses, but I let him have a
couple of days and he actually did it on the third day!

4. Have I contacted others who might help me with the student (e.g. parents, guidance
counselor, special ed teacher, other teachers)?

Yes this has been a large part of my plan. Ive been working constantly with the English essentials
teacher (she is fantastic). I just sent her our large paper assignment, and she said shed be able to
work with him a lot on it, and that the should be able to create a good paper. I email her regularly,
and also see her in the halls, so its easy to casually ask how he is doing, etc. Ive also been in contact
with his tutor and his mom. His mother has expressed gratitude at my support so it was very
encouraging to hear that Im helping in her view. I tried working with special ed. asking what the
updates on Matthew were (they previously emailed me a long time ago regarding analyzing
whether he needed a personalized plan or not) but I was met with a lukewarm response. They
explained that the previous coordinator had been replaced by a new one, and she was working to
sort through everything and then never got back to me when I re-emailed for updates about
Matthew. I hope to keep working on this in the future.

5. In this case, have I accounted for teaching the student to take responsibility for his/her
own actions and learning? How have I done that?

This is the one thing that I am most worried about since Matthew is receiving so much push and
guidance from others. I want him to begin taking more responsibility on his own. I think that with
the confidence he gains through this semester in working with others and having more support will
show him that he does have more skills and ability than he knows. Then, hopefully next year he can
come in with that confidence and work harder.

6. Do I detect in myself any bias toward this student that might interfere with my best
efforts? Do I detect a tendency in myself to apply the Fundamental Attribution Error in
thinking about this study? How might I counteract this?

TE 803 Case Study - AZ

I think I have been guilty of some positive bias toward this student. I have been quite relaxed about
his tardies, as well as giving him extra time, when I would probably be more strict to another
student. However, I feel that I wasnt this way first semester, and Matthew failed, so Im trying to
make a conscious effort to be a little biased towards him, at least just for a little bit of time, so he can
understand that I care about him and then foster his own confidence. Eventually I hope to
counteract this by putting more responsibility on him and talking to him about not being tardy,
getting things done on time, etc.

7. How have my efforts devoted to this student affected the time and attention devoted to
other students? To my personal time?

I do devote more time to this student in how often I send emails to the Essentials teacher in order to
catch her up on what Matthew should be working on and try to offer her guidance to help him. I also
email his mother and tutor often. Still, this isnt taking an egregious amount of time, so it hasnt
been a problem thus far. I do realize, though, that I dont really have that much time to devote for
each student and that I need to work on consolidating my efforts in a more efficient way so that I
can be available and helpful to all students, rather than focusing just on one struggling student. (I do
focus on others, I just want to make sure I dont fall victim to tunnel vision here)

As of March 23, here is an updated description of the students behavior:

Matthew has been doing much better in class. He still struggles with completing work at home, but
he has turned in a number of formative assessments, as well as scored approaching proficiency on
graded summative assessments. Last semester, I barely had any formative assessments for him, so
this is great improvement. He has been tardy to class a lot (he has a girlfriend who hes hanging out
with), but Ive been kind of relaxed about it because Im trying so hard to find small improvements
and encourage him.

Here are the improvements Ive seen:

He has definitely improved in his effort level largely because of the work hes been doing in his
English Essentials class. The teacher there asks him what hes working on for my class, helps
explain how to do assignments, and guides him. This way, he is preparing for my class earlier in the
day and receiving more guidance on how to do the assignments, and then giving them to me so I can
assess them formatively as well.

He has largely improved in turning in small assignments. He also has a tutor, so Ive been in
communication with his essentials teacher, his tutor, and his mother regularly. In this way, it has
been easier to keep tabs on him and make sure numerous people are helping him keep track of his
work. Michaels communication with me has also improved just on an informal basis as Ive
talked to him a few times just about his life and parents, etc.

Here is what still concerns me:

Michael still has trouble turning in assignments that he was supposed to do at home. He seems only
able to complete assignments when they are done in class or when his essentials teacher helps him.
Although Im viewing this as vast improvement for now, I am still worried about how he will
perform if he loses some of these lifelines, and Im hoping that he can continue this. Im also hoping

TE 803 Case Study - AZ

that this is a good first step as he is learning how to seek guidance from others and have other
people help him make sure he completes assignments, and will eventually see how to do that
himself. Additionally, Michaels quality of work is still somewhat poor (below average), but it is
much better than before. He scored proficient on his reading response which showed me that he
actually understood the themes going on in the play we are reading.

Final Reflection:

Here is why I think the student responded the way that he or she did to my interventions (be
specific):

I think Matthew was simply used to getting swept under the rug forgotten about, and not
pushed as he is quiet and polite, never disrupts class, and doesnt turn things in often. Because of
this, I think he accepted not doing well in class. Yet, I think with all of this focused attention on him,
as well as seeing multiple teachers talking about his work and working together to help him on
assignments, has shown him that we are not going to ignore his lack of effort, and that we are here
to help him succeed. Additionally, I think simply reaching out and saying hello to him, or asking
him little questions about his daily life have also shown him that I care about him as a person, and
that I dont hold anything against him in terms of his effort or work. I think this helps him realize
that its okay to try on an assignment rather than more of a fear of failure that results in him
simply not turning anything in. When he came to talk to me after his speech, I could tell that he was
expecting me to agree with him on how bad it was, and almost looking for someone to encourage
him. I did just that, and assured him that it wasnt bad at all, and I think simple things like that have
helped him begin to reevaluate himself as a student and what he is capable of. I think this is how
Matthew operates in general in a sense, hiding, and using the cover of not doing anything to get
away from his lack of skills in some levels. I think English Essentials will help greatly in this sense,
as they focus largely on basic skills and practice. Additionally, the confidence he gains will help him
be more sure of himself and begin to take more risks and hold himself accountable, while still
knowing that many people care about him.


What mistakes (if any) did I make? What seemed to work? What have I learned that will
help me with cases like this in the future?

I have learned to never just let a student get swept under the rug as this is easy to do when a
student doesnt make much of a fuss about anything, but it can be very damaging and perpetuate a
system of apathy and failure. I want to make sure I make the effort to show all of my students that I
care about them and want them to succeed as well as being willing to work with them when they
struggle. I do fear that Ive somewhat made the mistake of being too easy on him in the second
semester letting him turn things in late and relishing in small improvements but I felt that this
was a necessary first step in helping him gain confidence. In the beginning, I also acted a little more
harshly when he wouldnt turn things in (still not very harsh, but stern), to show my
disappointment in order to encourage him but I learned that that didnt really work for Matthews
personality, and he succeeded more when I was kind, encouraging, and excited to see his work. I
also want to make sure I remember to reach out to the numerous resources available in any school
that I work in as there are undoubtedly numerous vehicles available to offer help to struggling
students and teachers.