QUESTION I: CASE STUDY
Purpose
The wide range of abilities, interests and needs of the children in any given classroom present both opportunities and challenges to their teachers. One way of addressing this diversity is through careful analysis of the children that can serve the basis for differentiated instruction. This directed essay question is designed to give you the opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned about analyzing children’s abilities, interests and needs and using that information to design a differentiated lesson plan.
Directions
Select one of the two attached case studies. If you are a student in the Middle Childhood program, you must choose the 6th grade student. After reading the case study, respond to each of the following, citing at least 10 relevant professional resources using APA format.
References cited should include a variety of sources including professional journals, reputable Internet sources, texts, etc. reflecting the coursework in your program at Bank Street as well as any additional relevant resources you choose.
1. Begin by listing your case study child’s strengths and challenges. You may bullet this list.
2. Then, identify and prioritize the three most significant strengths and the three most significant concerns raised by the case study.
Justify your prioritization in terms of immediate academic, social and emotional needs of the child, as well as potential long-term outcomes.
Identify philosophies, developmental theories, or educational approaches to support your point of view. (3-5 pages)
3. Next, identify at least three remaining questions that you believe are important? What additional information do you need in order to plan for this child and how would you acquire it? Provide a carefully considered rationale for your questions based on relevant research, learning from your Bank Street program, and your own experience. Be sure to identify your sources. (3-5 pages)
4. Using the attached lesson plan format, prepare a lesson plan in any curricular area of your choosing that is instructionally differentiated to meet the needs of the range of learners within this inclusion classroom. Justify your plan with current research. This should be an original plan not previously submitted as part of course requirements.
5. What steps (at least three) might a teacher take to strengthen the collaborative relationship with parents in this case? Support your recommendations with
relevant data and research including your learning and resources from your Bank Street program. (3-5 pages)
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6. To what extent does this case study reflect broader current issues and controversies in the field of education. Support your conclusions with relevant data and research including your learning and resources from your Bank Street program. (3-5 pages)
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Case Study 1-Mario
HOME CONTEXT
Mario's parents and his younger sister and brother arrived in the US from Ecuador at the beginning of his kindergarten year, about 2 1⁄2 years ago. Mario’s parents have become members of the local church where they have begun to make friends in their neighborhood where Spanish is the main language used to communicate. His parents both work in restaurants in neighborhood restaurants. Mario's mother is taking a course in English as a Second Language at the local high school. She opted out of a bilingual program for Mario as she wanted him to speak English only in school. Mario’s parents have not yet had much contact with the school.
SCHOOL CONTEXT
Mario is a seven-year-old child who is in a second grade collaborative team teaching public school inclusion classroom with 29 children, one general education teacher, one special education teacher, and a paraprofessional assigned to a child with Asperger Syndrome. Mario's school has recently been placed on the list of 'failing' schools in his city. Many students are performing below grade level in at least one area. The children in this classroom represent a wide range of abilities in terms of both academics as well as in cognitive, attention, memory, language, social-emotional, motor, spatial, and temporal-sequential abilities.
Mario did not attend school in Ecuador and was immediately enrolled in a monolingual English kindergarten at his current school where he has attended monolingual English classrooms only. During kindergarten and first grade, his teachers assumed that his difficulties were most probably related to his process of learning English and becoming acquainted with a new culture. However, this year the teachers are much less convinced that this is the explanation for his persistent challenges. Both of Mario's current second grade teachers express frustration because it is now February and so far this year, they have seen very little progress. One teacher has suggested that he might have ADD, another thinks he is emotionally disturbed and all of the teachers think he might have a learning disability. His kindergarten and first grade teachers also reported similar concerns. The teachers are now considering referring Mario for additional support.
The teachers try hard to work with Mario individually when they can manage the time, but due to the high demands of an inclusion classroom, they regret that this is not frequent or consistent. When they do work with him individually, they often get the sense that he is missing quite a bit of what they are saying, but they cannot figure out whether it is because of language, attention, anxiety or a combination of these areas.
LANGUAGE
Mario is an English language learner and he receives English as a second language (ESL) pullout services three times a week. He is fluent in Spanish although he does not read or write in Spanish. He is becoming increasingly fluent in conversational English.
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ORGANIZATION, ROUTINES
Mario usually has difficulty getting organized when he enters the classroom and
seems to have difficulty managing the routine of hanging up his coat, putting his homework in the designated basket and coming to morning circle on time. Sometimes he seems to forget about other daily routines that most of the children have mastered. He often requires a lot of teacher assistance to get ready to leave school on time at the end of the day and he often forgets something.
SOCIAL – EMOTIONAL DOMAIN
In the morning circle, Mario prefers to sit wedged into a corner between the wall and the bookshelf. He often is preoccupied with his shoelaces during the meeting and rarely volunteers a response to questions. He has few friends and prefers to spend his time by himself drawing or staring out the window. On the playground, he likes to swing, but if pushed aside by other children will not assert himself or get engaged with other activities. When asked if he needs help, he becomes angry and often shouts angrily "No! Leave me alone!" If the helper persists, he becomes increasingly angry. In general, he is not disruptive, but becomes very resistant when asked to carry out paper and pencil tasks. His behavior has become such a problem that his teacher has instituted a behavior management system. Each morning, Mario is given three tokens. Each time he fails to complete a task on time, he loses a token. Any remaining tokens can be redeemed at the end of the day for "choice time". Mario has chosen to draw on the two occasions in the past three weeks when he has successfully earned this reward.
ARTISTIC DOMAIN
Mario’s drawings are typically of city landscapes and he provides a meticulous level of detail down to the different types of hubcaps on passing cars. Although during writer’s workshop in this second grade classroom the children are expected to do much more writing than drawing, Mario still prefers to draw.
TECHNOLOGY
Mario likes computer games and has learned to play several games very successfully. When approached by a peer, however, he turns away or leaves the computer.
LITERACY
Mario’s teacher tested his reading with the QRI-4 and found him to be at a preprimer level in comprehension and a primer level in decoding words out of context. His retellings were very sparse and not necessarily in correct sequence, and he seemed to have equal difficulty with both explicit and implicit questions. When she read to him, he did slightly better, scoring at a primer level. He appears not to have mastered sound-symbol correspondence and his phonological awareness seems also to be weak. During reading workshop, Mario definitely prefers books about animals, but Mario is often not on task unless an adult is reading with him. Mario has a particularly difficult time with writing. In general, he delays writing tasks as long as possible. Once begun, he bears down hard on the pencil and makes frequent erasures. He is required to copy the lesson standard for the day from the blackboard, but usually takes such a long time that he does not get to the task at hand.
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MATH
Mario counts to 50 but gets confused after that. He is able to add single digit numbers with totals less than 10. He has difficulty with basic regrouping in addition. He finds subtraction very challenging and makes frequent and random errors. Word problems are very difficult for him, and he often gets frustrated and gives up easily. When a teacher can work with him to help him represent a problem visually, he has more success, but he is not able to create the visual representation on his own.
SOCIAL STUDIES
Mario seems most successful with geography where he generally does quite well the mapping that the class has been doing lately. However, those activities that require a lot of group work or literacy skills are quite challenging for him.
SCIENCE
Science is Mario’s favorite subject and he enjoys learning about animals, insects, and habitats. Because there is a lot of hands on, and the children do not have to work in groups, he seems to retain a lot of facts. He also appears to have strong observation skills and a lot of the science curriculum involves observation and recording using drawing. However, science only happens once a week, and if the science teacher is out, it often gets omitted from the schedule.
Last Completed Projects
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