Case+Study

__**Case Study:**__

toc During the year 2012-2013 school-year at  Northweste rn High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, I was lucky enough to have two students who I taught in both 10th grade government and in the elective course Practical Law. As we worked on an A-day B-day schedule, these two students were some of the few whom I dealt with every day of school and as a result, I got to know them quite well. These students, while taking the same classes, were very different people and worked in differing ways. Student 1 is a brilliant young person and is capable of incredible work; he is however aware of his intelligence and therefore does the bare minimum required to get by. Student 2 has a similar attitude toward learning, but is simply not as bright as Student 1. Truly, the main difference is that Student 1 is an honors student and Student 2 is not, as their actions and demeanor are very similar. These students passed both of the classes I taught them in and learned the material required, but they by no means maximized their potential in these classes. Upon reflecting on this, I realize that there are things that I could have done differently to help engage these students and motivate them to do more than the basic requirements of the course.

Student 1 is a very slow starter and doesn’t get to work quickly, though when he works, the assignments are completed very quickly. Student one is very talkative and wanders around class frequently, even going so far as to curse aloud in class. When I tried to correct him, he always managed to do just enough wrong stuff to make me upset, but not quite enough to actually get in trouble. Student 1 also completes him work correctly, but uses as few words and as little effort as possible, though his short phrases contain more quality thoughts than many of his classmates long-winded essays. His assigned work in an honors class is way too easy for him and he is accepting of this, as some of the standards at this high school are not sky high. Many students recognize his gift for school work and often flock to him to compare answers, though most of them are not friends per say, as others describe him as “kinda weird.”

 Student 2 is the type of student who will wait until the end of class and then complete the work assigned in fifteen minutes at the end of class. He will spend the entire period talking and fooling around. Student 2 is however, not as intelligent as Student 1, and therefore behaving like this makes his grades suffer, so much so that his father actually took his phone at one point, until his grades improved. This student also plays baseball and would miss class frequently in the spring so that he could go to practice and away games. Student 2 cares about his grades, according to his testimony at least, but his behavior does not reflect that. It often seems as though student 2 is keener on getting good grades than learning anything, which can also make it difficult to teach him. Other students seem to like this student and his popular nature contributes to his difficulty in completing work in a timely manner.

Student 1: Lower-Middle Class, many siblings, African American. Great Test Scores (A). This is indicative of the prior explanation; the student receives good grades, but is rarely engaged in class and just happens to be very smart. This intelligence is proven by his good grades on tests despite disruptive behavior and his penchant for being mostly off task yet getting work done.


 * Quarter || LSN Government || Practical Law ||
 * 1 || 91 || 100 ||
 * 2 || 86 || 80 ||
 * 3 || 84 || 90 ||
 * 4 || 83 || 94 ||
 * Absences || 0 || 0 ||

Student 2: Poor, few siblings, El Salvadorian. Average test scores (B-C). Student completes is work, but does a sub-par job. He constantly insists that he does all his work (which is true), but he focuses on going through the motions not really learning the material, which puts him ahead of many of his classmates who simply do not do work.


 * Quarter || LSN Government || Practical Law ||
 * 1 || 79 || 98 ||
 * 2 || 71 || 81 ||
 * 3 || 66 || 85 ||
 * 4 || 59 || 83 ||
 * Absences || 8 || 4 ||

Some of the basis for students describing Student 1 as “kinda weird” can be tied to his extensive vocabulary and interests that lie in more academic subjects than the latest Chief keef song. This is tied direction to the common characteristics of a gifted student, namely their appetite for reading, their advanced vocabulary and their strong self-concept, all of which Student 1 possesses (Martin, 1992). Where this differs is that in the Martin (1992) article, it describes the aforementioned characteristics as criteria for the kind of behavior necessary to use their gift in productive ways, where-as Student 1, does not use their natural gifts toward a productive end and therein lies the problem. This lack of effort is caused by the easiness of the classes and school in general and the low standards imposed by the community this student resides in. This student has no need for mastery learning, and therefore his motivation is minimal. To solve this as a teacher I should have differentiated my instruction sufficiently to meet his and other student’s needs.

 Student 2 is first and foremost and athlete and a fairly competent student, though he plays the “I’m smart, school is easy” card despite facts to the contrary. I try to point out his underwhelming performances sometimes and he seemingly ignores them for the sake of keeping up appearances. This sort of personality and approach to learning can be explained as having an ego-based motivational orientation system where students “construe their personal competence on the basis of other-referenced standards such as outperforming classmates and demonstrating superior ability with minimal effort” (Ryska, 2004). The key to this is Student 2’s desire is to make their work appear easy, hence his reluctance to do his work at the beginning of class. Unfortunately for this student his behavior inhibits his development as a student and learner. Attitudes like this are typical of student athletes an d these students requires a unique approach to teaching, so as to maintain their motivation, yet not alienate other students who do not motivate themselves in that manner.

In short, the two students whom I encountered and got to know very well throughout the past school year suffer from motivation problems, albeit different ones. Student 1 is truly gifted and is not challenged by a normal classroom environment, whereas Student 2 is concerned with performance and out-doing his classmates, not much else. At the end of the day, both students are clearly not engaged in mastering the material, they are just doing the work they are assigned, with as little expended effort as possible. This strategy works for both of them, though only Student 1 manages to still get good grades throughout this process.

 Student 1 wants to and like to learn, but he is not challenged by the normal classwork, so he lacks motivation. I think that to address this issue either some sort of compacting plan needs to be implemented. As noted in the Heacox (2012) text compacting is when “you replace your standard work with an advanced interest based project” (p.142). This is perfect for Student 1 because he has mastered writing basic BCR’s and answering simplified questions, though he still needs to learn the basic content information, because much of it is new information to him. Through creating a compacting plan, I can create a task that takes a bit more effort than usual for him and will maintain his interest, as he will have considerably more control over this sort of project than a normal class would. Student 1 has had an impressive run as a student and has achieved a level of internalization of a self-reward system and mastery goals. The kid is fifteen and reading books by Malcolm X and Dante Alighieri, so he evidently has this deep interest in learning, I just need to come up with a compacting plan for him to analyze the deep themes and understandings that he has already read about and are directly relevant to the curriculum. I can use differentiated instruction (compacting plan) coupled with a conscious use of positive reinforcement/approval for the mastery attempts conducted under the umbrella of the compacting plans to support his already existing self-reward systems (Schunk, 2012).

 Student 2 likes to get the grades that prove he is smarter than his peers, keep him eligible for his sports seasons and keep his parents off his back. In order to accomplish this, this student makes sure he does all his work; he just does it without zeal (perhaps an understatement). This shows that the difficulty comes from Student 2 having an abundance of performance goals, but a lack of learning goals (Schunk, 2012). As a teacher I need to come up with a method for encouraging this student to strive for achieving learning goals. In a school setting where scores and grades take precedence, it is easy for athletes to evaluate their own ability compared to others; however when they are in a class which is bases in mastery of content, students can have difficulty feeling competent and developing self-efficacy (Ryska, 2004). I think that the way I can improve this student’s desire for mastery is by making mastering the material a competition and by trying to foster some intrinsic motivation, as opposed to extrinsic motivation. Internal drive (intrinsic motivation) is the key to mastery learning and one method of achieving this type of motivation could be novelty and surprise (Schunk, 2012, p.388). To get some extrinsic motivation involved in class, I can create a graph of scores on tests and show how the class works as a group and then students can see how they compare to the class average, thereby creating a sort of anonymous competition that will work for Student 2, but also keep others self-esteem intact. By promoting competition on the test, I can make sure that Student 2 can work on their mastery of the concepts, as opposed to just completing classwork to get a grade. By using interesting and new phenomenon in class I can also help motivate him to actually learn the material, rather than just completing the assignment. In coming up with something interesting and novel, I can in the future use student interest surveys at the beginning of the year, so that I can know what will interest students like Student 2.

There are three main keys to these proposed interventions as outlined by the “C&I graduate program essential questions. One is to change how students should learn information and why those changes are necessary. For Student 1, the idea of creating a compacting plan allows for someone who has already mastered basic skills to still learn the same material as their classmates, but in a more challenging and engaging manner. Changing the way student one learns the same material ensures that a gifted student’s talents are put to good use and that their growth is not retarded by being a part of an overly-simplified class. For student 2, the focus needs to change to learning the information, not just completing assignments. This intervention hopefully will motivate the student to learn the information, as opposed to completing assignments for a grade. This change in how the student behaves is important, because the whole reason for classes existing is to learn, things, if it is used a vessel which takes you through to the end of high school without learning, then it is a waste.

 The second key is what should be involved in how should curriculum and instruction is evaluated. For student 1, this means that instead of having them mindlessly completing easy tasks, I can evaluate their performance on a more advanced task, which will show true learning and growth. The purpose of evaluation is to see how students are growing in terms of mastering skills and content, the previous approach did not measure Student 1’s growth, it just repeatedly proved that they can regurgitate facts and talk their way around questions posed to them. For student 2, the key will be making assessing their growth in terms of content learned, as demonstrated through assessments and trying to get them motivated to do work beyond the basic “I can do just enough to pass” mentality.

 The final part of the equation is using technology. In student 1’s situation, technology is a great source for learning and exploring. Inquiry based learning is a higher level skill and often used for gifted/high achieving learners, the same will be true of Student 1’s compacting plan. Research on the internet and access to unique programs will be essential in this students growth as a learner. Student 2 can be coerced into a competition through both online games and through statistics that will be used to help him compare his success to other students, thereby providing the appropriate praise for the student, which will help foster some intrinsic value in learning, eventually anyway.