A+ for Case Studies

I really enjoyed doing this case study. I chose to do the same kid that I interviewed before and he was also one of the students I chose to examine in my neighborhood profile. I was really glad I did this because it showed me what different kinds of information you can gain from each of these things but how one of them doesn’t really describe the child. It took all of these to make me feel like I really had a feel for where this student was coming from. Case studies are such good tools for gathering data on a student. In the first interview I didn’t feel like the student really told me anything. The biggest thing I learned about him was that his father didn’t speak English and that he would try to “show” his father English when he went home from school. Through the case study and the ethnographic narrative, I leaned the most through his drawing. He drew a typical looking house, square with a triangle roof, two windows and a door. But then, he drew a truck coming out of the side of the house. He then told me he lived in a “truck house”. I knew that this student lived in a trailer because he lived in one of the homes I visited for the neighborhood profile. I thought that it was very interesting that at 5 years old and after only being in school for a few months, he already recognized that he was different than some of his peers because he lived in a “truck house” or trailer. I not only learned more about his home life but also about the ways he learns best. This ethnographic case study is so important because it helps you focus on one specific child. I think as teachers we get very caught up in the class as a whole and sometimes group all the students together. It’s important to look closer and focus on one particular student at a time and really examine how that specific student is reacting to a lesson, the classroom environment, and his peers. I learned that my student is very competitive. He shuts down when he loses at a game too much. He also is very cocky when he is winning. All of these observations have taught me some very specific ways to increase this students learning.

1. Use engaging instruction: Mo interacted and learned the most about the letters and their sounds when the instruction was in the form of a game or song.

2. Make instruction meaningful: Mo really likes astronauts and was more inv

olved in the lesson because the teacher incorporated his likes into the lesson.

3. Work from student’s strengths: Mo was good at the memory game so he was more involved. It’s important not to make the material too hard that the student gets discouraged. He needs to feel some success with every activity.