CASE+B


 * [[file:Case Study B - Presentation.pptx]]

CASE B: What can Ms. Ellison do to Create the best learning environment for all students in her class?**

Mo, Katie, Rob, Mike, Deby

**Summary:**

Karen has been teaching this class of 6th grade reading for 8 years at Central Elementary. Her class is a combined class and is split into two thirds near reading leveling, while the other third is below. Up until this point, Karen had taught from a workbook, and concentrated on grammar more than reading. Karen decides to move forward with reading, picking a story about an Eskimo boy killing a polar bear, even though she acknowledges that the book is above some of the students ‘independent reading level.’ Karen has the class read the book out loud and begins by only calling only on the better readers in the class. She eventually calls on a lower level reader, John, and when the other students show impatience at his slow, labored reading, she allows the students to belittle him in front of the classroom. John reacts to this poorly and immediately looses any interest he had in reading out loud. Karen in turn, no longer calls upon any lower level readers to prevent disruption in the classroom.

**Problems:**

Karen Ellison proved to be a deficient teacher in several regards. She knew all year that she had students at different reading levels, yet she did not implement a differentiated teaching approach. Karen’s class had a range of abilities such that one third of her class were low ability readers while the rest of the class were proficient for the sixth grade. By not teaching to reach the children at different developmental levels, Karen has not provided an environment where the lower ability learners could catch up. Instead, the lower ability learners have been stagnant within their reading comprehension. Additionally, Karen did not foster an environment where students could build on their self-esteem or self-concept. To illustrate this point, one of the low ability readers, John, attempted to read for the class, and a couple of other children that were more confident in their ability behaved in a disrespectful manner. The children that misbehaved laughed out loud at John’s attempt. Karen did nothing to discourage the misbehavior and even let John give up on his attempt. John and the other lower ability readers clearly do not demonstrate self-efficacy since they are unable to complete the work with a degree of proficiency. A teacher’s role should be to encourage a student to engage in the material and to praise a student for effort. Karen did neither of these when John offered to read in class. In fact, she almost did not call on him because she did not want him to fail when reading in front of the class. Through this example, Karen chose to ignore the students that are not proficient readers. Karen also failed to maintain control of her classroom. The display of misbehavior was characteristic of the attitude the proficient readers have toward the lower ability children.

- Challenge of dealing with a group of students that are at such different reading levels. - The strong readers want to read, while the weaker readers would rather do pages in their "workbooks." - By putting the lower-level students on the spot to read in front of the whole class she is discouraging them and making them feel insecure.
 * Key points:

Suggestions for a better learning environment: - Differentiated learning to keep both levels of students interested. - Reading comprehension group work to facilitate discussion/reading without being intimidated. - Reading different stories, but with a common theme. - Different level students in other groups to discuss the plot and theme of their groups' stories. - Improve self-efficacy of her students; their confidence with reading. - Give a variety of options for students to read. - The teacher, Ms. Ellison should engage in metacognition to reevaluate her lesson plans/strategies - Provide time for rehearsal/practice of new skill - Multiple representations – supplement verbal learning w **ith images, pictures, tables, figures or other visual

In order to remedy the problems that developed in Karen’s classroom, it may be beneficial for her to implement differentiated learning when constructing her lesson plans. If Karen utilized metacognitive practices to analyze the different reading levels of her students, she may have experienced more success in designing lessons that were within reach of all of her students. By acknowledging that each of her students may have different zones of proximal development, she could have accounted for these differences in an attempt to stimulate the interests of //all// her students, thus promoting both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as well as creating an environment more conducive to learning. One method that would facilitate many of the above practices is differentiated learning through group activity.
 * Solutions:**

- Teaching way outside ZPD for "slow readers" vs. challenging the grade-level readers with analyzing short stories. (students are either bored or engaged respectively) - Behavioral strategies in the class - Slavin - PQ4R - For Improved Reading Comprehension
 * Psychological Theory that Applies:**



Deby - Summary Mo - List the problems that we want to address Rob Mike & Katie - How to solve the problem, group work and why its beneficial Katie - Put together the paper and the PPT