Katie Halderman

EDSC 591
Student Case Study
For this student case study I chose to interview a middle school student who is different
from me in every way. This student is a Hispanic female who has 3 Fs, 2 Ds, and a C, whereas I
am a Caucasian female who does everything I can to get straight As. We are culturally different
in that my family pushed me to go to school where this students family seems to push her to
work instead. As previously stated, we are completely different and it was interesting to observe
her in another class other than my own as well as speak with her and get to know her.
In many ways the learning environment was not supportive according to motivation
research and this is clear when looking at this students grades and the motivation that is clearly
lacking from this students academic life. I relate this most to the reading that we did by Roeser
which surprised me and taught me something that I feel as though I should have known already,
but I am glad I learned now. In this reading, stage-environment fit is discussed. The SFT states
that if students environments are not changing at the same rate as their brains are developing,
they will be less motivated, less successful, and less socially normal (Roeser, 2005). When
observing this student in her class, it was clear to me that the teacher did not construct an
environment which was appropriate for the age group at hand. The teacher treated these students
as true adults. For example, he simply went through a PowerPoint expecting the students to take
notes as I observed many students staring into space and unable to focus. When interviewing my
student she claimed that every day this teacher uses PowerPoints to teach his lessons. He is
expecting more from them then they are capable of doing at their age and this resulted in a lack

of engagement and motivation from the students. In addition, the instruction that I observed did
not seem to be culturally relevant to the student that I interviewed. The teacher simply went
through a powerpoint about Roman Numerals and did not relate this to the students lives in any
way.
While observing this student, there did seem to be many similarities to Moises. It shames
me to say this but I never noticed some of the issues that this student is having in my class
because I was so focused on teaching my lesson and keeping control over everyone that I did not
recognize the problems that individual students may be having. Just like Moises, my student
seems to get lost in the words. I see this by the way she seems to zone out and daydream during
lessons. This tells me one of two things- shes either bored, or lost in the words. Due to the fact
that she is an English Learner, I am going to assume that she is more lost and needs extra support
in order to be successful. Just like Moises, this student struggles to keep up with the English
language.
Recognizing the struggles that my student has been having after these observations and
the interview, I feel as though I have not been completely equitable and fair to this student. It is
important that I am accommodating my students needs with regards to the English language and
I do not feel like I have been doing that to the best of my ability. I need to ensure that I am
focusing on the vocabulary. I need to ensure that I am relating the content to my students lives. I
need to ensure that I keep my lessons culturally relevant so that all my students can stay actively
engaged and involved in the content. As Duckworth both discussed, I need to also make sure that
I am challenging my students to set goals and follow through with them aka, developing grit.
This is especially important to me due to the fact that this student is not getting pushed

academically at home. I learned a lot from this assignment and will definitely be changing and
reflecting on the way that I teach- especially with regards to my focus student.