Jane

Part 1: Student Case Study

Jane is the quietest student in the classroom. Typically, she slouches in her seat and hides
behind the person sitting in front of her. She does not speak much at all, and when she does, her
words are soft spoken and unsure. Her overall stance when she moves around seems fragile. She
actively avoids eye contact, although this is slowly starting to change. When I crack a joke, she
smiles but never laughs. Sometimes she rolls her eyes when someone in the class says something
silly. Her energy level is neither low nor high, but rather somewhere in between, the perfect
amount of energy for someone that would go unnoticed in most instances.
At the risk of sounding repetitive, the main reason that this student interest me so much is
because she is so quiet, probably the quietest person in all of my classes. She is very subdued in
all activities and this behavior is rather static. She does not express many feelings, but when she
does it is through facial expressions rather than words. There have been many times where I
attempt to have a conversation with her during transition times, but my conversations are met
with a blank stare or a one word answer. She does not seem particularly upset about anything,
nor does she seem particularly happy about anything. She tends to read books rather than pay
attention, so when I call on her she seems surprised more than anything else.
In this particular class, she seems to talk to her peers when forced to do so in group
activities, but in all other instances seems to ignore most of her classmates, even when asked to
think-pair-share. She does not talk much to me or Lisa, only when directly asked a question.
Overall, she seems like a very independent individual and relies mostly on herself for everything
she needs to do. She does have a couple people in the class with whom she will pair up for group
activities, but I would not say she is attached to those people. As far as Ive seen, there is no
tension with other people. She is not recognized within the group.
More than anything else that Ive seen, Jane loves to read. Even when I try to get the
whole classes attention for delivering instruction, Jane is on her kindle reading something. She
seems to enjoy the reading activities assigned during class, but has not expressed much interest
to me or the rest of the class. All other activities, such as labs, quizzes and projects, seem to not
matter much to the student. She seems to learn the best from reading material. On the test, she
did extremely well on the portions that were learned through literature activities, but the other
parts of the test varied in performance.
In terms of interest towards science, there seems to be none that I can tell. I would be
curious to observe her in other classrooms, such as in a history or english classroom. She did
relatively poorly on the first test, resulting in a class grade of a C, but seems content with the
grade. She seems to not be too curious about the things in the science classroom, but I feel like I
need to talk to her more in order to gather a deeper understanding for this part of her.
Part 2: Analyze the Situation
Hypothesis One: Not relevant

In searching for a deeper understanding for why Jane quietly disengages from the class, I
looked into Janes grades from both this year and her earlier science classes. Holt Public Schools
does not allow students to continue on their science education without first passing Earth
Science. I found that she is a repeating student, simply meaning she needs to repeat the entire
class. The Earth Science department runs on the same schedule and teaches to the same
standards, so, theoretically, she should be leaning the same content she did this year as she did
last year with a different teacher. But what if she never thought it was important enough to learn
in the first place? Toshalis talks briefly of this idea in Chapter Four of his Make Me book, stating
that if the learner is not convinced that the new knowledge is worth knowing in the first
place, the knowledge will likely be rejected. (pg 66) Thus, my first proposed hypothesis about
why Jane is disengaged in the class stems from this idea: Jane does not engage in the content
material because she does not feel that the knowledge is important enough to learn. She may
think that whatever knowledge she possess on the subject is better knowledge than what I have to
offer, so she therefore has no need to pay attention to what I say.
Hypothesis Two: Mr. Adams teaching style does not provide Jane with a voice
Examining Janes tests and miscellaneous pieces of class work that shes done this year, it
seems as though Jane has picked up bits of information but not the entire chunk. A pattern seems
to be that Jane easily picks up information when she has been assigned a reading or small group
projects/activities. Her kindle (or, in other words, her resistance) only surfaces during times of
instruction or during whole class discussion. Once one of these opportunities reveals itself, Jane
switches mindsets and tries her best to be ignored. In chapter six of Toshalis Make Me, nihilism
(an extreme form of apathy) that is found in some adolescents is described as the final result of
asking some of lifes biggest questions without being provided an answer or a means to make
sense of the answer. Like a number of her classmates, Jane is only 15 years old. Her brain is still
developing and may still be waiting for the ability to understand why certain things happen to
her. Without the ability to understand what happens in the real world, it may be possible that she
dives into her kindle seeking a world that she can question and get definite answers to. She has a
certain amount of cognitive control over that world, which she may not have in my classroom.
Part 3: Considering Alternative Solutions
In both of the hypotheses presented in regards to Jane, I will need to be able to effectively
communicate with Jane and receive a fair amount of feedback from her if I wish to get a deeper
understanding from her. I can only learn so much from her grades and the assignments that she
turns in. She is the ultimate resource on herself and it is not a resource I currently have access to.
In Gary Sykes The Limits of Obligation, the first critical question that he suggest an educator
ask themselves in searching for a plan of action is Have I made numerous and varied efforts to
connect empathically with the student? In this case, I have not made enough efforts to connect
with Jane. There lies the first part of my action plan. I need to establish a relationship with Jane
so that she can share with me honest and open feedback about the way she is learning in my
classroom. As stated above, making random changes to my teaching method would be just as
effective as trying to make changes based off of the work Jane turns in. I need feedback from
Jane if I want to make any serious improvements.

The second part of the action plan stems from a different question that Sykes suggest educators
ask themselves when confronted with resistance: Have I provided numerous and varied
opportunities for the student to learn? Again, to this I must say that I have not. Many changes
could be made but would require me to be the planner of the lesson. In science education, the
most effective way to teach a student is to have an anchoring phenomenon that the students will
be able to relate back to as they learn new content. So, one thing that I could do to help Jane is
make the anchoring phenomenon that the students study more relevant and interesting by having
it involve something that the students see in Michigan or even in the Lansing area. The students
love learning about the place that they live in, so that would likely not only benefit her, but also
her classmates that may also struggle to stay interested. One of the drawbacks is that I will not
able to do this for every unit (Michigan has exclusive geology), and if Im relying on local
interest to help her, there may be entire units where the lack of local events makes the unit not
effective.
If the content is not what is holding Jane back, then, as stated in my second hypothesis, it may be
my teaching style. I try very hard to give myself little stage time and allow the students to figure
out things on their own. I know that Jane enjoys reading and I have seen her talk to some of her
classmates during group activities, so giving more assignments of these types may strengthen her
leaning in my class. The students seem to really like doing these activities, not just Jane. It would
likely cause other students to learn better as well as Jane, which is a big positive. However,
whole class discussions are a staple of teaching in general, and they tend to be very efficient at
reinforcing what the students learned during the activity, so becoming relaxed on those may have
a negative impact on how much they remember from a lab or activity.
Of the three choices, I will definitely attempt to build a closer rapport with Jane so I can get more
insight. Between the other two options, I think I will try to do the first option as frequently as I
can. The next unit that we are going to do is the rock cycle, and Michigan has a lot of really cool
phenomenon that drive questions about the rock cycle. Near Lansing is a park called Fitzgerald
Park. It is technically located in Grand Ledge and is part of the Grand Ledges. There are a
number of exposed sandstone formations along the river bank, rich with all different forms of
sediments. This, the Grand Ledges, will be the phenomenon that the students will learn the rock
cycle in the context of. Having a relatively local phenomenon may just be what Jane needs to
find interest in the class and will hopefully empower Jane to ask good questions. It wont be the
same as having her write about her feelings or the questions of life she has, unfortunately, but
hopefully it will elicit some sort of interest from her.

Part 4: Evaluation
In the few weeks that have elapsed since I devised the plan, only small changes have
occurred with the student. My plan involved four major steps, but started with a very important

task of establishing a caring relationship with Jane. After three weeks of trying, Im still working
on it. Jane is still very quiet. I am trying hard to establish some sort of common ground with the
student.For example, as mentioned above, Jane is an avid reader. One day before class, she came
in a few minutes early and begin to open up her kindle. I asked her what shes been reading, to
which she replied the title of some young adult novel about a kidnapping mystery. She told me
about it and was happy when talking about it, but when I asked a follow up question along the
lines of What other types of books do you like reading? I got a response of I dont read any
other types of books. In the case of this example, and frequently outside of this instance, other
students will interrupt my conversation with her and begin talking to me about something else.
Its not necessarily her fault or my fault that we dont talk for long periods of time, but it is
something that I need to keep on aiming for.
These little conversations are the main form of feedback I get from her, and are the main
type of evidence Ive been using to evaluate the case thus far. Her body language, the way she
talks, as well as the length of the conversations, and the topics of the conversations are my only
way of gauging how much she enjoys science. Ive learned that when studying Jane, or any quiet
student in the classroom, the best way to gather evidence is not through looking at her grades,
but rather looking at the way she socially interacts with other people. Her grades have stayed
consistent since day one, so they are not a good indicator of the effectiveness for the changes I
am making. Her social interactions are few and far between, so studying how those interactions
evolve over time is a true indicator of change for this type of student.
Fortunately, there are small changes that seem to have occurred because of these small
conversations, but the changes are barely noticeable. She does not give one word answers to me
anymore. Instead, Ive found that she has begun to answer my questions in full sentences. I dont
ask too many questions within a given day because she still seems to be resistant and I dont
want to push it too far, but the progress is there. It seems as though my goals will take a longer
time to achieve then I previously thought.
Overall, it is hard to judge whether my hypotheses about Jane were accurate or not. The
questions that I do ask her are surface level questions (i.e. how her week/day is going or how
she likes her book) as opposed to asking her deeper questions (i.e. do you learn better this way or
why do you not talk as much in class). Getting the answers to the deeper questions will help me
gather a deeper understanding for her resistance and allow me to further evaluate my hypotheses
on her.