Natasha Gibson March 3, 2019

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Case Study - Observation

Why did you choose this student as your “wonder” child?

The student I chose as my “wonder” child I will call A to keep his identity

anonymous. He is a grade 3 student with high-functioning Autism that I would like

to know more about.

What do you know about this student as a learner?

As of right now, I know that A struggles most with transitions. Often when we

are going to the next activity or transitioning from lunch to working, he is slow to

stop what he is doing and put stuff away. He often needs extra prompting and help

from a friend to get his stuff put away and move him to the next activity. In addition,

at the beginning of the day he is often slow to sit at his desk and start his planner, he

likes to stand by his cubby for a while. In addition to transitions, he can struggle

with engagement, I often catch him doing other things (drawing, ripping up paper,

etc.) or just simply staring at something else in the room. I did notice that he is very

intelligent though, he likes to challenge himself when doing work and do things

differently than other students.

What else do you need to find out about this student as a learner?

I need to find out what strategies work for this student when it comes to

transitions or engagement. In addition, I would love to know what he is like at home

and whether he struggles with the same things he does at school. I would also like to

find out what sets him off, I know he has “off” days so knowing why that happens

would be great.
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What strengths, capacities, and/or “passions” do you see in this student?

This is students is very smart. He is able to formulate such amazing thoughts

and ideas but he struggles to have the stamina to write it all down. He is a very

curious child. He is always asking questions and wondering, “what would happen

if…?” From my observation, he is passionate about science and technology. He is

always drawing robots and “inventing” new things on paper.

What questions do you have about this student’s strengths and capacities?

Again, I would like to know what life is like at home

What does this student think about his/her learning?

From what I have observed, A thinks that he is more advanced than grade 3.

When I was helping him with a elf-assessment they were doing for their report

cards, he often said a few of the “I can” statements they were choosing from were

“too primary” for him. He was looking for something more secondary. For example,

on of the “I can” statements was something like “ I can share with others” and he

told me that they learned that in Kindergarten.

What else did you learn after observing? How did your thinking about this

student change/deepen? What surprised you?

The last two weeks I was in the classroom, A started to cut up any

assignments given to him with scissors. He was cutting all paper into small bits and

throwing it on the floor like confetti. When the teacher took his scissors away, he

said “Okay but I can still rip it with my fingers, you can take away my scissors but

you can’t do anything about my fingers.” This was something I had not observed

before. He does not usually “sass” the teacher and usually he is a very good student.
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We came to the conclusion that there must be something going on at home causing

him to act this way. We had the principal talk to A about showing respect for school

property and that seemed to help a bit. Then we talked to hi mom and she said that

he had admitted to being scared of Dementors (a creature from the Harry Potter

films). Slowly things started to resolve in the classroom but it was interesting to see

that something like that could cause him to rip up his assignments in class. That

really surprised me but now I think I am more aware that something bigger could be

happening that we can’t see at school.

If you were planning for this student’s learning, what could you do to support

him/her? Why? What can you include in your unit/lesson planning to support

this student? What theories and information from the course connect to your

decisions?

To support this student, I could try to work one on one with him if the E.A. is

not able to come in, also I could make sure he is not overwhelmed with too much

work at once. I feel like if he has too much on his plate he might get too

overwhelmed and not do any of it. In my unit/lesson plans I will add more wait time

when I ask questions, this will be beneficial to all students. I will also include more

pair work because he works really well this the boy who sits next to him in the

classroom. Lastly, I will include more time to transition between activities. Some of

this is what we talked about in class; we talked about wait time and not

overwhelming the students with too much work. We also discussed how this can be

beneficial to all students so it is a good thing to implement into our teaching.

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How does this experience inform your thinking about teaching and learning

for inclusive education?

This is experience has allowed me to see what an inclusive classroom looks

like and I am able to teach in one which is an amazing experience. I am gaining more

strategies from both my sponsor teacher and my supervisor and I am able to put

them in my toolkit for my own classroom one day.