Mikayla Wagner

EDTE 532

Case Study: Student Observation

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

I chose S.H. as my wonder child because she is extremely interesting and challenging to
understand. Each day she brings new behaviours and at different points of the day which makes
it hard to predict what causes the change. My sponsor teacher and I have had multiple
discussions about how we are struggling to understand her shift in behaviours. We both wanted
to learn more about her in order to support her to the best of our ability. Throughout my
practicum I did my best to observe her behavior.

What do you know about this student as a learner?

I know that S.H. is most successful when given more freedom and time to do her work.
When it comes to academic work she struggles with literacy. Her phonological awareness is
quite low she has about two letter sounds down where most at this point have most if not all.
S.H. seems uninterested as a learner we are not totally sure for the cause of this because some
days she is quite engaged in the lessons and other days she has no desire to participate
whatsoever. Even if the lesson structures are similar one day she will enjoy participating and
other days it is a struggle to get her to stay in the classroom.

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

My sponsor teacher and I had a long discussion about what we need to understand about
S.H. as a learner. We both agreed that we need to figure out:

 How she learns best?

 What truly motivates her on a regular basis? because depending on the day it can change.
 Does she have a learning disability? We wonder if her behavior is a result of her LD.
 What can I do to support her learning?

What strengths, capacities, and/or “passions do you see in this student?

S.H. academically is much stronger in numeracy. We know that she does have the ability
to focus and sit quietly when she is enjoying the activity or task at hand. She also feels strongly
about her friendships. She has strong social skills with a group of girls in our class and she
cherishes those friendships. Often times when she is playing with them she is not acting out as
they all follow the rules well. It is interesting though because her relationship with a boy who she
has been close with since the beginning of the year goes from being very positive to negative on
a regular basis. We think this is because they both attend the same before and after school care
together so they have developed more of a sibling like relationship with one another at this point
of the year. She also really enjoys about playing in center time and recess. Although she is not
often motivated to change her behavior in order to play during those times (often times sitting
out of centers for a few minutes is a consequence in our class).

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

I am very curious about “What is S.H. fully capable of?” as she often does the minimum
to get her work done. Although sometimes she works very hard and is focused. I also want to
know “Is her behaviour affecting her ability to learn or is her behaviour a mask for her learning
challenges?”

What do you need to learn more about in order to offer powerful support (e.g. social-emotional
learning, engagement, interests, relationships, previous experiences)?

In order to offer powerful support to S.H. I need to have a better understanding as to

“What makes her feel good about herself?” As well as “How can we help her regulate? (fidgets
are a temporary solution so is repositioning her/giving her space to roam)” I also need to
understand “What affects/causes her constant change in engagement?” (look for a common
theme)

What does the student think about his/her learning? What do you think you are good at as a
learner? What helps you to learn?

S.H. is in kindergarten and right away shared that one of her strengths is “doing
counting” I rephrased the questions a few times in order to get more information out of her and
she preceded to share that another strength for her is “doing letters”. I am not sure at this point if
understands the difference between letters and numbers as she quite often mixes up the terms
during math and literacy lessons.

When I asked S.H. what helps her learn she had trouble answering. So I gave her
different options and wrote down the ones that she said were beneficial to her learning. She
shared that teacher support, movement, and a quiet classroom helps her learn. She said “its hard
when there’s lots of noise”. (it may help if she can work in the hall so it is quiet).

What else did you learn after observing?

After observing her for two weeks during practicum I came to the conclusion that there is
no pattern with her behavior that my teacher or myself can specifically identify. I tried my best to
document the times of the day that she would become difficult to manage and there was no
connection or pattern that I personally could identify. She is either off or on sometimes she isn’t
motivated to participate in activities that she loved the day prior. I asked my teachers opinion on
whether or not she has had more positive then negative days throughout the course of the year
and she shared that overall they have been pretty equal. My teacher also shared that sometimes it
can be half way through the day with it being positive and she can change her behvaiour, but she
also sometimes comes in having a rough morning and you can work with her to change her
behavior in the positive direction. Knowing that my sponsor and I now have a strong connection
with her we can work together to best support her and redirect her in on the days and periods
where she cannot regulate and becomes defiant.
How did your thinking about the student change/deepen? What surprised you?

My thinking about S.H. continued to change as I observed her. This is because she clearly
demonstrated that she cherishes her relationship with myself and my sponsor by being very kind
and caring. We both obviously reciprocate the same feelings towards her and show her that we
care deeply about helping her be successful. The reason my thinking changed at times was
because half the time she still refuses to do as we ask. When I was in practicum I really focused
on supporting her by allowing her to go for a walk during my teacher’s lesson if she was
unengaged (often crawling around) for a break. I also offered opportunities for more support
during writing and journal time but she became quickly dependent that I was helping her all the
time and the whole time. The first time I took her for a walk she was very resistant to go back so
I shared with her that I was happy to take her but if she does not cooperate I will not be inclined
to take her again. She shared with my that she feels school is boring and she doesn’t want to go
back. That same day she would not participate in my lesson so I had her and another boy who did
not participate stay in during our classes block to play outside. At first they were upset but once
they started doing the activity they were excited and very engaged. My understanding with S.H.
is that she needs more one on one attention sometimes to be able to grasp the concept otherwise
she just wont try seems to hard or doesn’t care enough. I kept track throughout the two weeks of
her behavior specifically on the carpet during the time I did morning calendar. She was 50/50,
half the time she was crawling, distracting others, half the time she sat still and focused. My
learning about her deepened near the end of practicum as I began to set clear boundaries for her
in order to best support her. An example is one morning at the end of practicum she came in
extremely flustered and shared she needed to go for a walk because she was bad at J.’s which is
her daycare leader. Instead of taking her right away like I did at the beginning o practicum when
she asked I had her finish her morning activity first and then took her. She did not like the idea at
first but it calmed her she did a great job and then got her break.

One thing that surprised me was that when it comes to the interaction with other she is
extremely kind and thoughtful. We are working to build a kindness tree in our class and continue
to add to it as we practice/notice kindness and she is probably the most common name on the
wall. Observing her act this way was inspiring and was a good reminder to always show her
kindness in times of distress or defiance. It was also surprising that she gets a long as well as she
does with the girls she plays with because they are all very respectful of the rules and always
listen and she can be quite defiant at times. The only person she can have challenges with
socially is D. but I think that is due to the amount of time they spend together before and after
school.

If you were planning for this students learning what could you do to support his/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?

In the future planning for S.H. I will try to organize more hands on lessons that include
movement. I know this would be conducive to her learning because our goal is to spark
engagement and during my math centers lesson she was fully participating and interested in the
different activities. S.H. needs to move and work hands on because she finds a lot of the
stationary work to be uninteresting and boring which then quickly turns into her not participating
in the lesson at all. We also know that literacy is a stretch for her so making sure that she has the
support she needs during those lessons is crucial. Especially because it seems as though literacy
centers and jolly phonics is slowly turning into work avoidance. When planning for this student
it is important that I am focusing on what she can do in order for her to be successful because she
needs the positive attention especially in literacy. She needs to know that she is capable and can
do it even though often times it can be hard. I think it would also help if I gave her jobs and
paired her to with her friends P. and Q. who are responsible and respectful students in order to
connect her with what is going on. I think if we truly develop a community like we discussed in
class which I think my sponsor has done a good job at. When she feels apart of the class
community she will feel safe and then maybe she will open up about why she feels frustrated and
uninterested at times. Is it because it is too hard or is there something else there? Also asking her
how she understands and practicing empathy towards her are a few steps towards inclusion that
made a difference in understanding how to better support her. Inclusion was a huge factor in
supporting S.H. and coming to a deeper understanding about her. Along with understanding that
she would do well if she could do well was important in figuring out that there is an underlying
issue even though we have not identified it yet we are making progress as we work through
different strategies to support her.

I also had the opportunity to discuss S.H. with our amazing school counsellor and she
told me to read Dr. Gordon Neufeld’s research on counterwill. Learning about counterwill
helped me gain some insight into what is going on for S.H. and how I can best support. Dr.
Neufeld explained that counterwill is “the name for the instinctive reaction of a child to resist
being controlled.” He shared some powerful points that resonated with me that I want to
reference when working with S.H. one was “How we perceive a child's behaviour will influence
how we react to it.” This quote defines the reason why it is so important that I continue to find
out what the underlying issue is for her and other students in my class. I need to realize that S.H.
has counterwill and her behaviour it often misperceived as being intentional or 'on purpose' as
opposed to instinctive and provoked. So I need to be vigilant as to what provokes her so I can
minimize this occurrence.

How does this experience inform your thinking about teaching and learning for inclusive
education?

This experience has only emphasized for me how crucial inclusion is in every classroom.
It has also made me realize how challenging it can be to really include all students. In our
kindergarten classroom there is rarely a point in the day where my sponsor or myself have an
opportunity to take a second to sit back and observe our class as a whole. This being the reason
why it is a lot of work to understand, support and really include each and every child in our
classroom. In saying that, it does not mean it is impossible. This experience has had a very
positive effect on informing my practice. The connection and growth that I saw within my two-
week practicum as a result of my focused observation and attempts to really include this
particular student was powerful. Developing that relationship with the student was huge. This
experience has informed my thinking about learning because when S.H. was fully included in the
class her learning was so much more meaningful. She was able to have the support and
instruction that she needed to access the lessons even if that meant at a different time then the
rest of the class. It was much more possible because my sponsor and I worked together to
support her during each others lessons.