Inquiry Unit Project

1. Inquiry Unit Project Nicole Campbell Case of Nancy Johnson Age 15, Grade 10 CEP 840, Spring 2005 Professors Moxley and Shankland Case Study on Nancy Johnson

2. Case Study • Nancy is having difficulty separating her family issues at home from her academic performance. This has no doubt placed a great deal of stress upon her, and she may feel that she is somewhat to blame. She also is losing the ability to make good moral decisions due to her anger and loneliness. It appears that Nancy does not have anyone that she can talk to about her feelings, so she is resorting to negative attention as a cry for help. In addition, Nancy has trouble in many academic areas, particularly writing. In her short vignette it was noted several times that Nancy came across difficulty when she had to complete the portion of assignments that require writing or note taking (i.e. organizing her biology notebook, creating drawings from the microscope, taking tests, etc.). She also has poor grammatical or communication skills. Combined with all of the trials she faces at home, we have a perfect recipe for a frustrated adolescent. Case Study on Nancy Johnson

3. Goals and Objectives • Conduct a new series of tests for Nancy, looking for areas of growth change. • Based on these scores, set up a meeting with parents to recommend counseling/family support, and to address the matter of Nancy’s truancy. • Provide Nancy with specific strategies and techniques to improve her performance in school by providing her with any curricular and task adaptations and accommodations. Case Study on Nancy Johnson

4. Plan of Action (for goals and objectives) • Nancy would benefit from participating in Writing Workshop. This would allow her to learn new information regarding the writing process that she may not have learned, as well as retain information she was previously taught. • Provide Nancy with spelling assistance. • Nancy will also receive handwriting assistance. • Provide Nancy with a math tutor and classroom buddy. • Interpersonal problem solving the FAST and Slam methods. Case Study on Nancy Johnson

5. Tools and Resources • Materials needed for Writing Workshop • Journal for Nancy • Rubric given to Nancy for assessments (so she can make sure that she is completing assignments accurately) • Math tutor and classroom buddy • Student and teacher created math assessments • Use the FAST and/or SLAM problem solving strategies Case Study on Nancy Johnson

6. FAST MethodSource: Bos, C.S., & Vaughn, S. (2003). Teaching Exceptional, Diverse, and At-Risk Student in the General Education Classroom (3rd ed., p.232) Boston: Allyn & Bacon. S Solution Evaluation. Choose the best one. Remember: safe and fair; works in the long run. A Alternatives. What are your Possible solutions? F Freeze and Think?What is the Problem? T Try It. Do you think this will work? Case Study on Nancy Johnson

7. SLAM Method S L A M STOP LOOK ASK MAKE Stop Look the Ask the Make an whatever person a appropriate you are in the question to response doing. eyes. clarify to the what he person. or she means. Source: Bos, C.S., & Vaughn, S. (2003). Teaching Exceptional, Diverse, and At-Risk Student in the General Education Classroom (3rd ed., p.232) Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Case Study on Nancy Johnson

8. Assessment I feel that it is more appropriate to provide assessment adaptations or accommodations versus creating new materials. Many of the assessment data collected for Nancy would be the papers she turns in, the ability to positively participate in role play activities (where they are practicing conflict resolution), and her interaction with her tutor and classroom buddy. The only assessment method that I would consider creating would be for math. I believe that you simply have to have paper assessments at times for documentary purposes. We use a performance tracking system called Scantron at our school. I do not know if it is available for high school students, but since Nancy is performing very low in certain areas this is something that could work for her. Case Study on Nancy Johnson

9. Assessment (Cont.) What the teacher does is go to the website and create an assessment for each child based on their needs and abilities. It tracks their progress in the major subject areas, and also has tests they can take on the computer. The program is able to detect if the student is making up answers and will kick them out of the program if they feel this is what they are doing. The feature that I like the most is the ability to automatically change the level of difficulty in the test based on how they answer the first few questions. This is how the program is able to accurately show you what grade level at which a student is performing. Case Study on Nancy Johnson

10. How to Know its Working Well, assuming Nancy has been re-tested, she is attending school (or the residential center), her family is in counseling, and she has gained interpersonal problem solving skills and strategies, I don’t see how she would not be able to progress. The math assessments would show if her performance has increased as they would be tailor made to help her in her areas of weakness. The decrease in conflicts and anger in the classroom would indicate that she is learning how to deal with her feelings and hand situations of conflict. Case Study on Nancy Johnson

11. How to Know its Working (cont.) Sitting down with Nancy and showing her how to compare her writing samples (drafts and final projects, as well as comparing several final projects) would show improvements in spelling, grammar and writing. Taking all of this information and going back to the IEP table would be the next step in determining what additional supports she needs or if additional changes need to be made in her plans and goals. Case Study on Nancy Johnson

12. Works Cited Bos, C.S., & Vaughn, S. (2003). Teaching Exceptional, Diverse, and At-Risk Student in the General Education Classroom (3rd ed., p.232) Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Case Study on Nancy Johnson