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Interview with Ms. A

Q: What do you see as Lucas's strengths?
A: He is really good at adding numbers and he knows good basic strategies for how to solve a problem.  He is also very intuitive about other's feelings and is honest with me about his own which is helpful.  I always know how he is feeling.

Q: What are some things he struggles with?
A: He has difficulty listening to directions, taking any redirection, and trying something if he does not initially know how to do it.  He also struggles with his self-confidence and his ability to stay on task.

Q: What are some methods that you have found that help him concentrate and focus more in class?
A: I have yet to find anything extremely successful.  I have tried to give him a stress ball to relieve energy, I provide preferential seating and seat him in the front, I have tried isolating him and seating him with all higher students.   I have also tried the rewards system.  None of these have given me very consistent results; one day it works and the next it does not.  I am thinking, however, to next try motivating him with technology because he really loves playing games on his phone and IPad.  We'll see if that gives any better result.

Q: Has his father or grandma given any suggestions that have been of any help on how to handle Lucas in class?
A: Nope, all they have said is to try to remain as positive as I can because he has a hard home life that does not include very many positive role models.  His grandma, the main care giver, does not know what motivates him either.  He is really passionate about hockey and loves to play, however, even taking hockey away does not help.

Q: How did you go about learning about Lucas's oppositional behavior disorder?  Did you do any research of your own or did he come with information?
A: He came with information, all of which was included in his IEP that I received from his case manager.  I usually take the information I am given with a grain of salt and I come to class having read the IEP but make my own assessment on the first day/ week to see what things students really do need to be accommodated on.

Q: How do you modify lesson plans to meet his strengths and weaknesses?
A: These students are all a part of my black class and our goal is to get them to grade level, so I do not really change the lesson itself but rather slow it down so that they have more time to understand the content.  I do, however, do more of environmental changes like turning off the lights, altering the seating arrangement, and incorporating intervention stations which work on strengthening basic skills.

An Ongoing Process...

Right now I have a couple things in the work that I will be able to add to my blog soon.  I have emailed Ms. A a list of questions to answer regarding having Lucas in her classroom.  They are:

1. What do you see as Lucas's strengths?
2. What are some things that Lucas struggles with?
3. What are some methods you have found that help him concentrate and focus more in class?
4. Has his family provided any suggestions for how to help engage Lucas in class?
5. How did you learn about Lucas's oppositional behavior disorder?  Did he come with some information or did you do a lot of research on your own?
6. How do you modify lesson plans to meet Lucas's strengths and weaknesses?

I have yet to hear back from Ms. A but when I do, I will be sure to post her responses.  I am also in the process of getting some of Lucas's class work.  Ms. A has taken a lot of their work home with her and did not have it for me to look at but she said that she would bring some this following week.  She did share with me his most recent test.  On the test he had written his name and then a question mark on every single problem.  There were no signs that he had attempted any problem.  I will have to ask her some more follow up questions on this to see how long he sat with the test before turning it in.  He may have at least thought about the problems before writing a question mark.  Ms. A also seems rather reluctant to share with me the actual IEP and behavioral documents for Lucas.  She does not want to get in trouble with sharing with me more than her administration would think appropriate, which I totally understand.  What she has verbally told me about Lucas's IEP and behavioral plan was included in the blog entry titled "Profile."

Review Game Success

One day I was observing, Ms. A had the students take part in a review game.  The game was based off of escape rooms that can be found all around Denver.  In an escape room, you have one hour to complete a certain task and in order to complete it, you must use the clues that can be found within a room.  When you go into the room, you are allowed to tear the place apart searching for clues.  Although the students were not going to be tearing the room apart, they were solving clues (math problems) to get pieces of a puzzle that they had to solve as their ticket out of class.  Lucas's involvement in the game was as follows: 

The third class of students are Ms. A’s block students.  These kids have been put in this class because they did not meet seventh grade math standards for the beginning of the year; they need extra help in the subject to fill some of the gaps they have.  Ms. A welcomed the students and told them about her experience in escape rooms just as she told the other classes.  When she began to explain the instructions, Ms. A took a little bit more time and even asked the students to repeat back to her what she had said.  (OC: Several of the students in this class have behavioral issues, so it is imperative that she sets the expectations for them very clearly.  She needs them to understand not just hear the directions before she turns them loose to show what they know.)  In his group, Lucas was the runner.  As soon as the role of the runner was explained to the class, Lucas was whispering to his group, “I call being the runner.”  (OC: This role seems to be very attractive to those who like to get up and move around the room, like Lucas does.)  Lucas was one of the students who was running, not just walking, around the room to get the clues and find the problems.  He was asking his group what they thought the answer was before they could even begin solving the problem.  He was writing in his notepad while sticking his tongue out.  (OC: A sign of concentration I have found.)  He was encouraging his team members saying, “Hurry,” “How are you guys doing,” “Let’s go, we only have one more to go.”  (OC: This made me smile.  Lucas was so invested in finishing the puzzle.)  After class I expressed this to Ms. A and she told me that Lucas loves puzzles.  He loves putting together the pieces and seeing what can be made so it was no surprise that he was enjoying this game.  (OC: This made me think that on some level she was doing this game to reach the kids who do learn in a different way, who like puzzles and like to get up and run around the room. As a teacher, it is important to know and figure out how your students learn best early on so that you can teach to those strengths.)

During third hour, before the game had finished, Lucas’s group was the closest group all day to finishing the puzzle.  They were on the last clue and moments later a second group was also on their last clue.  (OC: Although part of this is due to the fact that Lucas and his group were working so hard, being a part of the block hour, they had two class periods to complete what the other two classes had to finish in one.)  When the second group went to the front of the room to get their final clue, Lucas called out, “No! Are you guys on the last clue? Come on guys, we need to hurry!”  (OC: The competition was one of the aspects that motivated Lucas.)  During the second hour of the class, Ms. A was going to give the students time to start their test.  Right after the bell, I thought she was going to call everyone to clean up the game and pass out the test.  This did not happen, however, she continued to walk around the room and help students with review problems.  She smiled at Lucas when he came up for his last problem and encouraged him to keep working after the second group got their final clue as well.  (OC: Ms. A was holding off on starting the test so that Lucas and his group could finish the entire activity.  One key aspect of getting students to work hard and do their best, is getting them to feel successful.  If a child is constantly failing, the motivation to try harder will never develop.  Ms. A was holding off on starting the test so that Lucas could finish the game and feel a sense of accomplishment by solving the puzzle and being the first group all day to finish.)

I was so excited to see Lucas's excitement and interest in the activity.  I think that incorporating more games into the class would be very beneficial for Lucas as he was not only engrossed in the lesson for one day, but I think he also learned something about himself and his abilities.  

Interview With Lucas

On October 8th, I interviewed Lucas.  I decided to ask Lucas a few questions that would hopefully start to help me understand Lucas's learning preferences.  How he felt that he liked to learn best.  The following is a script of our conversation and my feelings as we talked.

I pulled him aside during enrichment and asked Lucas a series of five questions.  When Ms. A asked Lucas to come and talk with me, he said, “Okay, I guess.”  He was reading at the time.  (OC: Lucas loves to read and so pulling him out when he is doing something he loves made him not so excited to talk to me.)  I asked Lucas whether he wanted to go in the hall to answer the questions or find a quiet area in the room.  He said, “I don’t care.”  So we walked to an empty table in the classroom that was separated from everyone else.  After we sat down, I prefaced the interview with, “Hi Lucas, so I am going to ask you a few questions about school but if you ever feel like you do not want to answer a question, just say pass, okay?”  (OC: I did not want Lucas to feel pressured to answer something he was uncomfortable with.  If something was too personal for him, I wanted him to feel like he had an easy way to “get out.”)  He said, “Okay,” and we began. 

I proceeded to ask the first question, “What do you like about school.”  Lucas replied, “Nothing.”  (OC: This took me by surprise.  I was not expecting him to say that he liked nothing.  I thought he would say he liked gym class or he liked being with his friends, but not nothing.)  I stumbled over my next words as I was thinking how to proceed and what questions would still be relevant.  I decided to just go as originally planned.  “Nothing, why?” I asked.  Lucas thought for a moment and then said, “Because it is all too hard.”  I nodded my head and jotted his answers down in my notebook.  “Now, what do you not like about school?”  (OC: I felt like I knew what his answer was going to be.  If he just said that he liked nothing, he was probably going to say that he did not like everything.  I was right.)  “Everything,” Lucas stated.  (OC: At this point, I was beginning to feel really bad for Lucas.  To think that there was absolutely nothing about school that he liked made me sad.  It made me feel a sense of helplessness.)  I asked Lucas why this was and he replied with the exact same answer as before, “Because it is all too hard.” 

Continuing with my interview, I asked Lucas the next question, “How do you think you learn best?”  He replied rather quickly, “I do not know.”  I wanted to be able to ask Lucas a follow up question on this like why don’t you know, get him to actually stop and think about how he learns, but I could not think that quickly on my feet.  (OC: The next question I had been planning on asking was, “Do any of your teachers do this for you?”  But I felt that since he did not know how he best learned, this question was irrelevant.  If you do not know how you learn best, how would you know if this is happening in a class?)  From there I jumped to asking Lucas, “Do you think you would be more willing to do something if you were given options or just told one thing to do?”  Immediately after I asked the question, Lucas stated, “Yea, options are better.”  (OC: Not only did his answer match up with what my prediction was but his enthusiasm for the answer made me believe that he really felt that options were better.)  The final question I asked Lucas was, “Does anyone at home help you with your homework?”  Lucas said, “Yes, my grandma.”  I thanked Lucas for his time and he walked back to his desk to read.

Before the interview, I assumed that options do help Lucas learn, that having more possibilities helps him to feel like he is in control of something.  But the interview helped me to solidify this theory.  Lucas stated himself that he feels he would learn better with more options rather than just being told one thing to do.  I do, however, still want to figure out a way that I can test this theory.  I feel bad for Lucas.  Lucas saying that he does not like one thing about school because it is all too hard for him indicates that he feels disappointed and frustrated with himself.  He feels like a failure because he has not had any success.  In my special education class, we talk about how students with disabilities, like Lucas, often experience a lot of failure in the classroom and this contributes to their self-image.  For Lucas to already feel like he cannot do anything in school just shows how much he feels defeated.  Feeling such defeat will make it really hard for Lucas to succeed in the classroom.

Observation Notebook

The observations I have made during my internship time thus far have been mostly discussed in the above questions numbers two and three.  Here, however, are a few pictures of my observation notebook. 

Deciding on Lucas and My Goals for Observation

Ms. A's third hour class is a block class, meaning that she has the same twelve students for two class periods.  Of these twelve students, nine of them have IEPs in place.  In choosing who I was going to observe, I asked my CT if she had any suggestions.  She was the one who suggested Lucas to me.  I began to take note of what Lucas was doing more carefully and realized that he was always doing something.  He was chatting with a friend, fiddling with something new, or exploring a new area of the classroom.  I found him intriguing and wanted to learn more about why he did what he did what he did.  

From Lucas, I hope to learn better how to handle a student that has a behavioral disorder.  My goal is to observe how Ms. A explores new ways to try to reel him into the class discussions and see what techniques work and what does not work so well.  My hope is that by the end of this semester, I will know I would handle and build a successful working relationship with a student with a behavioral disorder.