In response to the "What do you think?"
What do you think she should do, and why?
I think that Mrs.Potter should first understand that each child is different, in the Ladson-Billing "Seeing Color" article I read, it stated that teachers giving the students all equal work is not equal at all. Each students learns different as well as having different needs. It is impossible to not see color or differences.
I think Mrs. Potter need to understand that first Lupita does not know a lot of english, the fact that she does not call on her in class, is not helping that. She needs to call on her so she can work on her english as well as the social interactions with her peers. Although she shouldn't call on her everyday or for everything. She could put up pictures of items around the room with the word in english and spanish labeled on it. This will help her build her vocabulary. She could also do more group work so that she is involved.
For Jonathan, I think that he might be scared to ask for help. She could read the assignments to him, if time allows for this (she was just circulating around the room). Let him know that it is okay to ask for help if he does not understand something. she could give the whole class verbal directions so that he can hear them. Also if his reading level is that low, I would talk to the parents about it. This would be tricky if his parents are not helping him in the first place. The labels around the room would help him as well to identify things.
For Eddie, I would first give him something to help with the sensory needs, like a string on the legs of his chair so that he can bounce his legs and it wont be disruptive to him or the other students. She could give him something to tap or squeeze that is not noisy. She could make a list of things that he needs to complete and give him a visual chart to cross off or remove items as he completes them. He might be bored and already know the material, or he might have too many stimulus and his focus is shutting down.
What do you think she should do, and why?
ReplyDeleteI love that Ashley connected the "Seeing Color" article to her response about what Mrs. Potter should do. I read the Freedman and Freedman article about ELL learners, which perfectly fit into the first student, Lupita. Overall, for these 3 students Mrs.Potter is worried about, be organized, have visual supports in the classroom, make activities interesting and authentic by connecting them to these students lives/cultures/interests etc., have labels on common things, provide a class schedule, allow opportunities for kids to interact and use their hands, among other small adaptations.
Lupita is known as a long term ELL. Meaning, she needs to learn conversational and academic English. Data shows students like this usually do well enough to get by, but don’t succeed enough to continue in school and often become dropouts. Lupita needs to learn convo. and acad. English to be successful in school and outside of school. To help her, Mrs. Potter should continue to call on her, but give her a warning that she’ll have to answer soon, or ask her questions that she’ll for sure know the answer to. This will build her confidence and motivate her to speak out more. Working in groups, using visual supports and allowing interactions with students playing puzzles will help her hear and learn conversational English as well.
Some students, like Eddie, need to get out energy before being able to settle down and get work done. For this student, I would move the students’ desk to the back of the room and allow that student to work however they need. Being in the back, the student won’t be a distraction if he needs to stand, shake his leg, walk in circles for a minute, etc. Mrs. Potter could also give him a stress ball or a pencil grip, so he can have a tangible item with out being focused on that item. If the actions still are a problem, you should use a self-monitoring behavior program, where you tell the student the behavior you’d like to see happen less and the student marks down a tally mark for each set of 10 minutes that he stays in his seat or on task. Usually having the student mark his or her own behavior changes the behavior in itself. As for the lack of attention Eddie gave during the tadpole activity, have the activity be hands on, and active instead of just listening. Engaging Eddie in a physical activity will keep his attention. He may think the tadpoles are very interesting, but he may not listen without a hands on activity.
I think both Ashley and Val have some great insights in what Mrs. Potter should do with these "struggling" students. When reading this, I was really surprised on how passive the teacher was towards these students. She noticed that they were not totally following her guidance and directions and then just talks with another teacher about how they arent following.
ReplyDeleteWith Lupita, instead of ignoring her and lableing her as quiet, she should encourage her to speak by actually talking to her. She also seems to have a lot of assumptions about her without actually knowing where she is at academically. She states that she is low and does not have much experience, but she caught onto puzzles so quickly without having much experience with them. So well infact, that she was able to teach it to other students.
Regarding Jonathan, she recognzies that he has many strengths but then states that he is average at academics and is frustrated that he is not asking for help like she told him to. If he is a star athlete is probably not comfortable admitting his struggles, and she need to accomdate that for him. She should follow up with him personally, whether he asks for help or not, and then encourage him the strength in asking questions.
With Eddie, he definitley needs something to help him focus. However, he needs different tasks that engage his thinking as well as stretching his thinking. It is important to learn discipline by following directions and the behavior that is expected in the classroom though. He just needs tasks that fit his style of thinking so he can properly grasps that concepts that the teacher is actually trying to teach.
Sarah made a great point. With how much we hear about ELL in our studies and begin to talk about strategies for intervention it is suprising the hear of a teacher with so many ELL students who does not know how to meet their needs and simply realizes that "something is not right".
ReplyDeleteYou can see with Lupita that she is not lacking in intelligence because of her success with activities that don't involve language. She needs opportunities for conversation and lessons with academic vocabulary so that she is able to succeed in language based subjects.
Eddie is a student who seems to have trouble focusing. Here the teacher should apply some motivation strategies and to also check the students file and community life to possibly get clues for where this lack of focus is stemming from and hopefully correct any obstacles.
I think there would be multiple ways to engage Johnathan further and to help me get the assistance he needs in order to succeed and still protect him from embarrassment. I would likely have a conversation with Johnathan and ask him what we found motivating or what things he struggles with (one on one) then I would pair him up with someone who can help in a way that is not obvious to his class. Or do assignments related to sports, which would be more authentic, relevant, and consequently motivating for him and likely other students.