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Jasmine is a student in 11th grade and she is what you might call aloof. She received learning assistance in elementary school and her grades have suffered in high school. She often spends time alone in the library at lunch, rather than with friends. Her reading and writing skills are just below average, while her math skills were even lower. Previous teachers have found that she does not turn in all of her homework and doesn't consider it a priority. Her main interest is art and she is interested in attending art school. (British Columbia, 45-49)
Considerations
The two issues I find most prominent in Jasmine’s case are low motivation and social withdrawal. I think it would be important to address the possibilities that she faces (a) a lack of intrinsic motivation, (b) emotional disturbance, (c) inattentive-type ADHD, or a combination of these elements. Furthermore, she clearly prefers to take alternate paths from the social group. I would try to test the boundaries of her withdrawal to see if it is due to some form of anxiety, or a part of her self-identity as an outsider through student based learning.
The Self-Determination Theory defines intrinsic motivation (doing something for personal pleasure), extrinsic motivation (doing something for a reward, such as a school grade), or amotivation (a complete lack of motivation) as points on a spectrum of motivation (Ford, 102). It appears that Jasmine is motivated intrinsically by art, which may come from a pronounced visual/spatial learning style, drawing from Gardner's multiple intelligence classifications (Gardner). In order to see if we could channel this towards other areas, I would evaluate her motivation when student choice and art are given central roles in her learning.
In order to ensure a student-centered approach to making these changes, I’d incorporate Metacognition, which IowaCORE defines as "thinking about your thinking" to improve her self-awareness. I’d encourage her to reflect on her own challenges and skills, a growth mindset, and her emotional responses to schoolwork. This reflection could also aid the possibility that Jasmine faces emotional disturbance. She exhibits two of the traits associated with this condition are social withdrawal and learning difficulties (Parent Hub). This is an area worth monitoring closely because Jasmine could potentially qualify for an IEP that includes counseling or therapy, so I would keep her parents in the loop.
Finally, I would attempt to check on the status of her learning-style from an ADHD perspective, since she has the traits of an inattentive-type learner including difficulty sustaining attention in tasks, forgetfulness, and reluctance towards homework, which requires sustained mental effort (British Columbia ME, 7). I would check if she responds better to smaller chunks of learning with frequent breaks, the flexibility to move in class, and in-class homework.
I would carefully monitor and provide feedback to her parents on a weekly basis based on these considerations.
Student-Centered Strategies
Enrichment Activity:
Project Based Learning+ Self-selected readings -- With Jasmine, I'd focus on making a project outline that breaks down big goals into smaller goals, which she would mostly define with some guidance from me. We’d emphasize visual thinking and artistic expression, small pieces with immediate rewards for completion to improve her motivation, and a structure that reveals the many small parts that are part of larger goals. Her differentiated project would allow her to develop ways to express academic concepts through visual art. She would choose relevant readings that match her own level and which relate to her project goals. The project flow would generally follow a series of developments leading to benchmarks followed by reflections, and ultimately leading towards the final exhibition of work, much like this diagram shows:
On Assessment: Pre-assessment, formative assessment, and summative assessments are all significant parts of the learning process. To ensure these remain student-centered, I would engage students to collaboratively mindmap their essential intellectual, emotional, and interpersonal goals for their project and how they’d achieve them. Formative assessments could incorporate reflective fishbowl discussions at each portfolio benchmark regarding, what’s working and what’s not in the students’ respective projects and ways to get unstuck. Summative assessment could incorporate the highly visual format of an online portfolio assessment, which would incorporate selections of their work that reflect their reflective process as well as goal-fulfillment.
Support Activity (Metacognition + Emotional Awareness):
Emotional Reflection -- I work on ensuring that Jasmine and the rest of the class of supportive each other's learning processes by having them track their progress with a timeline of emotional ups and downs related to their project--this would be on a scale of "inspired" to "demotivated." I would model this by sharing my own emotional experience with a failed project, and to encourage trial and error by also participating in the activity. We would discuss at the end of each week, in a jigsaw discussion assignment about their emotions throughout the past week. This would also be useful for observing if Jasmine is willing to discuss in groups if the stakes are low.
This idea was adapted from Laura McBain's speech at PBL World 2018 (see example at 24:57).
Intervention Activity:
Differentiated Homework + Reading Movement: While most of the students may work independently, I would allow Jasmine time in class to focus on her project. We would design most of Jasmine's coursework so that she could complete it almost entirely in class. This would include differentiated assignments such as drawing the plot or concepts of her class readings or creating infographics to summarize texts. I would provide her the space to move around in a designated art station she'd help design, so she could draw or stand during class reading and independent working times to benefit her attentiveness and memory retention. This would also allow me to test whether she works better when she has a special role such as "artist" assigned to her or if this makes her feel more alienated. I've adapted parts of this activity from this video on ADHD learners:
Randall, M. (2012) A Teaching Technique for Teachers of Students with Learning Disabilities. The National Center for Learning Disabilities. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk8qesnsdec
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