A Practice in Writing a Case Study

The demographics will offer some insight into the direction of the overall goal. The Option Pathways Program student is enrolled in an alternative educational path to graduating high school that is somewhat different from the two paths currently used in West Virginia Public Secondary schools, which are the skilled or academic pathways. The Option Pathways Program is closely aligned with the skilled path in that a "completer" program is required. Many of the students in the skilled pathway choose a vocational career, which traditionally covered the building trades such as carpentry, masonry, electrician, welding, and some clerical skills classes. The modern technical classes include various classes in the medical field from medical records and medical office assistant to full Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA) and Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) classes that serve a prep classes for Registered Nurse (RN), which in many ways is considered an academic pathway, but with specialized training for workforce readiness. There are many other skilled pathway classes that are academic in nature as well like, Criminal Justice, Business Marketing, Finance, and Information Technology that easily translate into two year and four year college degrees. The main shift for the Option Pathways student is how the core subjects of math, science, social studies, and English Language Arts (ELA) are delivered to students. Many of the referred Option 1 students are failing or have failed multiple core subjects and the student I'm going to talk about had not passed a core subject since ninth grade.

The Socio-Economic Status (SES) of the students in the Option 1 Program is representative of the majority of the county population, which is identified as low with the exception of one attendance area elementary through secondary schools, which is likely moderate (not the perceived high). The SES plays a roll in that many of these students struggle to meet basic needs, which as Maslow points out must be met if learning is to occur. The gender ratio is about 60/40 male to female though not equally distributed in the two possible classes of AM or PM. The age range is 16 to 19, but draws from currently enrolled freshman to seniors. Like their peers many of these students have experimented with tobacco, alcohol, drugs, gambling, and sex, which I mention because some have already entered the court system, residential placement, or have parents / guardians in the court system with either charges pending or serving sentences for convicted crimes as well as some students that are also parents themselves. Many of the students have attendance issues that have resulted in court ordered completion of high school and are not able to get their driver's license until they turn 18 years of age. The truancy has a direct affect on loss of basic instruction and is likely the single greatest factor to a lack of success in the classroom because missed work seldom gets turned in for credit and ability to be successful on assessments, which results in a failing grade.

My case study student can be identified in many of the aforementioned categories though Not in the court system and exhibited No tendency toward tobacco or drug use. He lived with a grandparent that seemed to demand a great deal of structure and adherence to the rules of the house, something this teen outwardly opposed, but inwardly desperately needed. I interacted with this student in three very different settings, yet all were in a classroom or an academic setting. The first point of interaction was in a Vo-Ag setting for a 90 minute block class that dealt primarily with the greenhouse. The second interaction was later in the same academic day in a 90 minute block class Intro to Ag. The third interaction was the following year in the Option 1 class. All three of these settings offered different insight into how to best approach and meet this student's academic needs.

The student would be identified as an average teenage male 17 years of age turning 18 years of age prior to graduation. He had 12 of the 28 required credits needed for graduation when he arrived to the Option 1 classroom. He was not a student that caused problems in a classroom, but was very passive when it came to classroom performance. In my first interaction with this student I met a vibrant young man willing and eager to be part of the class... taking part in the assigned jobs ... planting seeds, watering, transplanting... etc... we even built a two-bin-compost structure out of pressure treated lumber to recycle potting soil, in which he was one of the best workers on the project... he along with two other students wanted to restart the hydroponics system we uncovered in the greenhouse. To begin with this adventure was new to me and the students because I took over the Vo-Ag position soon after the start of the second semester when the teacher quit mid-year. As a substitute, the students were expecting to do very little and I was encouraged to Not open the greenhouse, but How can you have a greenhouse class without going to the greenhouse? How was that fair for the students, it wasn't their fault the teacher quit. This set the stage for a very positive interaction with most of the students. Keep this thought in your mind as we begin to progress through the next two interactions... hands on authentic and relevant learning. The second interaction came 3rd block, right after lunch, in a classroom of 24 students, in which 19 of the 24 had an IEP, 504, or BIP and in four of those cases the student had both an LD/IEP and BD/IEP because their behavior impeded their academic progress, needless to say My focus was primarily on classroom management. In this class, there was some group work, a few experiments, and teacher led direct instruction. My case study student actively participated in the experiments, but passively refused to do any of the rest of the work. The first time I caught him on his phone with an earbud in his ear with his hoodie over his head he was... wait for it... reading and listening to Yahoo.News. What! I said to myself, "you are refusing to do the class work and ignoring the teacher to read and listen to news articles"... "how do you punish a student for that?" That was my quandary for the next 12 weeks... needless to say, the minimal amount of work he did in class was awful, yet his test scores were high 90%, and the test were made by me and were only reflective of my direct instruction... rather than modifying 19 tests form the canned lesson plans left for the class... No Thank You Please! How could this be? except for experiment days this student spend the entire class head down un-engaged... or was he? Interaction number three started in September in the Option 1 class... he seemed glad to see me... even offered words of praise to his peers that he really liked my classes... especially the chocolate covered bacon!

This third interaction is where things come together and separate at the same time... the Option 1 program prepares students for for the TASC Assessment in the core subjects through 5 different summative assessments, one each in math, science, and social studies with two assessments needed to pass ELA one reading and one writing that has a grammar and essay component. We focus on a content area and once that content area has been successfully completed No more work is required in that subject for the remainder of the year. We set the curricular path as social studies, science, and math first semester with ELA focused on in second semester... with the primary goal of completing math before the Christmas break. This student constantly refused to actively engage in the direct math instruction, but did participate in the hands-on math, like finding the height of unknown objects with an astrolabe, stick, and mirror. Knowing that this student had Not received credit in a math class since 9th grade I felt a sense of urgency for him to do the math work, yet day after day head down or independent work at the computer was filled with gaming Not math. When the math assessment day came he easily met the minimum required score on the readiness test (TRA required to register for the actual test), which didn't really surprise me, but his TASC Assessment score in the high "B" range did... which led me to this discovery... This student was in the A+ Certification and Information Technology program because he had a genuine interest in computer technology, which likely stemmed from the fact that he was well suited for this type of endeavor... for example he could type a lengthy  web address in the address bar faster than you could read it... and when he was gaming while working on the "math" independently... he had multiple games going at the same time. He was processing multiple pieces of information like the math while at the same time interacting in an online game such as War Craft.

The failings of this student lay at the feet of his non-interactive or non-engaging instruction... it took months for me to Not over react when he didn't comply with my request to participate... and while his classmates thought he was getting away with something it was easy for me to produce the evidence of his learning (with what looked like little to No effort), but that was not the case, he was listening and learning, just processing information in a way that was Not easily recognized. I questioned several of his former teachers and all were quick to exclaim he was the laziest student in their class. This student was able to use a distraction like technology to process information in a passive way if he was Not able to interact with the information in a tangible way like an experiment or project.

The Authentic vs Functional Literacy connection seems obvious to me, he used his understanding of technology literacy as an authentic learning strategy to meet the demands of required functional literacy for the core subject requirements, but only after he was in a setting that allowed that to occur without repercussions. It was, I think, through the intrinsic value of Authentic technology literacy that he was successful in core subjects that he showed little interest in learning more about, which led to a comment he said to me, "I will never use that in the computer technology field" and he was right, so I countered with, "that's Not the only reason we learn some things... sometimes we learn things as a platform or basis to learn other things that we do need to know... like complex problem solving," but my wisdom of years served No real purpose in the Now!
The positive outcome for this student is that out of a possible total score of 4000 for the TASC Assessments, he missed a 3000 score by only a few points and graduated with a full high school diploma. His literacy interactions had prepared him for the "Good Life."

Lankshear, Colin, and Michele Knobel. Literacies: Social, cultural and historical perspectives. Peter Lang, 2011.