Case Study for John Smith

Thomas Morrill

The following case study is a fictionalized one based on a middle school student with some visual impairment.

John Smith is a 12 year old male student in Middle School who has a visual impairment which has been corrected using glasses, but still makes for issues with John's instruction. John is an exceptionally gifted student who performs extremely well on standardized tests, placing in the top percentile at his school. He loves playing sports, especially Basketball. Although he does well on the standardized tests, he doesn't quite enjoy school and will sometimes joke around or "goof-off" during instruction time. After having a meeting with John it is clear that he is a gifted student who is simply bored by the routine instruction.

Student-Centered Learning has a variety of approaches which can best meet the needs of John so that he is both successful in the classroom and excited about the prospect of learning. Because John is visual impaired anyway, it will be best to arrange his seating so that he is closer to the Smart Board and has an opportunity to see the material being presented without having to struggle. The struggle to see, might have lead to his getting distracted in the past. This would cause John to act up and disrupt the other students.

Another way to help facilitate John's instruction is by placing him in the appropriate work group. It could be that, due to his ability to pick up on the lessons quickly, he had been getting bored in the classroom previously which led to his acting out. in the student-centered classroom John can either be placed in one of two groups; a group of students who are also gifted and have mastered the lesson and need additional separate instruction, or in a group of students who are perhaps struggling whereby John can assist by helping the students through scaffolding.

A method which may also prove useful in helping John is the idea of an "Independent Contract Study". This is used for gifted students who are allowed to come up with a set of questions, related to the topic at hand, which they wish to learn more about. After they have done the appropriate research they can then present them to the group or the class, depending upon the specific lessons. In this way, John would be taking charge of his education and would be allowed to learn what he wants to learn, thereby circumventing the boredom he experienced in the past.

The ultimate goal for this student-centered learning would be to tailor it in such a way as to accommodate for John's specific needs. Being cognizant of his visual impairment when assigning his seating in the classroom. Being careful to mitigate his feelings of boredom from the pace of the lesson. Allowing some level of autonomy over the specific areas of the lessons in which John wishes to explore. In this way, John will be better accommodated in the classroom and become a more successful and, perhaps equally as important, a happy learner.