Wisconsin Standard for Teacher Development and Licensure #2
Title of Experience/Artifact: Developmental Assessment Paper
Date Experience Completed: December 2005
Describe your educational experience/artifact:
An experience that contributed a great deal to me in better understanding how children grow, was when I had to write a developmental assessment paper on one child I observed and worked with during my pre-student teaching practicum. In this paper, I reflected on this child�s personal growth in three areas: physical, intellectual, and social development. I used my own observations and experiences working with him to reflect on his growth and to come to some conclusion about the child.
ALIGNMENT:
Wisconsin Teacher Standard Alignment
I believe this artifact best aligns with the Wisconsin Teacher Licensure Standard #2: Teachers know how children grow. Standard two involves teachers understanding how pupils with broad ranges of ability learn and provide instruction that supports their intellectual, social, and personal development. I believe that this artifact is applicable to standard two because it displays that I understand how children with broad ranges of ability learn. The knowledge I gained about child development from doing this developmental assessment paper made me better understand the growth that takes place, especially in children who may have special needs. It also made me better understand the struggles children with disabilities go through.
UW-Platteville School of Education Knowledge, Skill, & Disposition Statement Alignment
I believe this artifact best aligns with KSD1.b. Demonstrating Knowledge of Students. This artifact represents how I as a teacher understand learning styles, skills, and developmental backgrounds in particular. I am aware that each child grows and learns differently. Therefore, instruction must be differentiated. Being aware of this, I must meet the needs of all students according to their interests and cultural backgrounds. I believe this experience will help me select appropriate instructional goals for my students.
REFLECTION
This experience has given me the opportunity to realize that no two children are alike and my lessons need to reflect my understanding of my students� learning abilities and styles. Elementary school students can and will struggle as they grow throughout the learning process and this fast rate of growth can make it difficult for them to adjust.
In particular, this experience has shown me that in the future I must make sure I reach all students who have problems socially. A student�s ability to be accepted socially can affect their ability to become a life-long learner. Students want to be accepted socially and want to do well in the classroom. Coming to this realization, I will assess my ability to better connect with these struggling children. (SEE ARTIFACT BELOW)
Developmental Assessment Paper
The child I have chosen for my developmental assessment will be referred to as C. C is in the fourth grade and is nine-years old. From what C has told me in different conversations, he lives with his mother and several brothers and sisters. According to C, his dad lives far away. I also know that his family has just moved to Platteville in the last year to get away from dad. I chose C for several reasons. The first reason is that he is very much behind in academics and from day one in my pre-student teaching practicum I have spent a lot of time working with him one-on-one. Another reason I decided to do my developmental assessment on C is that he has a lot of issues when it comes to ADHD. I will focus a lot of my developmental assessment on C�s problems in the classroom when it comes to his ADHD and his academic performance. Moreover, the reason I have chosen C is that I had many opportunities to interact with C socially and academically while working with him on an individual basis. Overall, I find C to be a very enjoyable child to be around as well as interesting.
When it comes to C�s physical development and his level of activity, he has a really hard time staying on task as well as sitting still in his desk. I observe on many occasions how easily distracted C gets when the teacher is delivering her instruction to the class. In one incident Mrs. Runde had to close his book that was on his desk and lift up his C�s chin with her hand and ask, �Are you with me?� Later during the instruction, again Mrs. Runde caught C not paying attention. He was rolling up his Math Journal in his hands and not listening to what Mrs. Runde was trying to teach, he wasn�t even looking at the board. Mrs. Runde stopped her instruction again and said, �C, today is not a good day not to pay attention.� This is just one small sample what C is like everyday during instruction time.
Other evidence that shows C�s level of activity and his ability for not being able to sit still can be seen in the following everyday observations I made of him. When C is at his desk, he always has to be moving or he is not comfortable. He is very fidgety with his feet and hands. For example, he is always playing with his pencil, ruler, eraser, or whatever he can gets his hands on. All his pencils have bite marks on them and when he is not biting his pencil he is playing with it in some other way. When he sits in his desk he is bouncing his feet or moving his legs. He slips and slides his shoes off and on while sitting in his desk. Other times he plays with rubber bands or strings. He really likes to rap string around his pencil or finger. Furthermore, C is always changing how he sits in his desk. It is not very often that he sits correctly in his desk. Most of the time C is slouching in his desk chair, or sitting on one of his legs, or spinning left and right in his desk chair, anything but sitting still. All these examples show just how fidgety C can be.
I have come to a conclusion about why I think C is very fidgety and can�t sit still other than that he has ADHD. I feel that he does not get enough exercise, play, or the ability to move around during the course of the school day. I feel this to be true because C only gets one time during the school day to have physical movement, maybe two times if the class has physical education. C only gets one recess during the day and most of the time C doesn�t even get that because he has to stay in and finish his work. To support my theory about why C is fidgety and cannot pay attention can be proven by an international team who studied children in schools in Georgia. �They concluded children were more likely to fidget and lose attention the longer they were deprived of exercise� (Professor Tony Pelligrini). Due to this I feel that C suffers because of the lack of time that he has during the day to move around and or play.
When it comes to C�s academic problems, I feel his ADHD is a very major contribution to his poor academic performance. One of the characteristics he has as do most other children with ADHD is problems with language learning and written work. I feel this contributes to substantial frustration in C with classroom learning. Some examples of C�s problems with written language can be seen in his work. C has very poor handwriting and has yet to learn how to write in cursive. He really struggles with cursive; therefore the teacher has to make accommodations by letting him print. If the teacher did not he would take days to write a paper or finish a written assignment. When it comes to his spelling, he once again struggles. I have seen some of his spelling tests. It appears he still is in the emergent literacy phase. He really could use a lot of help with his phonics and phonemic awareness. When I ask C to spell something for me, he struggles on putting together the correct letters to make the correct sounds when I ask him to sound it out. This shows he has to improve on his phonemic awareness and therefore this leads me to believe he is still is in the emergent literacy phase.
Another problem I feel C has when it comes to his written language is that he might have dyslexia. His reading and writing shows repetitions, transpositions, additions, omissions, substitutions, and reversals in letters. He also can�t always recall what he read. C spells phonetically and inconsistently. He sometimes has a hard time putting his thought into words and sometimes stutters when under stress. He has difficulty telling time, especially if it is not a digital clock. He really struggles when it comes to learning sequenced information or tasks. In math he rarely can put numbers in order from least to greatest if the numbers are not simple whole numbers. The real kicker that shows he might have dyslexia, is that he is really dependent on finger counting when doing math problems. I feel that his slight case of dyslexia along with his ADHD causes him to perform poorly in his academic work.
Overall, it can be seen that C is struggling with his cognitive and language development. According to some of Piaget�s theories, it can definitely be seen that C struggles with operational thinking. C has problems with the process of working something out in his head. Young children (in the sensorimotor and pre-operational stages) have to act, and try things out in the real world, to work things out (like count on fingers): older children and adults can do more in their heads. C for the most part has to work things out by acting or doing it, rather than trying to think about it in his head. When it comes to placing C in one of Piaget�s developmental stages, I am actually not sure where to place him because he shows signs of both the preoperational stage and the concrete operational stage. If I based it solely on age and what characteristics C fits the most of, I would go with the concrete operational phase. But on the other hand he does have problems with concrete operations, especially in math.
When it comes to C�s emotional and social development, I feel he fits right in with other children his class and his age. I feel that C�s self-esteem is great, even though he struggles academically. When he doesn�t have to sit still and learn he is a very happy kid. He likes to talk and play with other children in the class. He likes to share his opinions and ideas with his classmates. He really takes pride and pleasure in knowing the right answer. C will get really excited when he knows the answers to any of the teacher�s questions. C gets so excited to the point that he will raise his hand while almost jumping out of his seat and wave his hand back and forth and say, �Ooo, Ooo, pick me, pick me!� Then when the teacher calls on him and he does get the right answer he gets so excited and will either say �yes� out loud and/or get a big smile on his face.
Another way I have observed C�s self-esteem to be good is when he tries something and fails, tries again, fails again, and then finally succeeds. He gets so happy and proud that he finally accomplished it. His face will light up like a Christmas tree. But there are plenty of times that his self-esteem will be poor, just like in other children when it comes to learned helplessness. He will plain out say, �I do not want to do this because I do not know how.� No matter how much you push him he will not work at it anymore. But other than this his self-esteem does seem to be good, especially when it comes to other things other than academic work. I never hear him put himself down. He really seems proud about himself and his family.
On the other hand, when it comes to C� self-concept I feel he has a good idea of his own abilities and skills. As I stated before, C will tell me when he won�t do something because he does not know how. I further know he has a good idea what he can and can�t do because when I observed him on the playground he liked to play either basketball or tetherball. Then when I asked him why he only plays those two games, he told me because that is what he is good at. Furthermore, this makes me believe he has a sense of his own autonomy. When it comes to his autonomy he has said to me several times when I was tutoring him that he wanted to do things for himself without help or hindrance from me.
When it comes to Erickson�s theory of industry, C does take pleasure in contributing to the class or being productive. When he does know the answer to the teacher�s question he will bounce up and down in his desk chair to get the teacher�s attention and he will take pride in contributing and getting the right answer. This makes him feel like he has succeeded in something. Furthermore, one example of him feeling pleasure in being productive is when I was tutoring him he was working really hard for once and getting the right answers. When I asked him why he was doing so well, he told me he wanted to get his assignment done along with all his other work that day so he could go to a friend�s birthday party. He used that reasoning to get him motivated so that he would be productive that day in school.
C�s inferiority can be seen in that he knows what he is good and not good at. As I stated before, C will engage himself in the self-fulfilling prophecy of learned helplessness if he does not know how to do something. This was shown in one of my previous examples when I discussed how C told me that when he does not know how to do something, he will stop trying and will not do it. This usually happened when the fear of failure would either cause him to avoid the opportunity to succeed or make an attempt to succeed due to his anxiety of knowing his own abilities to perform a certain task. C, as with most school age children, is in Erikson�s fourth stage of human development and probably will stay in this stage long into his adolescences, unless he gets some more help and changes his attitude.
My future prediction about C is that he will have to overcome many obstacles in order to succeed in school and in life. With many of the classical signs of ADHD such as: difficulty sustaining attention, forgetfulness, distractibility, avoidance of sustained mental effort, loses things necessary for tasks and/or activities, inability to sit still, always moving, fidgety and restless when trying to sit still, C will have to get help from many of the school�s resources as well as tutors. I believe this to be true because as of right now he can�t even do some of the basic school work such as multiplication or division. With much of the learning taking place through scaffolding, if C doesn�t learn the stuff now to build a solid foundation for what he will learn later in his academic career, he will even have a harder time learning in school. Also, he will want to give up on school later in his career because it will be a real struggle for him. Thus, this might lead him into not wanting to pursue a career later in life that will require some type of education higher than a high school degree.
Overall, I do feel that C has the potential to succeed in school if he gets the help for his poor academics and his ADHD. C also understands that he struggles, but unless he gets the urge to improve himself, the help he would receive for his academic work and his ADHD would go to waste. Furthermore, as of right now I feel C will continue to struggle academically in school. Overall C�s: physical, emotional, and social development are developmentally appropriate for his age. But C will definitely have to make great strides in his cognitive development if he is going to succeed in school and life. I believe that with proper instruction and much more one-to-one contact, C can and will develop successfully cognitively.