Encourage tinkering with ideas, relationships, connections. Set up situations where students have to find information not readily available in school texts. Provide opportunity for students to design open-ended explorations of the concept. Provide multiple options so students can plan a unique "proof" of learning.

Case Files

Objective: The student will develop 'case studies' of students having problems for which goals are developed to help alleviate.

Activity: Case Files. Divide students into small groups for this activity. Each group is to be given a manila folder 'file' describing a student having academic problems. As a beginning activity, each group is to carefully study the file and develop a goal to help the student deal with his/her problems. These are then introduced to the class. Students then create a new student with new problems. They create their 'file' on easel paper which is then presented to the class. At the end of their presentation, the rest of the class develops a goal for him/her. Case Studies: David is a bright, energetic seventh grade boy. Even though he's very smart, David doesn't get good grades in school. He pays good attention in all of his classes, but somehow he doesn't manage to get his homework done every night. Last quarter, David finished only 10 out of 25 math assignments. Consequently, David received a 'D' for math on his report card. Can you write a goal for David to work towards? Juanita is a very small seventh grade girl. Every night she goes home with all of her books. She walks out of the door looking as if she'll fall over under all of the weight. However, inevitably Juanita receives low grades on her homework assignments. This happened just today with her math homework. Last night she did all of her work. However, as she tried to do the problems she realized that she didn't remember all of the steps to follow. When the teacher was explaining this in class, Juanita was reading a note from a friend. She had never seen the problem explained. Can you write a goal for Juanita to work towards? Samantha is a very popular girl in the seventh grade. Each night at least four of her friends call her and they talk on the phone for half an hour each. Sometimes as many as six people call her! On those evenings her mother tends to get mad after Samantha's been on the phone for two hours. Samantha takes home all of her work each night. She knows how to do the work, but never seems to get around to it. Her grades on tests are good, but she doesn't get very good grades because she has so much incomplete work. Can you write a goal for Samantha to work towards? Jake loves science and does very well in that class. When the teacher gives the class special experiments to try at home, Jake always tries them. He reads extra science books and studies hard for all of his science tests. He always finishes his science homework and is a ready participant in class discussions. However, by the time that Jake finishes doing all of this for science, he doesn't have time left for his other subjects. While he received an 'A' in science last quarter, his other grades were not so good. Jake's teachers in his other classes commented that while Jake seems to be capable of doing the work, he just doesn't. Can you write a goal for Jake to work towards? Susan loves to talk. She talks to her parents at home. She talks to her friends on the bus. She talks to everyone at school. She talks during class discussions. She talks in the halls and in the cafeteria and in the gym even when no one can hear her. Susan has many interesting and funny things to say. Most people like to listen to her--at least for a while. The problem is that Susan likes to talk so much that she tends to do it all through her classes. Just today when she tried to write her language paper she realized that she had no idea of what to do. When she asked the teacher, she was given a brief explanation, but then the class time was up and she had to leave. Can you write a goal for Susan to work towards? Jay really does try, but somehow he never manages to do things right. He always manages to write in pencil only to arrive in class and find that the teacher wanted the class to write in ink. Or he works on a map of North America only to find out that it was supposed to be a map of the world. The things that Jay does, he does well. For example, his map was very neatly done. It just wasn't the right thing and so he didn't earn many of the possible points. Part of Jay's problem is that he dives right into a paper, thinking that he knows how to do it. Later he finds that he forgot to do something. Can you write a goal for Jay to work towards? Jessie is so afraid that she will forget something that she carries everything around with her in a bookbag. At the beginning of the year, her bookbag was nice and neat. As the days went by, it became the collection place for everything she was given. By December, Jessie had in it every spelling test she had taken during the year, every handout given to her in science and social studies, as well as every math and language practice sheet returned to her. Her bookbag was overflowing to say the least. However, Jessie was so afraid that she might forget something that she took it home every night and when she finished her homework, she put it in the bookbag to take back to school. The big problem came about when the teacher asked her to take out her homework the next day. She could never find it. Can you write a goal for Jessie to work towards?

Assessment: Student analysis of the case files and the goals written to solve the problem are used as a measure of mastery.