Adaptive I
Essay Preview: Adaptive I
Report this essay
Adaptive I Project
Contents:
Students Introduction
The student under review is Evan. He is in sixth grade and is an active student that is friendly, energetic, and easy to get along with. He is a very well behaved student that is quick to repair any wrong doing he has done. Evan is not on an Individual Education Plan (IEP) or is he a Title 1 student. As mentioned before, Evan does very well in his school subjects but gets easily frustrated with math. This is the subject area of improvement for this student.
Evan had gotten all As in math and show very high competence in the subject until third grade. In third grade Evan took the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) and scored below average in the area of math. After this test, but not as a result of, Evans grades in math progressively got worse. In forth grade Evans grades went from As to Cs by the end of the year. This was also the first year that Evans teacher made a comment on his report card regarding his performance in math. In fifth grade scored low on his recall of math concepts and applied concepts. His grades stayed at Bs and Cs but he failed to meet the Clarkston School District math requirements for fifth grade.
As observed this year, Evans performance has continued on its path of low to no improvement. This year fractions and decimals have been integrated into his schema and have furthered his confusion of math. As a result of the current confusion, I will try to improve his understanding of decimals and fractions as a pretest determines.
Student Relating to Ability
When asked if he had liked math before forth grade, Evan responded with a yes. He said that his teacher didnt like the fact that he wasnt listening and stopped giving him directions. When it came to math he didnt know what was going on. He said that the addition and subtraction was easy but the multiplication was difficult. He did not enjoy math any more because it had too much sitting work. At this point he asked, “Why cant math be more like science. We do a lot of experiments in science and I get to walk around.”
Students Parent Relating to Ability
Evans mother has been intensely involved in his education and says that the reason that he has had trouble in math is because many of his teachers have had problems with him listening to instruction. She agrees with this conclusion as she sees it as a problem at home when he is asked for the directions to the homework he brings home for help and his mother is unable to help him due to the lack of instructions that he either forgot or did not hear.
Evans mother is happy with his performance in other subjects of school. She says that she helps when ever she can. She recognizes that Evan is very active and wishes that he would constructively apply his energy towards his studies. The work that he brings home is always well commented and has been satisfactory.
Pre-assessment
Interpretation
October 18, 2004
Evans pretest consisted of multiplication, division, adding and subtracting fractions, and improper fractions. I chose to test him on multiplication because this is where he first began to have problems in fourth grade. As shown on problem one, Evan did not attempt it but did fine on double digit multiplication. The single digit and double digit division was also a problem for him as well but both were completed correctly. The multiplication is on his test because it is what is currently being done in his sixth grade classroom. He completed the common denominator easily but as seen had trouble with the different denominator. I instructed him to circle the problems that he had trouble with and this was one that he had circled. The subtraction was easily done as the common denominator addition. Changing the fraction to a decimal is the most current of the math work that is done in class. In class they have attempted common fractions so that was what was tested. He did not complete any of these correctly. When asked why he answered the way he did his explanation was, “To make it (the fraction) a decimal, take the top number and move the decimal over (to the right) one place.”
This made more sense as he changed the decimal to a fraction and each fraction is over 100. On the last of these he decided to reduce the fraction. Changing his whole number fractions to improper fractions was not hard as he did the first and second one with ease. The third was a new item that I had placed to see if he was able to apply his knowledge correctly. He placed a one in the front of a partially correct improper fraction because the numbers that are converted in class are all stated as: 1 3/2. So the one in front, according to what he knows and is familiar to him, is the only way to write an improper fraction.
On the pre-test Evan scored a 10 of 16. The