Blog Two

I am posting so late because of spring break and testing  I was not able to get enough information for my blog posts. After today I was able to collect enough about Robert in order to have him as the focus of my second blog. 

For my second blog I am going to focus on Robert a student that requires a little more attention in Ms.Garcias class.  
After speaking with Ms. Garcia about my interest to focus on Roberts behavior she told me that Roberts may have ADD. I say may have ADD because after various discussions with the family, guidance counserlor and principal Robert has taken tests for ADD/ADHD because of Ms.Garcias refferal. He is now in the process of waiting to find out the results from his evaluations. She began to tell me that she has a son with ADHD and sees a lot of the same struggles he was facing with Robert. He has been at this school since kindergarten and his previous teachers have warned her about his habits. The school has a very close community sort of culture so everyone seems to understand that this is the way Robert is. Ms. Garcia tells me after spending enough time with him this year she definitely believes he may have ADD. Since Ms. Garcia can relate to Roberts challenges she pays extra attention to her time with him. Ms. Garcia has developed many strategies to help maximize his learning. Besides establishing a good foundation with Roberts parents she has learned his interest. She knows what motivates Robert to learn and what discourages him from trying. He enjoys having roles in the community such as line leader or safety patrol so she uses these positions to motivate and reward his positive behavior. Robert is very sensitive and caring though so she makes sure to watch her tone and language towards him because he can easily take things to heart and it will ruin his whole day.Robert has more times to turn in homework and parent forms because he tends to be very forgetful. She even text Roberts mom the homework because she knows he tends to leave his agenda at aftercare. We also spoke about pairing Robert with a students that is stronger than him in certain subjects and Ms. Garcia is going to try it, she thought the idea would be good for both students. She says she will try to have him help a friend in his stronger subjects so he can feel a sense of confidence as well. The reason she never tried it before was because she worried a partner would distract him too much while he was working. But for my TAL 305 class I actually interviewed Robert about what it was like having me help him with Spanish (a subject he struggles with a lot) in his class versus him doing it alone. He said wanted to do the work more because he knew I was there to help him when he got stuck. Ms. Garcia never refers to her strategies as self determination strategies but I do think they qualify as such. Her intentions and methods with Robert seem to aim towards him becoming more self confident and to gain skills thinking metacognitively. Here is a video about teaching student with ADHD. 
https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-adhd-students