Running head: CASE STUDY 1

Effects on Teaching and Learning Case Study

Alexa Carvelli, Briana Gallagher, and Ryan Straub

Molloy College
CASE STUDY 2

Abstract

Attention- deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a brain disorder marked by an ongoing

pattern of inattention and/ or hyperactivity- impulsivity that interferes with functioning or

development. Those diagnosed with ADHD can develop symptoms as early as 3 and 6 and can

continue through adolescence and adulthood. Some symptoms may include aggression,

fidgeting, hyperactivity, absent- mindedness, difficulty focusing, anger, anxiety, boredom, or

mood swings. Student A is a 7 year old boy in second grade who has ADHD, he struggles with

maintaining focused and on task. Throughout this semester, our group generated many different

engaging lessons for Student A. Within this case study, we will discuss Student As background,

learning needs/ goals, intervention techniques, strengths/ weaknesses, and assessments. After

reviewing our outcomes we are able to indicate the future recommendations for Student A both

in and out of the classroom.

Keywords: attention- deficit/ hyperactivity disorder, impulsivity, focused

CASE STUDY 3

I. Background

Antonio is an eight-year old male with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),

predominantly the inattentive type. Antonio attends a private Catholic elementary school in a

second grade class, where he receives educational services for Reading and Mathematics, under

Section 504- Rehabilitation Act. Within his 504, there are recommended accommodations in

order for Antonio to achieve the most success in his academic career. Those accommodations

include preferential seating, extended time for all test taking, test taking in a distractive free

environment, refocusing while doing classwork to ensure he stays on task, individualized

behavioral modification/intervention, established nonverbal cue between the teacher and student

for behavioral monitoring, directions repeated/explained, frequent parent communication, extra

set of text to be kept at home, organizational skills, and periodic breaks when necessary. Overall,

Antonios challenges lay mainly in Reading and Mathematics, where he predominately performs

at an approaching grade level standard.

Due to Antonios challenges, a reading and mathematic support service is necessary

where his areas of needs are solely being met within small group instruction. In reading, his areas

of focus include phonological awareness, word study, fluency, comprehension, and writing.

Antonio is encouraged to practice these skills using a number of web-based programs at home, in

order to further support his needs. In mathematics, his areas of focus are in foundational skills

such as the recalling of math facts, completing problems with few or no errors, recalling and

applying steps in algorithm, applying knowledge to solve and evaluate problems, and using math

terminology effectively. Antonio is encouraged to practice his math facts at home for a few

minutes every day, in order to strengthen his mathematical foundational skills.

CASE STUDY 4

Antonio is a very friendly and sociable second grader. He enjoys being active and

participating in activities such as being outside, spending time with his friends and playing

paintball and video games. Antonio expressed more interest in learning when he was actively

participating, which aligns directly with Charles Bonwells educational theory of active learning.

Due to his ADHD, Antonio is not a student who can learn solely from passively listening, he is

the type of learner who must be physically involved in his own learning process and must consist

of different levels of student involvement. With that being said, Antonio most enjoys Art and

Science because his creativity can be expressed through a variety of projects. In addition,

Antonio enjoys mathematics which is where he expressed his confidence in, despite his struggles

in this content area. Overall, Antonio is a very outgoing and creative young boy, who enjoys

expressing himself and his interests to others.

II. Learning Needs and Goals

Most of Antonios learning needs stem from his lack of reading skills. For example, Antonio

struggles with reading the ELA questions, his main difficulty is with decoding and fluency. He

attempts to sound out letters and words but often gets stuck and seeks for assistance. This

interferes with his fluency and being able to read sentences correctly and quickly. We realized it

also interferes with his reading in math, especially the word problems. For example, Antonio will

struggle to read the word problem and once he finishes he will forget what the question was

asking. Throughout the tutoring sessions, we needed to scaffold for him to help guide him

through some lessons, especially with the reading aspect. One of Antonios goals is to be able to

sound out his words and read the sentences fluently.

Antonio also struggles to remain focused and on task throughout a lesson. Antonio puts a

great effort in trying to remain focused and on task throughout a lesson but at times he struggles.
CASE STUDY 5

For example, at times when a topic would arise Antonio would deflect it to something in his life

or he would attempt to share a story. According to Banduras theory of the 4 principles of social

learning, attention is a major factor when tutoring Antonio. Bandura says attention is a necessary

condition for effective modeling. Antonio becomes distracted often and struggles with

maintaining focused and on task throughout the entire lesson. Sometimes he needs the directions

repeated or explained. Therefore, one of Antonio goals is to remain focused and on task

throughout the entire lesson.

Another learning need of Antonio involves improving his ability to read an analog clock.

Being able to tell time is important and essential for the future. Antonios goal is to be able to

recognize what time it is when given any analog clock. Another additional goal for Antonio

would be to read the clock like: a quarter past three, or half past seven. According to Benjamin

Bloom, the educational theorist who believed that there are six different ways to categorize

cognitive process. The cognitive domain involves knowledge and the development of intellectual

skills. This includes the recall or recognition of specific facts, procedural patterns, and concepts

that serve in the development of intellectual abilities and skills (Bloom, 1956). Once Antonio has

the foundation of reading a clock, he can apply the correct language with reading a clock and

telling time to the minute.

Although Antonio is stronger in math than reading, he has a few topics to practice on. One

being skip counting by 3s, 4s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s. He relies on his fingers to skip count and needs more

practice. Another topic Antonio seems to struggle with is finding unknown numbers in addition

and subtraction problems. He knows the basics of adding and subtracting but he seems to

struggle with finding the unknown numbers and finding the solution in a word problem.

When generating an intervention program for Antonio, we tied in many different activities to
CASE STUDY 6

meet his learning needs. Our main focus was to make as many hands- on activities as possible.

We realized that Antonio worked a lot better when he was doing the hands-on activity and when

we made the activity a game between the teachers and Antonio.

III. Intervention

During our time with Antonio, we decided to target his academic learning needs in the

content areas of mathematics and reading, in an effort to prepare him for his upcoming year in

third grade and further review second grade concepts.

Our first tutoring session with Antonio was solely for the purpose of getting to know him

as a second grade learner. In order to gather as much information about him as possible, we

created a Word Cloud as a group, as well as completed questionnaires. The Getting to Know

You questionnaire allowed for us to get to know Antonio as a person, in addition to giving him

the opportunity to open up to us more. We asked Antonio a series of questions on the Multiple

Intelligences Inventory which resulted in identifying that he is more of a linguistic, logical-

mathematical, visual-spatial, naturalistic and interpersonal learner. In addition, we asked Antonio

a series of questions based on the Learning Style Inventory

which allowed us to conclude that he is predominantly an

auditory-visual learner. Lastly, we asked Antonio to come up

with a variety of words that describe him best before creating

a Word Cloud as a group. He chose the words Panthers,

Jets, Dogs, Lobster, Red, Beach, Molding, Talkative,

Paintball, Art and Science. Then, we used the website ABCya.com to create a word cloud

consisting of those specific words.

CASE STUDY 7

During our first academic session, we focused on story elements for our ELA activity and

addition and subtraction for our mathematical activity. The ELA activity started with a matching

warm-up game, followed by a pretest on Kahoot which was used to measure the students prior

knowledge of the story elements. In the activity itself, the teachers provided the student with a

task card. The student read the task card aloud and was asked to velcro it into the correct story

element column on the board. The columns on the board included character, setting, key events,

problem, and solution. The students understanding of story elements was clear, however the

student struggled with reading the task cards aloud and following the multi-step directions that

this activity entailed. The math activity began with a card game called Addition War and a

quiz on Kahoot which served as a measurement of the students prior knowledge of addition and

subtraction facts. During the activity, the teachers provided the student with a fidget spinner to

use as a manipulative time for this mathematical skill activity. The student was asked to spin the

fidget spinner, then run around to the different index cards, which contained a series of addition

and subtraction problems to solve. After the fidget spinner stopped, the student was asked to

count up the amount of index cards he answered correctly. This activity was repeated three

times, in an effort to increase the number of correctly solved problems. The students

understanding of one-digit by one-digit and one-digit by two-digit addition and subtraction was

evident, however the student struggled with nines and doubles facts. The students technique to

solving these problems was to count on his fingers.

During the second session, we focused on weather and climate for the ELA activity, and

rectangular arrays for the math activity. The ELA activity began with a short YouTube clip on

how clouds were formed and a quiz on Kahoot, which provided us with the students prior

understanding of clouds and weather. The activity was the creation of clouds, using a jar of
CASE STUDY 8

water, shaving cream, and food coloring. While the student was creating clouds and rain

using the specified materials, a discussion of what was occurring scientifically took place.

Overall, the student understood the science aspect of this lesson, however he was more interested

in making the clouds than the discussion of what it all represented. The student completed the

pre and post-tests correctly, however his main struggle was reading the questions and options in

each quiz. The math activity started with a multiplication array matching game and a flashcards

activity on Quizlet, which was used to assess the

students prior knowledge of rectangular arrays and the

foundations of multiplication. The activity was to create

arrays using the game of Connect Four and

representing the arrays as a multiplication and repeated

addition equation. Overall, the student demonstrated a

basic understanding of rectangular arrays. In the beginning of the activity, the student needed to

be scaffolded on how to create rectangular arrays, but was later independently creating them.

During the third session, we focused on sight words for the ELA activity and a reteach of

arrays for the math activity. The ELA portion of the session began with a game on a sight word

application, in addition to a quiz on Kahoot which was used to measure the students prior

understanding on sight words. The activity consisted of the student reading sight words and

sentences on task cards, while being scaffolded by the teachers. The goal of this activity was to

allow for the teachers to gradually reduce scaffolding, and have the student read aloud both the

sight words and sentences independently. Overall, the student read a majority of the sight words

easily, however struggled with reading the sentences fluently. The math activity began with a

short clip and quiz on BrainPOP Jr., which reviewed arrays and the connection to repeated
CASE STUDY 9

addition and multiplication. The quiz was used to measure any growth in understanding from the

previous array lesson. The array reteach activity that Antonio

participated in consisted of him rolling 2 large die, which displayed

two numbers from 1-6. He was then asked to represent those 2

numbers as an array, as well as in a repeated addition and

multiplication equation, on a mini whiteboard. Overall, the student

seemed to improve on his understanding of arrays after this reteach

lesson. He used techniques such as skip counting, counting on his

fingers and related multiplication equations to solve certain equations.

In the fourth tutoring session, we focused on nouns and adjectives in ELA and telling

time in math. The nouns and adjectives activity began with a review of the definitions of both

terms, in addition to a quiz on Kahoot, which allowed us to

measure the students prior knowledge. In the ELA activity,

Antonio had to read aloud a number of words, and sort them

accordingly based on if they were an adjective or a noun. Overall,

the students understanding of adjectives and nouns was evident,

however the student continued to struggle with reading the words

aloud and sounding out. The telling time activity began with a

short clip and quiz on BrainPOP Jr., which measured the students

ability to tell time to the minute on an analog clock. In the math

activity, Antonio played Telling Time BINGO, which consisted

of 8 displayed analog clocks on each playing card. The purpose of

CASE STUDY 10

this activity was for the student to read each clock, and mark each square as a time was called

out. However, in order for the student to actively participate in the game, the teachers had to

support the student in deciphering what the clock read and together they wrote the time under the

clock. Overall, the student had a difficult time reading the analog clocks without the support of

the teachers.

In the fifth tutoring session, we focused on a solid, liquid, and gas with making slime activity for

ELA and comparing two three-digit numbers for the math activity. The ELA activity began with

a review discussion and short YouTube clip on solids, liquids, and gases, in addition to a quiz on

Kahoot which measured both his prior knowledge. Then, the student was

asked to create slime, following a series of directions and written recipe.

Overall, the student had a very basic prior knowledge of solids, liquids,

and gases. When reading the step by step instructions to make slime, the

student had difficulty reading the recipe because of the abbreviations and

fractions used. For the math activity of comparing two three-digit

numbers, the student warmed up by watching a short review clip on

BrainPOP Jr. and completed a quiz on Kahoot. The quiz measured the students understanding of

comparing numbers, as well as the meaning of place value when

comparing three-digit numbers. In the math activity, Antonio was

asked to roll one large dice three times, in order to create a three-digit

number, and then record that number under the My Number column

of the chart paper. The teachers also rolled the dice three times to

create an additional three-digit number, which Antonio had to record

under the Partners Number column of the chart paper. The student
CASE STUDY 11

was then asked to compare the two three-digit numbers using the >, <, or = inequality symbols.

Overall, the students understanding of comparing numbers was very much evident when it came

to verbally realizing between which number was greater. The difficulty that the student had was

in reading the numbers without using place value and with deciphering between the > and <

symbols.

In the sixth and final tutoring session, we focused on a fact and opinion activity for ELA

and a multiplication game for math. Like all sessions, the ELA activity began with a quiz on

Kahoot which measured the students understanding of fact and

opinion. In the fact and opinion activity, the student was

presented with cards that each displayed a statement, in order for

the student to read aloud and determine whether the statement

was a fact or an opinion. The student was then asked to place that

card on either the fact side of the hallway or the opinion side of

the hallway. Overall, the students comprehension of fact and opinion was very much evident.

The only aspect of the activity that the student struggled with was reading aloud some of the

cards, which needed prompting by the teachers. In the final math activity, the student warmed up

with a BrainPOP Jr. clip on multiplication and repeated addition/skip counting, in addition to a

quiz on Kahoot which measured the students understanding of these skills. Antonio and a fellow

student participated in Multiplication Twister, which

assessed their prior knowledge of multiplication facts. In order

for the students to place their body part on the specified color,

the students were asked to correctly answer a multiplication

equation, which was displayed on a flashcard on the Twister

CASE STUDY 12

mat. Overall, the student had a very basic understanding of multiplication and in order to answer

each equation, he used the strategy of skip counting on his fingers to find the products.

IV. Strengths and Weaknesses

Antonio has various strengths that we used to create several fun and engaging activities for him.

Antonio is an auditory visual learner who can quickly process new information when given the

appropriate tools. He thrives with expressing his thoughts and opinions verbally, listening to and

applying new understandings by talking them out, using his hands to create models that represent

his learning, and making unique distinctions relating to nature and the world around him.

Antonio has a naturalistic intelligence and is very aware of his surroundings. He is intrigued by

nature and enjoys learning opportunities dealing with natural events, like weather and the

environment. Antonio does extremely well in science using his high level of interest in nature.

Antonios interpersonal learning style helps him effectively communicate and interact in

different learning environments. He loves talking with other students and adults, and enjoys

opportunities to use his social skills as part of the learning process. Antonio is a good listener

when he does not understand something. He creatively uses language to express himself, which

assists with his ability to persevere in the problem solving process. Antonio does not give up or

get discouraged when faced with a challenge. His

interpersonal and linguistic learning styles help his

teachers see what he finds difficult and develop

activities that set him up for success.

Although our multiple intelligences survey did not

show this, Antonio learns best when he is able to move

CASE STUDY 13

around and be physically involved in the lesson. Antonio is very active and has a lot of energy.

He understands new material and remembers information when he is using his tactile senses.

Antonio enjoys creating things with his hands and is truly a bodily kinesthetic learner. We

incorporated several activities that enabled Antonio to use this learning style. For example, we

made a rain cloud with Antonio in tutoring session #2, which also highlighted Antonios

naturalistic intelligence. We provided Antonio with a list of directions to read one at a time and

complete a task. He started with a jar of water and took shaving cream to cover the top of the jar.

He was quickly able to identify what the shaving cream represents with his love of nature and the

environment. Next, Antonio took the food coloring and squeezed it onto the shaving cream to

visualize the rain-like effect in the water. Throughout our discussion in this activity, we quickly

realized that Antonio is an expert with the characteristics and formation of clouds. We adjusted

the lesson and challenged him to recall some different types of cloud formations and the

similarities and differences among them. Antonio strengthened his reading skills through

analyzing different instructions and then physically making the instructions come to life in an

activity that interests him.

In tutoring session #5, we made slime with Antonio. Antonio read the step-by-step instructions in

order to make the slime. Our initial plan was to follow the instructions together and create the

slime. However, Antonio was able to follow the instructions and make the slime on his own.

Antonio read fluently and comprehended all the information. This is due to the fact that slime is

probably the thing that most intrigues him in the world. He has mentioned slime in every tutoring

session, and he loved that it was physically involved in the learning process. Our tutoring

sessions have been successful because we have motivated Antonio and sparked his curiosity.

When Antonio is engaged and motivated he has endless potential.

CASE STUDY 14

The main challenges Antonio faces are with reading fluently, sounding out difficult words,

learning and retaining some sight words, writing, and decoding text. He struggles with reading

with accuracy and using context to self-correct. He also struggles with determining cause and

effect, drawing conclusions based on the text, and identifying setting, plot, main characters, and

key events in a story. This affects his ability to identify problems and solutions, and character

traits and feelings. Antonio does not produce clear, coherent writing to demonstrate knowledge

of grammar, usage, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. We noticed that he often confuses

b and d when writing. We have found that Antonio needs constant support while reading to

help him sound out words. It often prevents him from locating the main idea and key details in

the text. His reading difficulties create challenges for him in math, especially with word

problems. Antonios procedural skills are approaching grade level standards, however, when too

many words are involved he struggles with understanding what the question is asking for.

Antonio faces challenges with recalling basic math facts, completing problems with minimal

errors, applying foundational skills to solve problems, and correctly using math terminology.

Antonio is easily distracted, which affects his ability to retain new information in both ELA and

math. He is a very social boy, but often focuses on things that are unrelated to his education.

Through our intervention activities, we have found what works best for Antonio. We have used

his strengths to overcome and improve upon the difficulties he faces.

V. Assessment of Progress

We have highlighted three of our most effective assessments below:

Kahoot Comparing Three-Digit Numbers

June 19th 2017
Pretest: 9/10 (90%)
Posttest: 10/10 (100%)
CASE STUDY 15

We made this Kahoot with 10 multiple-choice questions that dealt with comparing three-digit

numbers. There were two different question styles used for this Kahoot. One style assessed

Antonios ability to choose the correct sign between two numbers (example: 786 ___ 799). He

had to choose from the equal sign, greater than sign, and

less than sign. Antonio had 30 seconds to complete each

of these questions. The other question style is shown to

the left.

Antonio was given 45 seconds for each of these

questions. The Kahoot quiz was taken on the iPad for the

pretest and posttest. We used the same quiz to determine Antonios amount of growth from our

interventions. For the pretest, Antonio answered 9 out of 10 questions correctly. However, we

gave him some support with understanding the ones, tenths, and hundredths places. For the

posttest, Antonio answered a perfect 10 out of 10 questions correctly. This was exciting for

Antonio because we did not provide him with any support, and he got more Kahoot points by

answering the questions faster than he did in the pretest. Antonio has loved each of our Kahoot

quizzes, and been motivated to beat his score from one quiz to the next.
CASE STUDY 16

Quizlet Multiplication Arrays

June 7th 2017
Pretest: 8/10 (80%)
Posttest: 10/10 (100%)

This Quizlet contained 10 flashcards dealing with multiplication

equations and corresponding images of rectangular arrays. The

quiz allowed Antonio to work at his own pace because it was not

timed. This was the first time we worked on multiplication with

him and a great opportunity to assess his prior knowledge. On the

pretest he did pretty well by answering 8 out of 10 questions

correctly, however, he did receive a good amount of assistance on these flashcards. He was able

to create the multiplication equation from the array, but he struggled with finding the product at

first. He also struggled with realizing that 4 x 3 will result in the same product as 3 x 4. We

emphasized the importance of the commutative property in our activity. Through our activity of

having Antonio physically create arrays and write equations using Connect 4 chips, Antonio

started to develop fluency with finding products using repeated addition and skip counting. This

enabled him to score another perfect 10 out of 10 on the posttest. We did the pretest and posttest

on the iPad. We also had Antonio complete the quiz using the matching feature of Quizlet.

Antonio was fully on-task and engaged for this part of the lesson. He matched the 10 flashcards

in 48 seconds on his first attempt. Antonio was very motivated to beat his score on the next

attempt, and he did with a time of 37 seconds. If we were to do this lesson again, we would have

Antonio use the matching feature of Quizlet for the pretest as well.
CASE STUDY 17

Kahoot Solids, Liquids, Gases

June 19th, 2017
Pretest: 8/10 (80%)
Posttest: 9/10 (90%)

We used the same Kahoot quiz for the pretest and posttest in this lesson. Antonio completed it on

the iPad. He struggled with about half of the problems due to the fact that they were pretty

wordy. We guided and supported him with sounding out the words without losing the context of

the problem. Antonio was given 60 seconds for each of the problems. On the pretest, Antonio

answered 8 out of 10 of the questions correctly. However, he would have scored less without our

assistance. On the posttest, Antonio showed great improvement with reading and understanding

the words in the problem. He answered 9 out of 10 questions correctly with minimal support

from the tutors. This was yet another example of our intervention strategies helping Antonio

improve in areas like reading fluency and comprehension. The physical process of making the

slime helped him understand the different characteristics of liquids, solids, and gases. We

recorded Antonios assessment data from each tutoring session, math and ELA, in the graph

below:

It was definitely encouraging to see

that Antonios score improved on

every posttest. We created activities

and interventions that utilized

Antonios tactile senses. From our

data, we quickly realized it is essential

to engage and motivate Antonio.

Antonio wants to be physically involved in his learning process. Many of the strategies and
CASE STUDY 18

interventions we used were focused around highlighting

Antonios bodily-kinesthetic, naturalistic, and interpersonal

learning styles. Antonio really enjoyed the technology in all of

our lessons. His two favorite assessments were the matching

feature of Quizlet and the quizzes on Kahoot. These were a

great resource to assess Antonios prior knowledge, and

measure the level of growth from our hands-on learning

activities.

VI. Summary

Throughout the weeks of tutoring sessions, there were a variety of intervention strategies

used in order to academically meet the areas of needs of Antonio. We incorporated the use of

various techniques, materials, and manipulatives, which addressed the learning styles and

multiple intelligences of Antonio. Kinesthetic and tactile activities kept Antonio engaged and for

the most part focused on the task at hand. The involvement from each tutor, created a constant

support for Antonio, which was predominately needed for each session.

After creating, assessing and reflecting on every lesson plan for Antonio, we have

recommended a few things that we believe will help him in the future in order to be successful in

a learning atmosphere. One main suggestion is to include hands-on activities, especially

incorporating art or coloring. It was great to see Antonio so excited and engaged when we

incorporated anything hands-on or activities dealing with art. He was excited to learn and that

was our goal. Antonio is a very friendly and active boy so to involve him with as many active

lessons or hands- on activities was our main focus. Aside from being a hands- on learner,
CASE STUDY 19

Antonio is also a visual- auditory learner. Since he is a visual- auditory learner we recommend

using engaging videos and visuals to represent the ideas or concept that is being portrayed. With

support, Antonio works well after being refocused and guided back on task. These supports and

recommendations will help Antonio stay on the right path to success in and out of the classroom.
CASE STUDY 20

References

ABCya! | Educational Computer Games and Apps for Kids. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.abcya.com/

Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New York: General Learning Press.

Bloom, B.S. (Ed.). Engelhart, M.D., First, E.J., Hill, W.H., Krathwohl, D.R. (1956). Taxonomy

of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: The Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay Co

Inc.

BrainPOP Jr. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://jr.brainpop.com/

Learning Games | Make Learning Awesome! (n.d.).Retrieved from

https://kahoot.com

Quizlet. (n.d.).Retrieved from https://quizlet.com