Article - Tutoring project

Mini-Action Research Tutoring Project 1

RUNNING HEAD: Mini-Action Research Tutoring Project

Daniel Bell

Mini-Action Research Tutoring Project

6/24/08

EDCC 605: Educational Measurement and Evaluation

Dr. Eirini Gouleta


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Item Page

Tutoring Project Report 3

Logbook 10

Appendices 11

Session 1 12

Session 2 15

Session 3 20

Session 4 24

Session 5 30

Session 6 34

Research Summary 40

References 42


TUTORING PROJECT REPORT

Introduction of Student

The student I tutored for this project is a 17-year-old high school junior. He is

African-American from an upper-middle class SES. He attends the Chelsea School in

Silver Spring, MD, which is a Non-Public school for middle and high school students

with learning disabilities. Even though the majority of Chelsea’s students have language-

based learning disabilities such as dyslexia and dysgraphia, this student is officially

labeled ADHD. His reading comprehension and fluency are above grade level.

Physically, this student is very athletic; he plays sports at school. However, his

personal file indicates that there is possibility that he has “had contact” with the HIV

virus. He also occasionally takes extended periods of time off from school for “health”

related issues, some of which have been unclear. He was out of school for two weeks this

past semester for a collapsed lung. Even though none of these health issues are

detrimental to his cognitive standings, his time off of school does have a severe negative

effect on this student’s organization and sense of being overwhelmed.

Academically, when this student is on task, he is a very competent and involved

student. When he attends school consistently, he is able to keep his grades around an A

average. However, when he is out of school due to his health issues, he tends to become

overwhelmed with all of the work that he has missed and usually cannot organize himself

to get back on track, wherein his grades suffer.

Lastly, it is pretty clear that this student’s main deficiency is in the area of his

executive skills of organization and time management. He can usually handle these skills


effectively with guidance, but when left to fend for himself, he often quickly gets off

track.

Statement of Problem

This student’s most detrimental weaknesses to his academics are his executive

skills of organization, time management, and study skills. Even though he is very

intelligent and can be a good student overall, and has the capability of achieving straight-

A’s, he gets easily overwhelmed by his work load and does not possess the skills to

properly organize himself and get back on track. Also, being ADHD, the student

possesses major distractibility issues that are a detriment to his study habits and abilities

to do as well as he should be able to when taking tests and completing projects.

My hypothesis for our tutoring sessions is that the student will perform better than

he initially predicted he would on his final exams and with his final projects by creating

and establishing organizational, time management, and study skills routines.

Assessments

Session # Date Assessment Results
1 5/28/08 1. “Pre-Test” to discover 1. Struggles most with executive
true area of need (pg. skills of organization, time
14a). management, and study skills.
2. Informal oral assessment 2. Unconfident about approaching
to specify results of Pre- finals. Binder is a mess. Does not
Test. study efficiently.

2 6/2/08 1. Planbook Rubric 1. Student does not effectively
Assessment (pg. 19a). utilize planbook. Requires
2. Binder Rubric remediation.
Assessment (pg. 19a). 2. Binder is a disaster. Papers
everywhere; out of order.
Difficult to find anything


important.
3 6/3/08 1. Planbook Rubric 1. Planbook is being used more
Assessment (pg. 23a). effectively, but student is still
2. Binder Rubric inconsistent with it.
Assessment (pg. 23a). 2. Binder is in better shape, but not
3. Time Management quite there.
Project Planning 3. Student requires remediation with
Assessment (pg. 39b). breaking down steps of project.

4 6/6/08 1. Planbook Rubric 1. Planbook is coming along.
Assessment (pg. 29a). Student needs to have it checked
2. Binder Rubric over by teachers more
Assessment (pg. 29a). consistently.
3. Time Management 2. Binder is getting better. Much
Project Planning more organized.
Assessment (pg. 39b). 3. Student has fallen behind on
4. Time Management project. Requires more
Assessment (pg. 29b). organization.
4. Student is metacognitive about
time management skills, but
needs to make them routine.

5 6/10/08 1. Planbook Rubric 1. Student’s planbook scores have
Assessment (pg. 33a). risen substantially. He is much
2. Binder Rubric more on track.
Assessment (pg. 33a). 2. Binder scores have also risen.

6 6/11/08 1. Planbook Rubric 1. Planbook scores are almost
Assessment (pg. 39a). perfect. Routine seems to have
2. Binder Rubric taken effect.
Assessment (pg. 39a). 2. Binder dipped minimally, but the
3. Time Management routine also seems to have taken
Project Planning effect.
Assessment (pg. 39b). 3. Final step of project turned in
4. “Post-Test” to re-assess late. Requires more remediation
progress from “Pre- on project planning.
Test” (pg. 39c). 4. Post-Test shows progress from
Pre-Test. Student’s grades have
risen.

The assessment results are discussed in much more detail in the appendices, but I

will give a summary of the assessment data and conclusions.


First, in regards to the most consistent assessments that I conducted, the Planbook

and Binder Rubrics (attached to each session of the appendices below), the student’s

scores rose consistently, with few minor exceptions from session to session. It would

appear that the longer the student had to conduct himself via these rubrics, the more the

routine set in and the more his executive skills were strengthened.

Next, in terms of the Time Management Long-Term Project Planning Assessment

Chart (see pg. 39b) where the student had to delineate the steps of a long-term project and

note if they were turned in on time or not, this did not seem to work as well because the

student turned in the first two steps on time, but not the final two. The student admitted to

being overwhelmed with the amount of studying he had to do for his finals and thus fell

behind on this project. But I still believe that using a planning chart like this would be

beneficial to the student in the future, especially if he can make it routine.

In terms of the Time Management Assessment (see pg. 29b) and the following

informal oral assessment, the student seemed very open and reflective about his time

management strengths and weaknesses. Again, it can be concluded that he needs to

incorporate routines so that he may effectively utilize his academic and recreational time.

Finally, in regards to the “Pre-Test” and “Post Test,” (see pgs. 14a and 39c) the

student began our tutoring sessions unconfident and unorganized, but by the final

assessment, finals had ended, his grades had risen, and his confidence had risen. I can

conclude from these results that our sessions were a success for the most part.

Description of Work with the Student


The bulk of our tutoring sessions consisted of in-depth, reflective discussions

broken down by the area of executive skills that we were focusing on in a particular

session. I tried to incorporate assessment with instruction as much as possible and much

of the time I had to re-focus our discussions based on the results of the rubric assessment

at the beginning of a session. For instance, after our first session, I had originally planned

on spending much more time discussing the topic of study skills, but after the

assessments of the second session, I immediately realized that teaching the student proper

study skills would not be very beneficial if the student could not find the papers that he

needed to study in the mess of his binder and backpack. Due to this, I redirected and

restructured the remaining sessions to focus more on organizational techniques, so that

when we got to study skills, the student would be properly prepared to use his study time

effectively. This is discussed much more in-depth in the appendices below.

Results

By the end of our sessions, I can summarize our results as successful and helpful

for both the student and for myself. The student began our sessions under-prepared for

the multitude of finals that he had approaching and even though he was very capable of

doing well in a perfect world, he was lacking certain important skills to perform well

academically. But we worked on his weaknesses and played to his strengths of self-

reflection and metacognitive skills and we were able to implement some routines that

strengthened his executive skills.

This student and this project helped me learn that even the brightest and most

capable students can have certain deficiencies that are unfortunately very detrimental to


their success, but that this can be overcome if the student’s strengths are nurtured in the

right way. I also learned, though, that this takes consistent assessment and adjustment of

teaching techniques to individualize the student’s success.

Recommendations

First of all, I recommend that this student’s teachers should unify on creating and

consistently implementing organizational rubrics and time management charts to keep the

student consistently on track and constantly aware of his progress or lack thereof. It is

apparent that, left to his own devices, this student tends to fall apart, organizationally

speaking, but if he is supported with a series of routines, he will eventually adopt them

for himself and become independent in terms of these routines that strengthen his

executive skills.

I recommend the same for parents and guardians of this student. It is going to take

support and consistency from all facets of this student’s life so that he may stay on track

because if he gets this support strongly at school, but then returns home to no structure,

his skills will be weakened and the process will have to be initiated from the beginning

each time he returns to school. For instance, parents must check his planbook and binder

nightly and communicate to teachers if the student seems to be having trouble. And vice

versa.

Reflection/Self-Evaluation

First of all, as noted above, this was an extremely helpful and useful project for

me as an educator. I have had this student for a while now and, up until this point, have


been baffled at the disconnect between the student’s obvious intelligence and his poor

academic performance. Now I feel very confident that I will be able to help this student

in more ways that one during his senior year next year and hopefully prepare him for his

future.

I feel that the strongest part of our sessions was the consistency of our rubric

assessments and how that helped me structure our executive skills discussions. The

rubrics gave us specific areas to focus on in-depth and helped make our discussions

concrete for the student because we could relate each rubric item specifically to his day-

to-day life.

As for what I would do differently, I would have constructed more physical work

for the student to do to make the content of our sessions even more concrete. I found this

very difficult to do because I have never individually tutored a high school student before

and being that our sessions focused on strengthening executive skills, something that can

takes months to years to accomplish, I had a difficult time creating actual work for the

student. I realize that if I had found a student who was struggling in a specific content

area like English or science, it would have been easier to pull content from a curriculum

rather than from abstract ideas. I feel that I made this project harder on myself than I

could have; yet I am glad I did what I did because I learned a lot from the process.

Finally, had I more available time, I most certainly would have conducted shorter

sessions over a longer period of time because I found 2-hour sessions very difficult to

plan for.


LOGBOOK

Session # Date Length Session Content
1 5/28/08 1 hr. • Pre-tested student
• Discovered that he was struggling most with study
skills and organization, especially with finals
approaching
• Informally (via oral questions) assessed student’s
current study habits, study area, organizational habits,
etc.

2 6/2/08 1 hr. • Created rubrics (with student) to assess progress of
personal planbook and binder organization.
• Used planbook/binder rubrics for initial assessments.
• Assisted student with organization of binder.
• Discussed how to properly organize a planbook.

3 6/3/08 1 hr. • Created Time Management Chart for a final project
for student’s Music Class
• Assessed planbook/binder progress
• Discussed organizational techniques and strategies

4 6/6/08 2 hrs. • Assessed planbook/binder progress
• Assessed time management skills
• Continued tracking progress of Music Class project on
Time Management Chart
• Discussed time management skills and strategies

• Initiated discussion on study skills techniques and
strategies.

• Finished tracking progress of Music Class project on
Time Management Chart
• Concluded discussion on study skills techniques and
strategies
• Conducted Post-Assessment


APPENDICES

The following appendices are divided into each tutoring session. Each appendix

section will contain the plans for that session, observations, reflections, assessment data,

samples of the student’s work, assessment hard copies, and references to research. Any

reference to any material outside of the appendices will be noted with a page number

provided.


SESSION 1

Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 Length: 1 hour

Plans

OBJECTIVES:

• By the end of this session, I will be able to understand exactly in what area(s) my
tutoring subject is struggling in the most via written and oral assessments.

• The student will be able to understand and articulate his area(s) of struggle by
writing them down and discussing them with me.

• The student and I will be able to initiate a discussion on how to proceed for our
further sessions so that the student can better prepare for his finals.

PLANS: I will first discuss with the student why we are having these sessions. I will

explain that, since he is a student of mine and I know that he tends to falter when finals

are approaching, his area of struggle needs to be addressed and dealt with accordingly.

Next, I will administer the “Pre-Test” (see pg. 14a). Once the student has

completed this, I will look over the test and we will discuss his results and decide

together the best direction to proceed.

Observations

The student seemed well aware of the fact that he is normally a good student, but

tends to have major difficulties when finals arise. However, the student appeared just as

baffled as I was about why this might be.


Upon completion of the pre-test and during the ensuing discussion of the results,

the student was very open and honest about his organizational struggles and appeared

very willing and hopeful about understanding how to fix them.

Reflections

I’ve worked in a metacognitive sense with this student before and was not

surprised that he appeared genuinely interested in bettering himself as a student.

However, I was surprised at his willingness to spend extra time out of school to do so

with me, which gives me high hopes for the progress of the remainder of our sessions.

In terms of assessments, I honestly was not quite sure exactly how to approach the

assessment of his struggles, so I felt that conducting a short-answer, reflective test that

covered several areas that the student might be struggling in would be best.

This test got us on a good start, but it was our ensuing discussion that truly got to

the heart of the matter. First of all, I wasn’t surprised that he underestimated himself and

his current standings in his classes (see pg. 14a), but I was surprised by how much time

he noted that he spent studying during the week in contrast to how he felt about his

progress in his classes. This is what truly made me realize that he has every capability of

doing well in his classes academically – it is his study and organizational habits that are

holding him back.

Lastly, the student seemed to understand fairly quickly that the reason his grades

were slipping despite being a strong, intelligent student, was due to his inconsistent and

underdeveloped study skills.


Assessment Data

* See pg. 14a for actual test.

FORMAL DATA: The student professed to currently having a B average in his classes

while predicting to have a B average after his finals, which was consistent. However, the

student professed only doing 20 to 30 minutes of homework a night, while studying for 2

hours. This was not consistent with his lower than expected grades. The student also

professed to have a study area at home and to have an organized binder for his classes.

Lastly, the student noted that he felt the class he was struggling in the most was his

English 11 class.

INFORMAL DATA: Some of the above discrepancies where made clearer upon

informally assessing the student via an oral discussion. The student clarified that even

though he has a study area in his room separate from family distractions, he has a

television and a computer connected to the internet in his study area, which causes

unneeded distractions. Also, I learned that the student’s binder is not at all as organized

as he would have liked me to originally believe, and that he does not actually study for

more than an hour a night; his “2-hour” answer was a summation of his study time for the

week, including weekends.

Resource References

Baldwin, J. & Hervey, S. E. (n.d.). Tutoring ld students. Retrieved June 5, 2008 from

http://www.lynchburg.edu/x2418.xml

Popham, W. J. (2008). Classroom assessment: What teachers need to know (pp. 113-

120). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.


SESSION 2

Date: Monday, June 2, 2008 Length: 1 hour

Plans

OBJECTIVES:

• By the end of this session, the student and I will be able to create rubrics for
planbook and binder organization that can be utilized independently even after

our sessions conclude.

• The student will be able to effectively organize his binder with a clear set of
guidelines to structure his organization skills.

• The student will be able to effective set up a planbook that is utilized for both
current work and long-term projects.

PLANS: First, I will discuss with the student exactly where I plan on taking our sessions

from this point forward. Specially, I will tell him that we will focus our sessions on a

series of discussions regarding study skills, organization, and time management, while

formally and informally assessing his progress as he prepares for and ultimately takes his

final exams.

Next, the student and I will create planbook and binder organization rubrics

together with specific guidelines regarding the organization of each item that can be

assessed each time we meet (see pg. 19a).

Lastly, I will assist the student with both how to set up his planbook for short-

term and long-term assignments, and begin assisting him with the organization of his

binder with the goal of the student keeping both of these items organized.


Observations

The student was, again, very willing to accept my help with his organization and

was very open about letting me rifle though his materials. The student also came across

quite honest about his shortcomings when it came to our discussion of his strengths and

weaknesses and why he is having trouble with his organization and study skills.

Once the student seemed to realize that the creation of our organizational rubrics

was not an arbitrary matter, he really appeared to take ownership of the items and how

many points to assign to each item.

Reflections

Since the student noted on his “Pre-Test” that he likes to have someone organize

his binder for him, I immediately realized that one of the major reasons he has been

having so much trouble with this is that he uses other people’s assistance as a crutch and

never truly learned the skills for himself. That’s why, once we began gutting his binder

and putting it back together in an organized fashion, I made sure not to do it for him, but

just give him guidance while he organized it himself. And I saw, that with a little

guidance, he actually did have the organization skills hiding somewhere deep down in his

subconscious, he just cannot seem to access them when he gets overwhelmed. And I

could tell just from initially looking at his binder that he can get easily overwhelmed

from all of the papers that he receives in his classes day to day. This is why I thought that

not just providing him with rubrics, but actually personally involving him in the creation

of the rubrics would be much more beneficial to the student’s organizational


independence because he would then be able to remember himself, without guidance,

what the steps are to an organized planner and binder are.

This session went very well and I am very happy with the outcome. Now comes

the real test, though – will he be able to stay consistently organized each time I assess

him using the rubrics we created together?

Assessment Data

* Please see original rubrics for initial data, pg. 19a.


It is important to note that the point scale has not been adjusted on the above

charts to make the point scales uniform. Instead, each item is relative only to the same

item on the assessments of the following sessions. As this is the first session of our rubric

assessments, there is no other data yet to compare this to. The data will have more

relevance as I continue to assess the student at our following sessions.

What can be garnered from this initial assessment is that the student is far below

what he and I decided the maximum points should be for each item (see pg 19a). It is my

hope and goal that these numbers will incline as the student and I continue to meet.

Resource References



Hillman, E. H. (2007). Improving the organizational skills of students with learning and


attention problems. Retrieved June 5, 2008 from http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/

Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=7517&TEMPLATE=/CM/Content

Display.cfm

Parenthood.com. (2008). Organization skills for kids with learning disabilities. Retrieved

June 5, 2008 from http://www.parenthood.com/article-topics/article-

topics.php?Article_ID=9838


SESSION 3

Date: Tuesday, June 3, 2008 Length: 1 hour

Plans

OBJECTIVES:

• By the end of this session, the student and I will be able to create a Time
Management Chart for a long-term project for the student’s Music class.

• The student will be able to further assess his progress in terms of organization.
• The student will be able to show a deeper understanding of organizational skills
by showing progress with the organization of his binder and his planbook.

PLANS: First, the student and I will assess his organizational progress on his rubrics.

Then we will create a Time Management Chart for a long-term final project for his Music

class (see pg 39b). Lastly, the student and I will discuss organizational techniques

including color-coding, date order, and following a set routine.

Observations

During this session, the student was visibly impressed by his own progress

assessed by the rubrics from the last session. He was also very helpful in the creation of

the Time Management Chart for his Music class project, though I could tell he was

lacking some of the executive skills to do this by himself.

Reflections


I was glad to see that the student actually stayed somewhat more organized than

usual, though his scores are still well below the “possible points;” we still have a long

way to go.

Our discussion on organizational techniques seemed to make a lot of sense to the

student and he professed to actually having had half-heartedly tried some of the

techniques in the past, like color-coding, to no avail. I think one of his biggest

deficiencies is not the actual knowledge or awareness of these skills, but the follow-

though of them. I am hoping that the structure that I set in place for the student in terms

of these techniques will help his follow-through because it seems that when he learns a

new skill without a routine to accompany it, that skill gets lost.

Assessment Data



Even though many of the scores of these rubric items have risen from the last

session to this one, many have also stayed the same, which would appear to be an

improvement to the student’s earlier organizational progress. However, since this session

was the day after our last one, this may simply be due to the fact that the student has not

had the time to become unorganized since our last meeting. I think another session or two

will truly show if this rubric system is working for the student. For the time being, I will

continue with my current plan of action.

In terms of the Time Management Chart (see pg. 39b), since the first step was due

today, which was the same day we created the chart, it will also take another session or

two to see if this will truly work for the student.

Resource References







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SESSION 4

Date: Friday, June 6, 2008 Length: 2 hours

Plans

OBJECTIVES:

• By the end of this session, the student will be able to better understand how well
he handles his time management by completing a time management assessment.

• The student will be able to identify and implement several new time management
techniques via assessment and discussion.

PLANS: First I will assess the student’s organizational progress via our rubrics. Then we

will continue to track his progress on his long-term project chart.

Then I will administer the “Time Management Assessment” (pg. 29b), to get a

better idea of how this student manages his time, academically and recreationally.

Lastly, I will discuss time management techniques with the student including time

structured charts, predicting time, properly using planbooks and personal organizers, and

rewarding oneself for the successful and effective management of time.

Observations

During this session, the student was apparently a bit more agitated at the content

than before due to being faced with the truths of how to properly manage his time. He

seemed to understand where I was coming from during out assessments and discussions,

but seemed to want to hold on to the idea that if he didn’t pay close attention to how he

handled his time management, then he would never have to truly deal with it. But when


we got to how these techniques can actually help him, he seemed to come around and

realize that I had his best interests in mind, not simply that I was trying to give him more

work to.

Reflections

Now that our discussions are moving away from the more concrete realms of

physically organizing a binder and such into the more abstract areas of time management,

the student’s executive skills deficiencies have started showing more prominently. He

seemed to have a harder time grasping ideas like creating a chart that delineates the steps

and due dates of a project or allowing yourself more time in the evening for homework

than for recreational time. This is why I had to really break these ideas down for him and

relate them to his day-to-day life more than I had expected. The information certainly

seemed to make more of an impact by explaining that, for instance, meandering home

and playing video games for an unspecified amount of time and then attempting to do

homework before bed does not work nearly as well as having set times in the evening for

work and for play. And that’s what we did. We went over exactly what his nights and

weekends were like and we charted out exactly how he could utilize his time more

efficiently so that he may make ample progress on his academics while also allowing

sufficient time for recreation.

A written assessment (see pg. 29b) for his time management was very useful for

this session because it gave us something specific and concrete to refer back to,

especially when the student would orally contradict what he wrote on the assessment.

This was a great jumping off point.


Lastly, having a 2-hour instead of 1-hour session showed itself to be useful

especially because it gave me more time on the spot for assessment and discussion in the

same session while the information was still fresh to both the student and myself. I will

try this for our following sessions with the hopes that extended time will prove to be

equally useful.

Assessment Data



In terms of the planbook progress, with the exception of filling in his assignments,

the above graph shows that the student’s scores have dipped, no doubt due to the stresses

of his approaching finals. I can also attest to the fact that, being a teacher at Chelsea

School, teachers tend to slack off of checking planbooks around finals because there is

more studying happening and less day-to-day assignments. I conducted some remediation

with the student in this area and have decided to hold off until one more session to make

the decision of whether or not to change my hypothesis and course of action because I

cannot tell yet if this is a downhill pattern or a fluke.

The binder graph, however, shows more overall progress and it would seem that

his organizational routine is already setting in. For now, I will continue with my present

course of action in this area.

In terms of the Time Management Assessment (see pg. 29b), I found that the

student believes that he can study for longer than I had predicted and that he is distracted

by exactly what I had predicted. I was happy to see that the student seemed to have an

idea of rewarding himself for doing his work, however, he appears to give himself too


much reward for not enough work. From our subsequent informal oral assessment, I

garnered that the student indeed does not spend enough time working and spends much

more time watching television and going out with friends when he should be doing

homework. The hour he gave himself on the written assessment for homework was in

direct contrast with the “Pre-Test,” where he gave himself 20-30 minutes, which he came

clean about upon being confronted with this fact; he only does about 20-30 minutes of

homework a night and only a bit more over the weekend. It is to this end that I will

continue to work with him about setting up time management routines and will

incorporate time management skills into our upcoming sessions on study skills.

Lastly, in terms of the long-term project assessment (see pg. 39b), the student had

another step of his project due in between this session and the last one, and another step

due earlier today. Interestingly enough, he turned the step that was due on 6/4 on time,

but not the one today, though he has promised to have it in by the end of the day, so it

will not be a full day late.

Resource References






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SESSION 5

Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 Length: 2 hours

Plans

OBJECTIVES:

• By the end of this session, the student will be able to implement a structured
system of study skills techniques to help him through is finals and for his future

academics.

• The student will be able to orally reflect on his organizational progress.
PLANS: First, I will use our rubrics to assess his current planbook and binder

organizational progress. Then I will touch base with him on his progress in terms of his

long-term project and have him predict if it will be turned in on time.

The bulk of this session will be centered around study skills techniques and how

the student can implement them into his daily routine, especially now that he is taking

final exams at school.

Observations

Study skills seem to be the student’s strongest area in terms of the content that we

have been covering. However, he has been very honest that even though he is aware of

many of the techniques that we discussed, he does not stick to them like he knows he

should and that causes problems, especially when it comes to test taking. For instance,

upon broaching the subject, the student professed to being fully aware of the fact that

“cramming” the night before or the morning of a test is not the ideal way to go about


studying, but he does this anyway. Also, he said he was aware of what distracts him

(which was also noted on the Time Management Assessment, see pg. 29b), such as

television and interrupting family members, however he admitted to subjecting himself to

these distractions on a regular basis.

Reflections

This session went well, though I realized almost right away that I was a bit under

prepared for the amount of time that I had allotted for this session and that I had

underestimated my student’s study skills knowledge. However, as noted before, the

amount of time was also beneficial because I was able to re-assess the session and dig

deeper into our study skills discussion.

Even though the student seemed confident about being able to turn in his long-

term Music class project on time tomorrow, I can already predict that this may not be

case because he seemed pretty stressed out about his finals tomorrow, which are in his

most difficult classes, Science and English. And since he has promised me that he will

implement the study skills techniques that we discussed today, I have a feeling that he

will make this his priority and not his project. We will find out tomorrow.

Assessment Data



With the exception of having all classes signed by a teacher and dipping just a bit

in getting all work in on time, the student’s scores on his planbook rubric rose

substantially. As noted earlier, it is my belief that the low score for the signatures is due


to the fact that we are now in final exam week and many teachers have quite forgotten

about signing planbooks.

As for the binder, I am thoroughly impressed by the rise in scores, with the

exception of the loose papers, which I only scored him low on because his study papers

were not filed – but at least I could tell he had been studying since the papers were out!

Resource References



National Center for Learning Disabilities, Inc. (2008). Study skills. Retrieved June 5,

2008 from http://www.ncld.org/content/view/426/429/


SESSION 6

Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 Length: 2 hours

Plans

OBJECTIVES:

• The student will be able to conduct a “Post Assessment” and answer reflective
questions regarding our tutoring sessions.

• The student will be able to finalize his long-term project chart.
• The student and I will discuss a plan for implementing the content of our tutoring
sessions into his senior and final year at Chelsea School, beginning in the fall.

PLANS: First, I will conduct our final planbook and binder assessments and we will look

over all of the rubrics together and discuss the results.

Then we will finalize the student’s long-term project chart for his Music Class

and discuss the effect that this had on this project and if it will be useful or not for future

projects.

We will then finish our discussion on study skills techniques and how the student

can continue to utilize these techniques the following year.

Lastly, I will conduct a reflective “Post Assessment” (see pg. 39c) on the student,

from which we will initiate our final discussion of the usefulness and effectiveness of our

tutoring sessions.

Observations


As today was the last day of finals the student was visibly more relaxed, yet also

more fidgety and disconnected; obviously he had his mind more on the upcoming

summer than his organization and study skills. However, as we talked about his

upcoming senior year and the demands that will be placed on him academically in

college, he seemed to take our discussion more seriously.

Reflections

This session, being the final one, went better than expected, especially when we

talked about how the content of our tutoring sessions will be relevant to the student’s

future. The student was especially honest on his “Post-Test” (see pg. 39c) and during the

ensuing discussion.

I see now that, especially since I’ve had this student all year, that the content of

our sessions would have been incredibly useful earlier in the year because this student

noticeably struggled in terms of his executive skills all year, which was often detrimental

to his academic standings. It is unfortunate because he is a very bright and intelligent

student, but his organization and study skills would always get in his way. Going over

this information earlier in the year would also have made the learned techniques a much

more solid routine than trying to do so during the short duration of our tutoring sessions. I

am glad, though, that I am more aware of this because I will, from now on, make a more

concerted effort to integrate these techniques and routines into my day-to-day lessons.

Assessment Data



This being the final session, several assessments were conducted and some

ongoing ones were completed. First of all, in regards to the above graphs, the student’s

planbook scores were all either the same or above the previous assessments, and the

“Totals” graph conveys a fairly steady upward trend. I think it is safe to say that this


rubric system in particular was very useful for the student and should be implemented

and made routine next year.

As for the binder, with the exceptions of some papers not being filed in their

correct place (which I cannot fault the student too much for, this being the final day of

school), the scores were also above what they had been previously. And the binder

“Totals” graph also shows an upwards trend, though the scores were at their highest the

previous session. Again, I believe this is due to it being the last day of school and the

student not being as focused on the organization of his binder now that he won’t be using

it for the next two months. As with the planbook, I think the comparison of scores show

that the rubrics were effective and should be utilized for the student’s future.

Today was the day that the student’s long-term Music class project was due and

thus, we finalized our chart. It was a bit disappointing that he did not turn the final project

in on time, though, as with the last step of the project (and as predicted), he was able to

finish this step during the course of the day and hand it in after school. So even though

the student did not turn two of the four steps in on time for this assessment, he did

express to me that having this chart was helpful for him because of the way it specifically

delineated the steps of the project and how he could physically see when they each were

due, and if he was or was not on track to hand them in on time. He assured me that he

will utilize organizational charts like this next year and in the future, and I will be sure to

help him with this and make sure he sticks to them.

The last assessment that was conducted was the reflective “Post-Test” (see pg.

39c), which somewhat mirrored the “Pre-Test (see pg. 14a) but also gave the student a

chance to reflect on the usefulness of our sessions, the finals he just took, and how he


might use these techniques in the future. I also continued this assessment informally since

the student did not chose to write in much detail. He did express to me that the he found

our sessions helpful, that he did end up studying more efficiently, and he was able to stay

more consistently organized than he previously had been. I also checked on his final

grades for his classes after finals and most of his grades lined up the way he predicted

them to, with the exception of Music and TV class, which he received B’s in instead of

A’s.

Resource References






RESEARCH SUMMARY

I am tutoring a high school junior with a learning disability, namely ADHD. The

areas that this student is struggling in the most are his organizational and study skills.

Thus, I researched tutoring methods specific to LD students in the areas of organization,

time management, and study skills.

First of all, I found that tutoring LD students is not particularly distinct from

doing so with other students, other than that LD students generally have difficulty

listening, remaining organized, and often need extra time to work. The key here is to

focus on the learning process rather than the final product (Baldwin & Hervey, 2008).

In terms of organization, color-coding is a very strong technique. For example,

having folders or tabs in a binder a certain color for class and a different color for

homework, along with certain colors to denote the urgency of turning in assignments.

This technique must be reinforced by consistency and repetition (Hillman, 2007).

Following a daily routine and completing the most difficult parts of an assignment first

are also useful techniques to stay consistently organized (Parenthood.com, 2008).

As for time management, it is very advantageous to guide the students towards

independence by helping the student understand just how much time they will actually

need to complete a given assignment. “To do” lists, plan books, and personal organizers

help the student look a head and visually plan their time, and breaking down assignments

into smaller, more manageable parts is also helpful (Hillman, 2007).

Lastly, to help with study skills, one of the best techniques is to empower the

student to truly understand how they study the best. They must know what distracts them


and how long they can study at a time. Following a routine is essential to effective

studying along with the breaking up of large assignments into small parts (NCLD, 2008).


REFERENCES



Guare, R. & Dawson, P. (2004) Executive skills in children and teens: Parents, teachers

and clinicians can help. Retrieved June 5, 2008 from http://www.childresearch.

net/RESOURCE/NEWS/2004/200408.HTM




Display.cfm

Martin, C. (2006). Executive skills: How to improve your ability to focus. Retrieved June

5, 2008 from http://www.cio.com/article/26430/Executive_Skills_How_to_

Improve_Your_Ability_to_Focus_







Popham, W. J. (2008). Classroom assessment: What teachers need to know. Boston:

Pearson Education, Inc.

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