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Jessi Headrick

Dr. Dockers

Professional Semester

3 February 2018

Shadow Study

For my shadow study, I observed the behavior of an eleventh-grade male student at my

cooperating school. Throughout this paper, I will refer to the student as Michael, which is a

fictitious name created for the sake of confidentiality. Although I observed Michael for three

weeks prior to this study (in my cooperating teacher’s English III class), the study allowed me to

observe his behavior further in Biology I/Lab, Computer Applications I, Algebra I, and U.S.

History. I selected Michael for the study because I noticed he’s rarely on task in my cooperating

teacher’s classroom. Instead, he usually sleeps, talks to other students, or simply chooses not to

do his work. To address this misbehavior, my cooperating teacher usually starts by telling him to

get to work, either out loud in front of his classmates or quietly after tapping his desk. Most of

the time, that’s enough to get Michael working, but, after a few minutes, he usually resorts back

to sleeping, talking, etc. In such cases, my cooperating teacher either repeats her initial response

or asks to talk to Michael after class. During these conversations, my cooperating teacher

reminds Michael of the expectations in her classroom, and she encourages him to do better. For

example, if Michael sleeps in class, my cooperating teacher might say, “Michael, what’s going

on? You know you aren’t supposed to be sleeping in my class. The expectation is that you will

sit up straight and do your work. I know you can do better.” Despite my cooperating teacher’s

encouragement, Michael continues to misbehave in her class. I’ve often wondered what causes
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or affects his misbehavior, so I thought he would be an appropriate selection for the shadow

study.

Michael’s first class of the day was Biology I/Lab. As I walked down the hallway to the

classroom, I noticed Michael talking to another student outside the doorway. I went ahead and

entered the classroom and asked Michael’s teacher where to sit. The high school principal had

already talked to her about my shadow study, so she knew I was there to observe Michael. She

pointed to his assigned seat at the back of the room and asked me to take a seat next to it. I was

surprised by this seating arrangement because I had expected Michael’s assigned seat to be at the

front of the room, where his teacher could keep a close eye on him.

I was taking some notes about this seating arrangement when the bell rang for first hour

to begin. Although I had just seen Michael outside the doorway, he didn’t make it to class on

time. About thirty seconds after the bell rang, Michael appeared at the door as his teacher was

about to close it. I couldn’t hear their conversation from where I was sitting, but it was brief, and

the teacher let him in. Michael took his seat at the back of the room.

Class began with a “question of the day,” which the students were supposed to copy from

the projector and answer in their “interactive notebooks.” Michael never got his notebook out.

This activity only lasted a few minutes, and the rest of the class period was spent watching a film

about genetics. After Michael’s teacher started the film, turned off the lights, and turned on a

lamp, she noticed that Michael didn’t have the note-taking worksheet for the film. He had been

absent the day before, when the worksheet was first assigned, so she gave him a copy to start on.

Michael seemed intrigued by the film at first. He moved his desk to see past the

classmates in his row, and I also noticed him leaning forward. However, just a few minutes into

the film, Michael laid his head down on his desk. The teacher saw this and walked over. She
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tapped on his desk, he mumbled something, and she quietly told him to sit up. He sat up, but she

continued to stand beside his desk for about a minute. After she walked away, Michael slouched

back in his seat. I noticed him yawning, staring at his desk, and rubbing his eyes. For the next

twenty minutes or so, Michael didn’t lay his head back down, but he didn’t take notes either.

When Michael’s teacher walked by and saw that his notes were blank, she tapped his desk,

quietly said something to him, and walked away. Michael began looking at the worksheet, but he

still didn’t write anything down.

About ten minutes before class was over, Michael laid his head back down on his desk.

Again, the teacher came over and quietly said something to him, but, this time, he didn’t sit up.

She tapped his worksheet, and, again, he didn’t sit up. She stood beside his desk for a little while

before walking away.

About five minutes before class was over, Michael’s teacher stopped the film and turned

the lights back on. As she began asking the class some questions about the film, Michael

continued to lay with his head down. She walked over to his desk and tapped him on the

shoulder. She told him to sit up, he mumbled “no,” and she walked away. Michael laid with his

head down until the bell rang, and he was the last student to leave the classroom.

Michael’s second class of the day was Computer Applications I. When I got to the

classroom, he hadn’t made it in yet. Again, the teacher knew I was there to observe Michael, so

she asked me to take a seat at the back of the room, close to Michael’s assigned computer. This

time, not only was I surprised to find that Michael’s assigned seat was at the back of the room,

but I was also surprised to learn that his assigned seat was alone at the back of the room. The rest

of his classmates sat next to each other in rows.

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Before I sat down, Michael’s teacher told me the students were working on research

papers the entire hour. As I walked to my seat at the back of the room, I noticed that Michael’s

classmates were all typing. Michael finally made it to class on time, but, unlike his peers who

started working on their papers when they sat down, Michael did nothing.

Only a minute after the bell rang for class to begin, Michael asked if he could go to the

restroom, and his teacher told him he could. After he left the room, I could hear him talking to

someone in the hallway, but their voices eventually faded. Michael was gone for sixteen minutes

before I heard their voices return. In the doorway, I could see him talking to a girl. Shortly after

they appeared in the doorway, Michael came back inside.

When Michael returned to his seat, he took some headphones out of his backpack and

started listening to music on his phone. He laid his head down on his desk and looked at his

phone for a few minutes before reaching into his backpack for some chips. As he ate them, I

noticed he kept yawning and stretching, like he had been in first hour. When he finally did get on

his computer, it was not to work on his research paper. Although I couldn’t see his computer

screen from where I sat, he never typed anything like his classmates. Instead, he seemed to be

playing some sort of game, rapidly clicking the computer mouse. This behavior only lasted a few

minutes before Michael got off the computer, laid his head back down on the desk, and began

looking at his phone again. Michael looked at his phone for the rest of the class period. Although

the teacher walked right by Michael when she got up to hand a paper back to another student, she

never addressed Michael’s behavior. When class was over, I thanked her for allowing me to

observe, and she said, “Well, you’re welcome. I know there’s not much to observe when the

student chooses not to do his work.” I thought just the opposite.

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Michael’s third class of the day was English III, my cooperating teacher’s class. Unlike

his previous two classes, Michael beat me to this class. When I walked in, he was talking to his

classmates and walking around the room. A teacher from across the hall happened to look in and

see Michael with his hat on. She stood at the door to my cooperating teacher’s classroom and

yelled, “Michael, take off your hat!” He took the hat off and threw it in the air. Then the teacher

yelled, “Michael, sit your butt in the desk!,” to which he replied, “Yes, master.” Later during the

class period, Michael put the hat back on, but my cooperating teacher quietly asked him to take it

off. His response was nothing like the first. He took the hat off without acting out.

When the teacher from across the hall left, Michael went to get his composition book

from the back of the room. This is a classroom procedure. The students complete a short activity

in their comp. books at the beginning of each class period, and they know to grab their comp.

books before class begins. Michael got his comp. book before class began, but, as usual, he

didn’t immediately start working on the day’s activity. Instead, he talked to the boy who sits

behind him.

When my cooperating teacher started going over the answers to the comp. book activity,

Michael still didn’t write anything in his book. He seemed to enjoy the activity a little too much.

My cooperating teacher would play a song from YouTube, and the students were supposed to

identify the literary device in the lyrics. Michael even sang along, but he still didn’t write the

answers in his comp. book. For one of the answers, my cooperating teacher called on Michael

directly. When he replied with the correct literary device, she said, “Please, write it down. You

know it. Write it down.” He didn’t listen. My cooperating teacher had to ask Michael four times

to write an answer before he finally listened to her.

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Next, the students worked on blackout poems for Night by Elie Wiesel, which they

recently finished reading in class. At first, Michael was distracted by his peers. When they

started talking, he started talking. However, when they finally got quiet, he also got quiet.

Michael asked my cooperating teacher if he could listen to his headphones while he worked on

the poem, and she told him he could if he put his phone away after turning the music on.

Listening to his music, Michael worked on the poem for the rest of the class period. I only saw

him check his phone once. I also noticed he occasionally got up from his desk to walk around the

room. One time, he even took the long way around the room just to get to a box of tissues. When

he came back to his seat, he stood by his desk and leaned over to work on his poem. My

cooperating teacher told him to sit down; he listened, but he told her it was hard to sit still.

At the end of class, Michael surprised me and my cooperating teacher when he asked,

“Can I do another [poem] for extra credit? It was kind of fun.” I’ve only been at my cooperating

school for four weeks now, but I’ve never heard Michael ask to do more work. It’s challenging

enough just to get him to do the work he’s assigned. My cooperating teacher told him he could,

of course, and said, “I’m excited that you’re excited about your poems.” I was excited too, but he

had one more surprise in store for us. Michael asked if we would be reading The Great Gatsby

next, and, when my cooperating teacher told him we would, he responded, “Frick yeah!” I will

be teaching the unit over The Great Gatsby, so I was ecstatic to learn Michael is looking forward

to it.

For Michael’s fourth hour of the day, he went to the library for an online class, so I was

unable to observe him. The principal and I agreed that if Michael didn’t already know I was

observing him by fourth hour, he would certainly figure it out if I went to the library. He would

be the only student in there for a class.

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I continued observing Michael during his fifth class of the day, Algebra I. Michael’s

algebra teacher had to meet with a parent during this class period, so she sent her students to

work on homework in the library. I decided to go to the library since Michael’s entire class

would be in there, not just him. When I got to the library, Michael wasn’t there, so I told the

librarian about my shadow study and took a seat at one of the tables. Michael walked in with his

headphones on, and he continued walking around for the first few minutes of class. Instead of

working on homework like his teacher instructed, Michael listened to music and looked at his

phone. When Michael’s classmates sat down at the computers and began playing games online,

Michael did the same. He spent most of the class period on the computer, and, when he finally

did get off, he laid his head down on the table. He kept yawning and stretching until he got up

and started walking around the room again. He left the library about a minute before the bell

rang, but the librarian said nothing to him as he walked out. She was supposed to be supervising

his algebra class the entire hour.

Michael’s sixth class of the day was U.S. History. As with English III, when I got to the

classroom, he was already there. Again, the teacher knew I was there to observe Michael, so he

asked me to sit on a stool at the back of the room, close to Michael’s assigned seat. When I

walked to the back of the room, Michael was talking to the student teacher about homework. I

didn’t hear the first part of their conversation, but Michael pulled a crumpled piece of paper from

his backpack and asked the student teacher if that’s what he was looking for. The student teacher

took the assignment, which looked complete from what I could tell.

Then, Michael took his seat, put his hat on, and waited for class to start. The bell work on

the whiteboard read, “What super power do you wish you had?” Instead of writing their answers

down, the students took turns going around the room and answering the question out loud. When
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it was Michael’s turn, the student teacher asked him what super power he wished he had, and

Michael shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t seem to want to talk until the student teacher began

joking with him.

After bell work, the student teacher began a chapter review with the students. As he

asked questions about the material covered in class earlier that week, the students blurted out

answers. The problem was that the same students kept answering, and, when Michael did know

the answer, he tried to talk over them. After a few minutes of trying to make his voice heard, he

stopped answering questions and began looking at his phone under the desk instead. The student

teacher kept walking up and down Michael’s row, once even confiscating the phone of another

student, but he never saw Michael’s phone.

When the review was over, the student teacher passed out a worksheet for the students to

begin working on as they read the next section of the chapter. To my surprise, Michael began

working on the worksheet and reading. As in English III, Michael’s peers seemed to have an

influence on him. If they were quiet and on task, he was quiet and on task, but, if they started

talking and got off task, he started talking and got off task.

The U.S. history teacher left the student teacher alone for a while, and, when he returned,

he told Michael to take his hat off. Michael gave him a “look,” but he still did as he was told.

The teacher also turned on some music when he came back, which distracted Michael from his

assignment. As soon as the music came on, Michael started dancing and drumming his fingers.

Once he was off task this time, he never returned to his work. As his classmates finished their

assignments and began packing up their things, Michael did the same, even though he wasn’t

finished with his assignment. He shut his book with about fifteen minutes of class to spare. When

he got up from his desk, his teacher told him to stay seated until the bell rang. Michael replied,
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“I’m about to cramp up if I sit down.” The teacher laughed and told him again to sit. Michael did

as he was told. For the rest of the hour, Michael stayed seated and talked to his classmates.

Michael’s seventh class of the day was boys’ soccer, which, like his online class, I was

not allowed to observe. Although I only got to observe Michael for five class periods, I still left

that day with pages of notes and a greater awareness of what causes or affects Michael’s

behavior.

One of the insights I gained about Michael during my shadow study is that he’s easily

distracted by noises. When Michael’s U.S. history teacher started playing music in class,

Michael became distracted from his assignment and started dancing and drumming his fingers.

That’s not to say that music can’t also be good for Michael; when he was in English III, listening

to music on his headphones allowed Michael to block out the noise of his classmates talking,

which was another distraction in itself. Because of this insight, my strategy for working with

Michael would be to allow the headphones during independent work (with the approval of my

cooperating teacher) as long as they didn’t become a distraction. If listening to music can help

Michael stay on task, I think it’s worth a shot.

A second insight I gained about Michael during my shadow study is that he seems to

have a preference for two class subjects, English and U.S. history. While he did none of his work

in Biology I/Lab, Computer Applications I, or Algebra I, he did do some of his work in English

III and U.S. History. He also expressed interest in the blackout poems and The Great Gatsby and

knew some of the answers to the questions in both English III and U.S. History. Because of this

insight, my strategy for working with Michael would be to plan interdisciplinary instruction. It’s

no secret that English and history compliment each other well, and, what’s more, the topic of my

cooperating teacher’s English III class is American literature, so U.S. history fits right in. I know
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Michael is already looking forward to The Great Gatsby, but I think I can keep him engaged if I

incorporate some historical context for the novel (e.g., the Roaring Twenties and the Jazz Age)

into my lessons.

A third insight I gained about Michael during my shadow study is related to teacher

questioning and student responses. Michael’s teachers in Biology I/Lab, English III, and U.S.

History all asked questions of their classes and expected students to blurt out answers. In Biology

I/Lab, Michael was too busy sleeping to care; in English III, he chose not to blurt out answers,

only answering a question when my cooperating teacher called directly on him; and, in U.S.

History, he tried blurting out answers to multiple questions but gave up when the other students

were louder than him. His decision to remain silent in English until my cooperating teacher

called on him suggests to me that he might know more than he lets on in class. He didn’t raise

his hand to answer any questions, but, when my cooperating teacher did call on him, he had the

correct answer. His decision to stop answering the questions in U.S. History suggests to me that

he wants recognition for correct answers. Because of these insights, my strategy for working

with Michael would be to eliminate blurting in my classes. Michael can’t be the only student that

knows more than he lets on, that lets the loud students dominate the class, and that wants

recognition when he gets an answer right. I think by implementing a “no blurting” rule in the

classroom, I could help Michael and many other students in my classes.

A fourth insight I gained about Michael during my shadow study is related to teacher

disposition. On the day I conducted the study, there were three different teachers that asked

Michael to take off his hat, yet his response to one of those teachers was drastically different than

his response to the other two. When the teacher across the hall from my cooperating teacher’s

classroom yelled at Michael to take his hat off, he threw it in the air. However, when my
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cooperating teacher and Michael’s U.S. history teacher asked him nicely to take it off, he

complied without protest. I can’t say that I blame him. To me, yelling should never be a teacher’s

first response. In fact, I’m not sure it should ever be a teacher’s response, but that’s just an

opinion. I also know there are times when Michael doesn’t respond to “niceness.” In Biology

I/Lab, for example, Michael’s teacher repeatedly and nicely asked him to sit up and start taking

notes on his worksheet, but he was defiant. Because of these insights, I know that “niceness”

isn’t a guaranteed strategy for working with Michael, but I also know it’s a good place to start.

A fifth insight I gained about Michael during my shadow study is related to teacher

actions and comments. I strongly believe, after observing Michael in five of his classes, that

some of his teachers enable his misbehavior. By failing to address his poor behavior, either in

actions or comments, his teachers might be unintentionally encouraging it. For example, in

Biology I/Lab, there was no action taken by Michael’s teacher when he came to class late. The

teacher did comment on his tardiness, but she did not record his tardy on the computer or send

him to the office for a tardy slip, which is the school policy for students who are tardy first hour.

Then, in Computer Applications I, there was no action taken or comment made by Michael’s

teacher when he came back from the bathroom sixteen minutes after she told him he could go.

There was also no action taken or comment made by her when she walked by Michael and saw

him on his phone, laying with his head down. In English III, as I discussed in the introduction to

this paper, my cooperating teacher frequently talks to Michael about his misbehavior, but no real

action is taken when he repeatedly misbehaves. I can’t say how Michael’s Algebra I teacher

responds to his misbehavior, but I do know no action was taken or comment made by the

librarian, who was supposed to be supervising Michael’s class, when he chose not to work on

homework or when he left early. Lastly, in U.S. History, there was no action taken or comment
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made by Michael’s teacher when he packed up his things to leave (without finishing his

assignment) fifteen minutes before class was over. Kids are smart enough to figure out what they

can get away with, and I think that’s exactly what Michael has done. Because of this insight, my

strategy for working with Michael would be to acknowledge his misbehavior and enforce

consequences. Those consequences, of course, would depend on the misbehavior, but I think

Michael needs to know that his misbehavior is not going to go unrecognized or unpunished. I

think he needs to know that his teachers care enough to not let things slide.

A sixth insight I gained about Michael during my shadow study is that he’s often

influenced by the actions of his peers. In a lot of ways (not all), Michael conforms to those

around him. For example, in Biology I/Lab and Computer Applications I, Michael was quiet the

entire hour, just like his classmates. In English III and U.S. History, Michael was quiet and on

task when his classmates were quiet and on task, but, when his classmates were talking and off

task, Michael was talking and off task. In Algebra I, when Michael saw that his classmates were

playing games on the computer instead of working on homework, he sat down next to them and

started doing the same thing. The influence of Michael’s peers is neither entirely good or entirely

bad, but, because of this insight, my strategy for working with Michael would be to try and

surround him with good peer influences. In seating charts and group activities, for example, I

would seat him next to and group him with students who I could count on to model appropriate

behavior.

A seventh insight I gained about Michael during my shadow study is that distance from

the teacher seems to correlate with the likelihood of his misbehavior. In at least three of

Michael’s classes (Biology I/Lab, Computer Applications I, and U.S. History) his assigned seat

is at the back of the room. In Biology I/Lab and U.S. History, the teachers’ desks are also at the
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back of the room, so Michael isn’t always far from his teachers, but, from what I saw, both

teachers spend a lot of their class time at the front of the room, which means it’s easier for

Michael to get away with looking at his phone while they are teaching. In Computer

Applications I, Michael’s desk at the back of the room puts him farther from his teacher’s desk

than any of the other students, and, from what I saw, she spends a lot of time at her desk. Only in

English III, my cooperating teacher’s class, does Michael have an assigned seat at the front of the

room, close to his teacher’s desk and close to where she spends most of her time teaching. The

decreased distance between Michael and my cooperating teacher certainly doesn’t eliminate

misbehavior, but it does seem like he misbehaves less in her class than in others. On the day I

observed him, I never saw him lay his head down on his desk in her classroom, and I only saw

him check his phone once. Those two behaviors occurred multiple times in his other classes.

Because of this insight, my strategy for working with Michael would be the same as my

cooperating teacher’s. I would keep his assigned seat close to my desk and close to the front of

the room.

One last insight I gained about Michael during my shadow study has less to do with the

position of his seat and more to do with sitting in general. Biology I/Lab was the only class I

observed Michael in that he sat through the entire class period. In his other classes, he got up

from his seat to walk to the restroom, to walk around the classroom, or to stand by his desk

before being told to sit down. Michael also mentioned to those teachers who told him to sit down

(my cooperating teacher and his U.S. history teacher) that it’s hard for him to stay seated. During

the times I saw Michael walking around the room or standing by his desk, he never once

bothered his classmates, and he quickly returned to his work. He simply needed to move around.

Because of this insight, my strategy for working with Michael would not involve asking him to
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sit down; rather, I would allow him to move around the room or to stand and do his work as long

as he didn’t abuse that privilege. I know Michael can’t be the only student who struggles with

constant sitting, so it would be really great to see the school add some standing desks to each

classroom. I know those desks are expensive, but, from what I saw of them in one of my other

field experiences, they don’t go unused.

I selected Michael for my shadow study because I wanted to know what causes or affects

his misbehavior, and, although it’s hard to answer that with absolute certainty, this assignment

gave me insight to better understand Michael and his behavior. Noises, class subjects, teacher

questioning and student responses, teacher disposition, teacher actions and comments, peer

actions, distance from the teacher, and sitting were all factors that seemed to affect Michael’s

behavior. I know the strategies I’ve developed for working with Michael and addressing these

factors may sound simple or might not even be successful, but it’s good to know that I know so

much more about Michael than I did before conducting this study. I plan on using him as a focus

student for my teacher work sample, and I know the information I gained from this assignment

will be invaluable to me as I begin working with him more this semester.