CASE STUDY

Case Study
Annabelle Vought
Florida State University

Today is Wednesday, Oct 29th, 2014. It is 8:30a.m. and I am sitting in Mr. LaMees 2nd
period AP Physics class. Today is my first time visiting Rickards campus. I am from Tallahassee
and have never been to any kind of event hosted at Rickards, except for football games held at
Cox Stadium across the street. First impressions: the location is not ideal. Jim Lee road is

CASE STUDY

infamous in Tallahassee, mostly for crime related offenses (my dad is a police officer and I have
heard him mention it multiple times) so I tend to steer clear of the area. The campus is more
aesthetically pleasing than I imagined. It has an interesting layout, and stands on a hill, making it
the focal point of the surrounding area. The parking lot was congested and there was a lack of
visitor parking so it took me awhile to get settled. The administration in the front office were
extremely friendly and welcoming, making me feel more comfortable on the campus. The
multiple levels, and numbering system of classroom, made it hard for to locate Mr. LaMees
room.
I would like to note that I actually had Mr. LaMee in high school! He was my 11th grade
Physics teacher and I thoroughly enjoyed his class. I cant decide if its a good thing that I have
the same teacher I had in high school or if I really need to get out of Tallahassee. I think its a
good thing, only because Mr. LaMee is an awesome teacher and genuinely loves to teach (at
least that is how it seems). He is high energy in the classroom, from start to finish. He uses a
more relaxed approach to teaching and gives the students plenty of freedom to do group
work/discussion. Mr. LaMee only teaches AP Physics students. With this in mind, you can
assume that the students are academically advanced, in both mathematics and in English. The
demographic is diverse. His second period class consisted of 21 students, 7 white, 11 black, 2
Indian and 1 Hispanic. After seeing the variety of students in his classroom, I decided to look at
the general demographic of Rickards High School. There are 1,188 students, 5% Asian, 77%
Black, 2.3% Hispanic, .17% Native American and 14% White. I could not find the percentage of
Indian students, which is odd, considering Mr. LaMees classes had a fair amount of Indian
students. Most of the students seemed engaged, answering questions quickly and appropriately.
None of the students had their phones out and, surprisingly, were not distracted by the tablets.

CASE STUDY

Today is November 14th, 2014. The time is 8:08a.m. and I am anticipating the arrival of
Mr. Fiallos second period class, general English II. Mr. Fiallos class is vibrant with colorful
posters and displays posters of personalized student posters. As for organization, the classroom
seems tidy and the lesson plan is neatly displayed across the dry erase board. The class size is
25-30 students, majority African American, with 1 Biracial student and 1 Caucasian student. The
class is evenly dispersed with male and female students. The students were routy when entering
the classroom and seemed preoccupied with anything but the days lesson plan (in comparison to
Mr. Lamees class). Friday is current event day, where students use the tablets to search
articles of interest. Mr. Fiallos provides a handout for students with clear and concise directions
for the assignment and space to reference quotes from the selected article. Many of the students
have their jacket hoods up, with head phones in, habits that were always reprimanded in my high
school classes.
Around half of the students are on task with the assignments: As I scan across the
classroom, I see some students with articles displayed while others are looking at recent
basketball stats. Mr. Fiallos plays reggae music throughout the class period, making the
classroom environment seem more relaxed and less informal. I feel like this is appropriate for
Fridays but not every day of the week. The female students seem to be more talkative than the
male students but the amount of chatter is minimal (surprisingly). Based on the observations of
other FSU students, I thought this particular class was going to be super talkative and off-task.
After observing Mr. Fiallos second period, he decided to move our observations to Mrs.
Waldens general English I class. The demographic of the class is almost exactly the same as Mr.
Fiallos, with all African American students, 1 Caucasian student and 2 Hispanic students. Her
classroom seems smaller than Mr. Fiallos, making the environment seem more crowded and

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chaotic. Just as Mr. Fiallos had his lesson plan listed, so does Mrs. Walden, beginning with an
opening vocabulary activity. The students are working on their vocabulary journal, focusing on
morphemes, more particularly suffixes. I find it interesting students are still learning parts of
speech at a high school level. As I recall, in my early English classes, we were already reading
Animal Farm and Call of the Wild. The majority of the class seems to be engaged and responsive
to Mrs. Waldens question regarding the vocabulary worksheet she handed out at the beginning
of class.
Mrs. Walden seems excited to be in class and seems to have a positive connection with
her students. One student in particular, an African American male, seems to be the token
problem student of the class. He is laying back in his chair, and continues to play with his
keychain, without any interest in the lesson. As I listen to him engage with other students, he
curses every other word, quite loudly, which is a distraction for Mrs. Walden and the other
students. She gives him the quintessential disapproving teacher look but it does not seem to
faze him. As time goes on, the students seem to lose interest and put their heads down on their
desk, though it is Friday. Mrs. Walden seems hesitant to do group activities, due to the level of
noise group activities produce and the students desire to talk rather than work on the activity.
This changed my perspective on group work, especially in general classes. She also has a
Behavior Race displayed on the dry erase board, which seems to be some kind of reward
system for whichever class has the lowest amount of behavioral problems (currently, third period
is at 84).