Case Study

Marie Dupont.

Synopsis: Debby Barton, the lovely ingenue protagonist, is a fieldwork

intern/observer in the French class conducted by the much more experienced
teacher, Mlle. Marie Dupont. Even her name is French. Debby's assignment is
to write a report on how Mlle. Dupont's teaching conformed with, or differed
from, the teaching theory taught to Debby's education class.

The setting:

The Class: Essentially a second-year French class made up mostly of

Freshmen. The school requires two years of a foreign language to graduate,
so must of the students, presumably, are in the class to satisfy their
graduation requirement, rather than a desire to major in French in College.
Many professed at the beginning of the school year that they "hated French".
The Class period is the last of the day - one when students often have
difficulty controlling their pent-up impulse to 'act out'.

The Students:There are several minority students in the class of about

twenty.

The Teacher: The teacher, Marie Dupont, is, in the eyes of Debby Barton, an
experienced, competent teacher who exudes confidence and control. More
about that, later. We shall see.

Factual inconsistencies: This is supposed to be a class in second-year

French, and they have not yet discovered the verb voir. That makes little
sense, but it does not detract from the overall effectiveness of the case study.
Just a poor choice of verb; is should have been a somewhat more esoteric
verb, like découvrir [to discover]

Marie addresses both Ellen and Denise, individually, using the formal vouz. I
wouldn't expect that from an accomplished High School French teacher. I
think it shows a lack of rigorous due diligence (grammar checking) on the
part of the author of the case study.

Issues presented:

Before we launch into our observations, and imbue Marie's teaching skills and style with
either 'good' and 'bad' characterizations, let us take a deep breath and ask ourselves:
What have we learned in this course, so far? Since this is an Education Methods Course,
it would make sense to present us with a case study scenario that asked us to focus on the
presented facts against a background of the teaching modalities we have covered in class.

Going over my class notes, these modalities are summarized here: Connecting with our
audience; the teacher's role as a warm, encouraging and nurturing individual; the
workshop model - do now, the mini-lesson, student share, accountability; the UBD
principle.

That's actually a lot. Let's see how Mlle Dupont measures up against those standards.

- Maintaining class decorum. How to draw the fine line between dictatorial
 terror (causing the class to creep inside itself, in fear and intimidation) and
cutting the class too much slack, causing bedlam.
- Praise in Public; Punish in Private. More about that, below.
- Reinforcement: Répétez, s'il vous plaît; répétez, répétez.
- Workshop Principles.
- Understanding by Design.

Observations:

1. Marie has a finely tuned hierarchy of voice/gesture/classroom whereabouts that she

deftly exercises so as to minimize the obviousness of her control, yet maintain a level of
satisfactory classroom demeanor.
Examples:
"Sshh..." Marie put her hands out at her sides in a gesture for quiet and sidestepped two
paces towards the noisiest perpetrators. (p2)
...... motioned for quiet and spoke softly to regain the students' attention. (p3)
Marie's physical proximity further reduced the chitchat (p4)
....Manuel - see me after class (p9)

Notwithstanding the foregoing, while Marie's class cannot be described as pure bedlam,
she does not take her control over the classroom din to the next level - namely to insist
that students only speak when prompted (except for the limited periods when students are
supposed to engage in conversation, between them, en Francais, s'il vouz plaît)

2. Marie uses a mixture of teaching modalities to enhance the students' understanding:

Examples:
Uses voice (auditory) + overhead screen (visual)
Established routine - when we learn a new verb, we conjugate it. (p5)
Then reinforce it through 'Drill drill' until it is learned.
Then use it in syntax to anchor it in.
Then incorporate word into homework
Then reinforce it by a brief and then proceed into the higher-level conjugations of the verb
the following class

Nonetheless, her classroom lesson plan seems too much 'seat-of-the-pants' style. Although
Debby arrived late, we did not see much of the 'do now' exercise, supposedly tying in the
lesson's last class. Also no mention of 'checking homework'
Marie's concept of the following day's lesson plan seemed elusive - oh well, I'll think of
something.
Students like a certain predictable format to each class, with clear delimiters and
transitions from one phase to another. Marie's free-wheeling conduct as classroom leader
amounts to something close to stream-of-consciousness.
Frankly, at times, Marie appears a bit ditsy. As when she writes Manuel up and demands to
see him after class, then acts almost disoriented when poor Manuel presents himself after
the bell rings.

3. Marie tries to cut a warm, engaging classroom presence:

To keep students' interest up, she sometimes talks about things the boys really are "into" -
like football and sports.
- The students by now had turned this exercise into a lighthearted competition (p8)
- patient coaxing and coaching (p5)
Change of pace - let student have a period of stress-free relaxation (p8)

Yet, in Marie's subsequent conversation with Debby out of the classroom, it becomes
obvious that Marie believes this class is inferior and is not nearly as 'bright' as her other,
smaller class. Clearly, Marie has lowered her expectations, to the possible detriment of any
'expected results' that may take form as we speak.

4. Marie is too much of a Mensch.

Then, finally, Marie dropped her vigilance and allowed the last few minutes of class time to
be consumed in the wave of chatter.... (p 9)
With some of her students (Jesse), Marie appears a tad too much like a 'friend' or even
'co-conspirator' as she and Jesse exchange sympathetic facial expressions, rolling their
eyes in shared disgust or annoyance over those immature Freshmen.
It wouldn't hurt for Marie to connect on a personal level. Praise the good performances,
and remain upbeat and connected.

The Solution:
Marie should change her lesson plan to a more predictable model, following the principles
set out in our "Workshop Model"
Marie should step up to the next level of classroom behavior protocol - making sure the
students understand that they are to speak only when prompted, and otherwise remain
quiet, unless directed to speak, conversationally, in groups.
On a broader level, Marie should communicate, publish, and enforce a whole set of
Classroom Rules
Over the longer run, maybe Marie should enroll in some formal professional skills training,
or at least read up on publications that would help her become the Complete Teacher.
Marie should have a heart-to-heart conversation with herself, and question whether she
presents to upbeat, encouraging, high-expectation person that, as a Public High School
teacher, she is expected to remain.
Marie should re-read the Wiggins tome and follow its dictates.

Personal observation:
The Problem With Classroom Control: As noted above, maintaining the decorum in the
class is an issue here. There are those who would deem, based on the reading of a
putative decibel measurement device placed in the middle of the classroom, that Marie
Dupont FAILED to maintain classroom decorum - especially during the last few minutes
when, according to the evidence that could be presented against her, she 'permitted the
class demeanor to degrade to an unacceptable cacophony'

Personally, I differ in that assessment. I think Marie Dupont did exactly the right thing -
she kept the chatter down to a level that permitted her to conduct her lesson plan
efficiently - yet she also let the class relax, while she still remained in [relative] control. My
point here is that a class like hers, has a pent-up demand for a discreet level of chatter or
even mischievousness during the course of the day.

Were Marie Dupont to rule her classroom with an iron hand, and through intimidation keep
the class as still as a church mouse the entire period, the likely outcome simply would be
that the class would feel compelled to act up in the class room under the control of a
different, less experienced teacher who perhaps did not have Marie Dupont's gravamen.
So, in an act of collegial courtesy, Marie Dupont in fact permitted the class to vent just
enough steam so that its behavior interrupted neither her own lesson, not that of any
other teacher. But that is me. What do I know; I am only two weeks into my Methods
course.

As noted elsewhere, I have a BIG reservation about this case study. I see it not only as a
case study within the general rubric of Education - I also see it, along the principles of the
nested Chinese Box system, as a Case Study under the rubric of Case Study Production.
A case Study of a case Study, so to speak. The medium used for this case study is, of
course, the written page. Everything the case study student is supposed to perceive, is
brought to the student via PRINT. The author of the case study is forced to use words to
describe the general background din in the classroom, to illustrate how the teacher walks
towards trouble, to nuance Manuel's fractured French, and to portray Marie Dupont's facial
mien as she disapproves of the behavior of one of her students.

None of these references are too subtle - they are more like blasted across the page. Only
the most inattentive reader would miss their significance.
Examples:
"Sshh..." Marie put her hands out at her sides in a gesture for quiet and sidestepped two
paces towards the noisiest perpetrators. (p2)
.... atrociousness of his pronunciation and the hesitancy of his delivery. (p3)

Imagine if this case study had been recorded as a video. A multimedia presentation in full
color, with audio, as a real-time snapshot of what went on in Marie Dupon't classroom
over, say, a ten minute period. Gone would be the I'll-hit-you-across-the-head-with-a-
mallet issue presentations. I would argue that such a video presentation would be much
more realistic, much more subtle, and therefore, much more challenging and meaningful.
By contrast, the written case study reads like a stage script, with dialogue, blocking
instructions, and lengthy descriptions of audible sounds, rather than the intonations
themselves. A case study belonging in the last century - note the 1992 copyright notice.

Taking a cue from the Case Study about a Case Study (How NOT to produce a visually
nuanced case study), maybe Pace or McGraw should take the initiative to produce and
upload case studies to YouTube.