Thoughts On Ethnographic Case Study

I enjoyed conducting my ethnographic case study based on classroom observation. This method of research allows the researcher to have an in depth look at one student and how that student interacts with their learning environment. I think that this method of research allows the researcher to better view students not as a collective group, but as individuals. I view observation based ethnographic studies as a very useful tool in understanding the needs of students.

I think that as teachers we often forget this key fact about our students, that being, they are all unique and have unique needs. I think that our forgetting this simple fact causes us to take the “good” students for granted, and think the “bad” students are just torturing us. We don’t take the time to evaluate why a student acts the way that they act, and because of this we often don’t cater to the individual needs of each student. I think that this is the main thing that I learned from conducting these observations and writing the ethnographic narrative. When I start teaching I must understand that students act the way that they act for a reason. Every student needs encouragement and needs to have their individual needs addressed by their teacher (to the best of that teacher’s ability).

I think that acting as merely an observer in the class is a great benefit. It allowed me to focus all of my attention on one particular student. It allowed me to see when that student became focused on the lesson and when that student began to lose focus. I think that this method would be much easier than trying to observe student behavior while, at the same time, conducting a lesson. I believe that it is a direct result of this difficulty that teachers often fail to recognize the needs of individual students that I discussed above. That is why I think that teachers should try to find time to observe their students while they are not teaching.

The language learner that I observed was a very bright student, but he often lost focus within the class. This language learner is very outgoing and this causes him to frequently be a disruption to the class. He never misses an opportunity to make his fellow students laugh (in fact, he had me cracking up on multiple occasions). These frequent interruptions often force the teacher to scold both the student and those that laugh at his antics. While I was observing, I think that I may have noticed a potential cause for his actions. I believe that there are two problems: first, he is too advanced for the class and second, he craves the attention of his teacher. I noticed that this student seldom misses a question; in fact, he can even be in the middle of a joke and stop and correctly answer. The student also finishes his work before all the other students in the class. This gives him an abundance of extra time to goof around, and, being the extrovert that he is, he regularly draws his peers away from their work. I also noticed that this student was much more on task when the teacher was directly interacting with him. This occurred whether the teacher was telling him that he was doing good work or if the teacher scolded him for bad behavior. I thought that the latter was much more telling. Through his actions he seemed that he was almost trying to get the teachers attention. The student didn’t seem to care that he was getting in trouble he only seemed to care that the teacher was paying attention to him because after a scolding he would happily go right back to work, at least until the teacher began paying more attention to other students.

I think that his future teachers need to be aware that he is a very intelligent student and needs to be challenged, possibly, beyond that of his peers. I think that an increase in the workload for this student would solve much of his problems with class. I also think that the “special” extra work that he would be doing would make him feel that he is receiving special attention from his teacher. Those are the two main classroom issues that I believe affect this student’s behavior, but I would also want to tell his future teacher that he is a great kid. He’s funny, interested, and concerned for his fellow classmates, and although he does become off task sometimes he only needs to be pointed in the right direction to succeed.

I don’t think that I would have ever noticed the causes of this student’s behavior if I had not conducted this research. I think that I would have simply given him the class clown moniker and moved on. This ethnographic study allowed me to see the individual needs of this student. I strongly believe that this type of research will help teachers be more effective, thereby allowing students to gain more from lessons.