Choose any 5 of the scenarios presented below. Use the case study response outline provided below and write a paragraph or two on each section.
Case Study Response Outline
Use the following organizer to summarize your ideas and make a final decision. Use point style to record your ideas and thoughts.
My understanding of the situation is:
Possible actions and implications:
Summary of my decision and comments:
Scenarios
1. A parent of a special education student attends the same aerobics class as you do the educational assistant. The parent repeatedly asks about the child’s progress at school.
2. As an educational assistant in the classroom, you feel that the supervising teacher exhibits poor teaching skills and that the classroom lacks organization. You don’t feel comfortable discussing this with the teacher so you want to go directly to the school administration with the concerns.
3. An educational assistant has the responsibility of transporting and supervising three students doing work experience in a local facility. In an effort to try to do some training in the classroom, the EA writes an extensive task analysis of each students work. The EA then plans and creates additional activities to be used for instruction.
4. The EA and the teacher need time to discuss the behavior problems that Tommy is having in the classroom. The EA is scheduled and paid only to be there when the children are in the classroom.
5. You work with a small group of EA’s who always sit together during lunch. They usually discuss the problems and mistakes that their supervising teachers have made that morning.
6. You feel that some of the strategies that the teacher is using with a student are doing more harm than good. The child seems to be coming to class very upset. You’ve heard the teacher say that the child just needs to be tougher.
7. The teacher asks the educational assistant to contact parents about discipline problems that have occurred during the day.
8. You have become a "good buddy" to several of the high school students. They ask you if you would like to party with them.
9. The school secretary seems to be a good source of information about many of the students in the school. She seems to have considerable information on their families as well. You and the secretary discuss a specific student’s problems during lunch.
10. A student who in the ESL program (English as a Second Language) is having some problems in the math class. The teacher says she thinks the student is a gang member and that if the rules are strictly enforced the student might drop out of school, eliminating the problem.
11. The teacher asks you, the educational assistant, to go to the office to obtain a student’s Ontario Student Record (OSR) folder.
12. The teacher asks you to help a student with their social studies assignment. After looking at the lesson you are not sure that you know enough about the subject to help the student.
13. You are attending a church social. One of the prominent members is sitting at your table. You hear them say: "I don’t think that they should be wasting all that money on programs for those handicapped children, they won’t amount to anything anyway. My child is in the gifted program and there is never enough money".
14. The teacher is required to attend a professional meeting. The educational assistant is left in charge of the students rather than employing a substitute.