C is for Constant Attention

I'll preface this post by saying I am currently in the dyad portion of my student teaching assignment and I am helping teach 6th grade math (not 4th grade, as the blog title suggests).

C is a student in my afternoon class who could be a poster-child for the discrepancy between learning with teacher aid and learning by himself, otherwise known as the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Whenever I am around, helping him with his work, C does great and enjoys doing the work. The second I leave to help another student, C immediately stops doing his work and starts goofing around with his peers. If he is not already working with me or another teacher, he is goofing off or has his hand raised waiting for another teacher to help. He seems to refuse to do work by himself. His gap in achievement level between working on his own, and working with a teacher, is larger than I thought possible.

From the reading we've done, I think an ideal approach would be to slowly back away from helping C with his work. Eventually C will hit a point where he realizes he can do the work on his own, but the large leap from where we are now to that point seems more like a free-fall! I'll keep the blog updated on my progress with C!