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Student Case Study – Victoria

Angel Perez
Department of Secondary Education, CSU Fullerton
EDSC 591: Professional Seminar in Secondary Education
Dr. Susan Glassett Farrelly
November 2, 2020
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I will begin by stating that I am currently not teaching this school year. I made that

decision before Covid-19 came. Sometimes I wish that I was in the classroom this year and

sometimes I am relieved that I am not teaching this year. However, after interviewing Victoria, I

feel that I would not have been prepared enough to handle the current situation in public school.

For most of us, distance learning is something we unexpectedly had to learn and implement. We

were not trained to teach through distance learning, and the students were also not ready to

accept it. This was the overall issue Victoria has with her current learning environment.

Victoria is a 15-year-old freshman in high school. Her school is still closed, so she goes

to school from home. My first question to her was “How do you like distance learning?”

She replied, “It sucks. I hate it. Well, it’s not hard, but I’d rather be in school.” I asked her to

elaborate about why she didn’t like distance learning. Her first response was in regard to not

being able to connect with the teacher or her classmates. She felt alone during her first year of

high school. I was reminded of how Moises felt in his classroom having recently moved to the

United States. Neither Moises nor his teacher were truly ready and prepared for learning, just

like Victoria and some of her classmates were not prepared for distance learning.

As I watched her class participate in a Google Meets web conference, I noticed that many

students were not sharing their video feed. The teacher informed me that her administration

decided that students were not obligated to show their faces, since some of them did not have a

private space in their home that they were willing to share. Her English teacher shared his

frustrations with me regarding distance learning. He mentioned that many students are finding

ways to “work the system” by not showing their faces, not participating in group discussions,

neglecting homework and not completing tests. He says that he has “watered down” the

curriculum to make it easier for students to do the work at home and has given them much more
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time to complete assignments. Yet, students were not learning, not completing assignments and

failing tests. I asked him what kinds of activities they have done to motivate learning, and he

described the current assignment as follows:

 Choose a Disney, Pixar or other animated film and create a 6-slide Google Slides

presentation that describes the plot, setting, characters, theme, favorite quotes and

one example of figurative language (simile or metaphor).

Personally, I found this assignment to be fairly easy, culturally relevant to their age group, open

to student choice (which aligns to Daniel Pink’s idea of self-direction and productivity) and did

not require much time to complete. However, the teacher explained that even though they have

spent two weeks working on the assignment, synchronously and asynchronously, many students

have not completed the assignment. Victoria is one of those students who did not complete it.

I came back to her and asked why she didn’t complete such a fun and easy assignment.

She said that she gets side-tracked and loses focus on what she must do. After further

conversation, she admitted that it is ultimately her responsibility to prioritize her work but does

not have as much motivation as if she were physically in school. Her teacher says that some

students do participate, ask questions, show up for tutoring, and complete all the assignments.

Those students have grit, as described by Angela Lee Duckworth. They excel because they have

good work ethics and support. Regarding Self-Determination Theory, Victoria and other students

have autonomy – maybe too much. I believe this is Victoria’s issue. If given the opportunity to

procrastinate or skip an assignment, she will take advantage of it and choose to not complete

assignments. What she and others lack are the feeling of competence and relatedness in distance

learning. Since they only have autonomy in their learning environment, they choose the easy way

or choose to do nothing at all.

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Victoria and her friends mentioned that last year, her teachers were mandated to give

every student at least a C grade because of the distance learning obstacles they faced. She and

her friends expect the school to do the same this semester, which may explain the lack of

motivation or effort. In conclusion, I believe that most teachers are making extraordinary efforts

to make distance learning as inclusive and fair as possible. Teachers have grit and self-

determination that can be passed onto students in the traditional classroom setting, but it is

difficult to extract in the distance learning environment. There are less consequences for

students, less motivating factors, less rigor, less participation and interaction opportunities, less

relationships and other ingredients that compose an effective learning environment. The

feedback I received from Victoria, her friends and her teacher have made me question whether I

would have been prepared enough to weather this distance learning storm and make the best

decisions for students to engage in purposeful learning.