Student Profiles

Janelle is at the top of her class academically. She is insightful in her academic endeavors. She is respectful of others in the classroom setting. In large classroom settings, Janelle realizes how important the order and organization of the class is to overall learning. She is very conscientious and thoughtful with anything related to academics. She is a student that other students seek out for help and guidance on projects. Janelle is pleasant to be around and very approachable by other students.

Janelle is very involved in school activities. She is involved in the business program and will play a significant role in the student store. She will also be the manager of the deli program for the business program. She is actively involved in the newspaper and I expect she will be the editor this year. These are all positions of leadership, which are only given to students of the highest caliber.

Janelle has worked at least 20 hours a week the past year. She has received glowing reviews from her employer. She is actively involved in her church and the youth group. She is the definition of the well-rounded person. She seems to be a genuinely happy person with great aspirations for high school and beyond. Her senior year should be special.

Janelle is from a large family and as a result can relate to people with different personality types. She is in a solidly middle class family. She is not wealthy but also not one of 30% of AHS students on free and reduced lunch. Her primary language is English. This obviously reduces barriers to learning. She is a visual and interpersonal learner but thrives in all traditional learning processes.

Janelle can analyze and synthesize extremely well and proved that time and again in the past year of Marketing 1. In advanced marketing, and when running school based businesses (which she will be doing), Janelle will be have to evaluate in real life situations. It is one thing to evaluate in a classroom-controlled environment. It is completely another to do it in a real life situation. I except she will flourish. However, there will be failures and it is my job to make sure she handles these frustrations OK. Janelle is the type of student who has never failed in a classroom setting, even to a small degree. It will also be critical to put her in a group of students for these projects that complement each other and work together well.

Greg is on an IEP. He has trouble focusing and is allowed additional time to complete some projects if deemed appropriate. Greg is highly intelligent. In fact, he is one of the most intelligent students I have had in my 4 years of teaching. He is definitely a verbal learner. He also writes extremely well which is a skill that is lacking in many 11th and 12^th graders. Greg is involved in basketball and track and should be a varsity participant next year in his senior year.

Despite Greg’s many strengths he is an emerging student. AHS is his second high school as he transferred from another district high school. Greg lacks appropriate social and classroom skills. He is very disruptive at times and is constantly pushing classroom boundaries. Greg likes to be the center of attention and enjoys being the class clown. It is clear boundaries need to established with Greg early on to ensure his classroom learning and those of his classmates.

Despite his academic ability, his inappropriate classroom and study behaviors have left him with a 2.0 overall GPA. His behaviors have extended to all his classes and to his athletics. Greg’s successes in my classes this past year (Marketing 1 and Sports Marketing) can be attributed to enforcing clear boundaries with defined consequences, working with his parents and other teachers to design some consistency, and especially working with his coaches. Greg has a love for sports and sports marketing. That is his hook. He wants to do well for his coaches and his marketing teacher. When consequences can be losing privileges with his coaches or his marketing classes, Greg has responded.

Next year, it will be critical to group Greg with students that complement his skills but will also not let him dominate the group in a destructive way. I will pay closer attention to Greg’s group and projects than others to ensure proper functioning for Greg’s as well as the other students’ learning. Greg needs to better analyze and synthesize and can if he stays focused. Evaluation needs to be done in the group context to better enable success. Greg has had unprecedented success in the past year and I expect that to continue.

Greg contradicts the stereotype. He comes from a family with his father and mother at home and with very high socio-economic status. Mom and Dad at home and lots of money do not guarantee a successful student.