Danielle displays admirable perseverance even when faced with tasks she finds difficult, or when adverse circumstances hamper her efforts. She obviously enjoys positive reinforcement received when her persistence pays off and she achieves success in spite of initial difficulties. This characteristic was one of the first things her classroom teacher thought to describe when I asked if she could talk about things that Danielle was good at. She described her ability to understand and follow a series of instructions as effective, saying that Danielle is proactive in seeking clarification if needed “because I think she’s the type of girl, she doesn’t like to get something wrong, so she’ll just say ‘Am I on the right track?’”(B3:3) Her gifted
education programme teacher shared this perception of Danielle’s classroom behaviour, describing her as a very attentive student who follows instructions well. Both teachers recognised that Danielle’s understanding of, and engagement with, learning material is enhanced when it includes visual content. Her regular classroom teacher commented that she often uses power points to provide visual input for the students when presenting information and sees that Danielle benefits from this. Her gifted programme teacher also gave examples of visual stimuli that she employs in her teaching, and both teachers routinely have visual reminders of instructions available for re-checking if needed.
The gifted programme that Danielle attends one day each week includes as part of its curriculum a built-in focus on providing students with choice around products that they can create to demonstrate their thinking and reasoning. Danielle told me that she enjoys that the programme provides challenges for her, and pinpointed this element as being one aspect that does so. Her gifted programme teacher noted that in the
“Make/Do/Create” section of the day, Danielle favours creating products that are very visually-oriented. She chooses projects that include a design element such as Power Point presentations and is very meticulous about her work.
Danielle’s relationship with visual material goes even deeper than a preference for this style of input and for creating visually-oriented products in response to a stimulus. She demonstrated a preference for a visual medium as part of her
communication style also. Danielle’s natural inclination for drawing an image to show her understanding of new material was illustrated as she recounted for me about her older brother teaching her about atoms. When asked how he had taught her, whether he had drawn a picture, or told her, or shown her in a book, she replied that he had told her and that she had drawn it “to show him that I got it.” (B2:10)
As mentioned previously, when Danielle was telling me about something, and particularly when she needed to describe or explain some product or process, time after time she would begin only to pause, and typically say, “Hang on a minute!” … and then race off to retrieve some concrete object. Even when we had a photograph of the object in front of us she would do this, seeming to prefer the three dimensional reality over a two dimensional image as an aid to her verbalising. One time that she had no physical object to help her was when she wanted to describe for me how she thought she had figured out how a particular breakfast cereal was made.
Danielle: “There was one, the cereal that I have, or that I had, I ate it all up because it was so yummy. It had chocolate inside and … then it’s got this like this crunchy stuff on the outside. So I think I know how it’s made … So, look … I’ll just go and get … a sheet of paper quickly (runs to next room) and show you what it looks like … I’ll show you how I think it’s made, in the factory … So first it’s got … I’ll just move the table a bit closer … So, it looks like this.” (B2:23)
This time Danielle proceeded to draw her idea for me. First she drew a bowl with a spoon and with the cereal and milk in it. She was quite explicit in describing what each part was. Next, she drew what she thought the process would look like as the cereal was being made in the factory. It was of note that she seemed to be describing something she could actually see happening …
Danielle: “So, I think they’re made like this. So, they go on the conveyor belt, and the conveyor belt has a few lines, and here they come, they’re here … pretend they’re pretty small because they’re everywhere and (pause to draw) and there. So there are lots of them right? … So there’s … they’re going to go to a place where there’s going to be this like this chopping machine so it goes like that … this is the bottom of it … and it goes like this and then it keeps going on like that, so, that’s the hole … it’s
going to be a hole, so this is a side view (pause), so it keeps going on like that, because they’re sort of roundy, shaped like this.” (B2:23)
Another feature that Danielle’s gifted programme teacher pointed out as being helpful for her learning was that the structure of their day provides lots of opportunity for looking, thinking and planning. She noted that Danielle will frequently take
advantage of the chance to check early and see what is scheduled for the day and that she will start to plan right from that first look.
Her teacher also told of using “visual language” to communicate ideas and develop more flexible thinking. This conversation is extending her in a way that would rarely take place within the regular school curriculum, particularly as she is perceived as being below her cohort in mathematics. The value of the teacher drawing her thinking, as well as explaining it in words is described:
Gifted Programme Teacher: I think one example this afternoon was when she was trying to … her visual picture of the tent, she was thinking more of a tepee sort of a shape and she couldn’t quite move beyond that in terms of attention, so actually sketching what *I* was envisaging as a tent, sort of “flipped her” to thinking oh, o.k. and from there … thinking about the shape of the net … And then when we drew the net it took her a few minutes to see … because I drew a long side for the net so that it could then fold over the base tent shape, and it took her a few minutes to visualise why we couldn’t do the wings on either side to fold up to the tent shape and then, yeah, she could obviously picture it more that way, and it took her a few minutes to flip that thinking to think aw, o.k. it could be done that way too. So very much the sort of … I think the visualising and the puzzling out – how is it going to look and how is that going to work.” (B5:2)
Another example of a learning experience that worked well for Danielle and drew on her visual-spatial strengths involved looking at 3D street art under the umbrella topic of ‘Illusion’. Danielle’s gifted programme teacher showed me examples of their “Holes in the Paper” work on the wall. The teaching approach used incorporated showing the end result first – this is what our finished product will look like – and then working backwards to figure out how to achieve it.
Gifted Programme Teacher: “That was very much a(n)… experimenting case, she looked at how it was done and had a go … did a small one … that was o.k. … looked at a bigger one … a hole the size you could fall down and it was really quite a disaster and she knew it hadn’t worked … she was actually canvassing other people to say … what do I need to do…how can I change it, how can I make it better, so that was really interesting to see and then actually listening to the responses (B5:3).
This last excerpt also demonstrates how Danielle benefits from a peer group of students of a similar level of cognitive ability to bounce ideas off. I observed that while remaining focused on what she was doing, she was aware of what everyone else in the room was doing also, occasionally throwing out the odd little comment to others. What was apparent though was that there was very much a sense of ‘whole group learning’ going on, and that Danielle was maintaining ‘big picture’ awareness even while she was focusing on individual details of her own work.
Danielle’s gifted programme teacher couldn’t easily name any situations where she struggled with learning, saying Danielle was always quick to signal if she hadn’t understood an idea and that going back and re-explaining was usually enough for her to catch on. She suggested the extra time built into this re-stating and clarification was possibly the element that helped Danielle to process and make sense of new
information. This fits alongside the earlier statement that the structure of her day when working in her gifted withdrawal setting provides her with ample time to reflect, plan and create. Working for a whole day on one topic, with each activity providing related information, gives Danielle the opportunity to really develop her
understandings around the concept.
When I asked Danielle to show me a photograph depicting something she was proud of, she selected a photo showing her maths homework, with her methods for working out shown on the facing page, shown in Figure 13, along with a school times table test with a 100% correct result, shown here in Figure 14.
[Figure 13, Danielle’s maths homework, [Figure 14, Times Table Test, photograph photograph supplied by Danielle, 2013] supplied by Danielle, 2013]
As discussed in the last section, Danielle has been having one-on-one tutoring to help with her maths. I asked her to tell me about the strategies for working out
multiplication and division. She said they could do any kind of strategy and then showed me her preferred method, which was to use an algorithm. She confirmed she had been having trouble with multiplication and division strategies at school and that these hadn’t been making sense. Her tutor has shown her how to work them out using an algorithm and she agreed she felt good now she knew how to do them.
She has been working hard to memorise her times tables and is more confident now that she is meeting with some success in this area. Rehearsal on its own hadn’t worked well and she had been really struggling until her tutor introduced the flash card method. Again this shows how her understanding and engagement with material is significantly enhanced when a visual element is included.
In discussion with her parents, I recounted to them how Danielle had indicated to me that she was recalling a very specific image of the particular card to memory. It was again apparent that her Dad clearly related to this.
Researcher: “… she told me about the tutoring she was having, and we talked about her times tables, and she went and got the little box and showed me, and she showed me the flash cards that they were using …
Researcher: … what was really interesting for me, and for my study, was that … I was trying to have her answer … what had made the difference? Why she was now able to start remembering these time tables, when she couldn’t before? And so I said to her, “If I asked you what is 6 x 6?” She said, “Oh! 36!” She said, “I know that one”, and she had her eyes closed and she said, “It’s on a brown card … look I’ll show you” … and she went through the bag and found it …
Danielle’s Mum: She loves the cards.
Researcher: Yes, but it’s like she has …
Danielle’s Dad: It’s visual
Researcher: … this visual image of the card, and that’s why she’s remembering it.
Danielle’s Dad: Yeah, it’s amazing eh?” (B6:9)
Her Dad commented on her difficulty with maths facts, recognising that her different mental organisation requires that she be able to make a visual representation of what is happening to the numbers in order to make sense of the operation: “Everybody ah, you know … 12 – 8 how do I do that in my mind? Since I was a little kid, I take 2 that is over 10 and 2 that is below 10. 4 – I know it is four because I put 2 here and 2 here, but you do it so automatically that you already know what it is, and she is trying to do that, but it is also … she’s very spatial, you know, she’s very … she has to see things and to look at things, and when it is not presented properly, like this to her, she … she struggles to understand.” (B6:9)
In describing his own strategising I noted his language whereby he specifically says he “takes” 2 that is over and 2 that is below 10, and “puts 2 here and 2 here”. His reference to the spatial nature of this process suggests more than just a two dimensional visual representation is being made but one that exists in three dimensions.
Learning through observation is a strategy that Danielle frequently employs. Using her iPad™ to research how to do something and following visual prompts is a preferred learning method for her. When talking about the photo depicted in Figure 15 below, she told about making a balloon animal to give as a present for her friend, explaining that she had watched and copied the man demonstrating the procedure.
[Figure 15, Making a Balloon Animal, photograph supplied by Danielle, 2013.]
Danielle’s self-teaching is largely based on use of observation, sometimes involving logic, prior knowledge and ‘try it and see’ exploration. When talking about how she taught herself to use Word ™ she suggested she had used visual cues, such as the underline function comprising an underlined U and the bold function B being “thicker than the other ones” to help her. She agreed she also learned by watching her Dad and her Mum and then trying out what she sees for herself. With her obvious enthusiasm and aptitude for using the computer, learning to touch type would be a very helpful skill for her to master.
Chapter Six Results (Case C)