DIAGNOSTIC PROBE AND FLEXIBLE INTERVIEW Jenny Choi, 1

Paragraph 1 -INTRODUCTION

The Diagnostic Probe serves as an assessment that will show the student’s understandings

as well as misconceptions in a particular academic or non-academic concept. It allows the

teacher to know the extent to which the student knows that particular skill or concept. The results

of the probe should be utilized by the teacher in order to plan future instruction and decide on

next steps for the student’s needs. The Flexible Interview is where the student gets a chance to

explain their approach to the problems in the probe and how they chose to solve it. It allows the

teacher to see the students’ comprehension in learning particular concepts and think about how

he or she can modify lessons for the student to meet learning goals.

Paragraph 2- STUDENT DESCRIPTION

Jonah is a third-grade student who is currently nine years old. He is a cheerful student

who is eager to do well in school, based on his frequent content-related questions. Jonah is

categorized in his IEP as having a Learning Disorder. He had a private neuropsychological

evaluation, where he was found to show mild symptoms of Developmental Coordination

Disorder and mild symptoms of Unspecified Anxiety Disorder. Jonah is undiagnosed with

ADHD but takes medication for it.

Jonah is on-task for all academic areas, including, but not limited to, writing, reading,

mathematics, and science. However, Jonah is easily distracted by background cues (both visual

and auditory). This prevents him from finishing work on time. His low attention skills decrease

his accuracy in recalling information. He needs verbal cues from the teacher in order to focus on

classroom tasks. This probe measured his ability to pay attention to the independent task at hand

without a high amount of verbal cues from the teacher. His success would be measured by
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accurately recalling information from the text because that is what was greatly affected by his

low focusing skills.

Paragraph 3- PROBE

In order to measure his attention skills and accuracy in recalling information, Jonah was

tested with a social studies text and questions, using the online resources ReadWorks and

Kahoot. The social studies topic was chosen because of its fact-dense content that relies on

students’ focus and recalling ability in order to succeed in answering multiple choice questions.

For the text, Jonah used the online website ReadWorks to read the article “Brazil Today -

Capoeira: Brazilian Martial Art & Dance,” which was part of their social studies unit on Brazil.

ReadWorks is a website that has texts available for educators and students to access a variety of

fiction and non-fictional texts that are aligned with CCSS. It has an option to read the text to the

student, a function that is helpful for students who have difficulty with decoding and fluency,

among other things. This feature is also helpful to students who have trouble with focus and

attention because it connects the visual channel with the auditory channel.

The online program Kahoot! was used also for this Diagnostic Probe in order to help

Jonah stay on task and minimize distractions. Kahoot is a game-based learning platform, where

teachers can create quizzes and monitor student results in real time. To solve each question,

students are given 20 seconds to choose from multiple choices.

The probe was aligned with both IEP goals as well as CCSS. In Jonah’s IEP, the annual

goal was listed as “In 1 year, Jonah will be able to independently work on classroom tasks with
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minimal teacher cues for 10 minutes.” This probe was designed in order to measure Jonah’s

ability to work independently on the task without frequent teacher cues. The probe also aligns

with CCSS because it used a social studies topic and text to measure his attention skills.

The CCSS standards that follow this probe were as following:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1

Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it;

cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the

text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.1

Ask and answer questions to demonstrate an understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the

text as the basis for the answers

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.10

By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies,

science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 2-3 text complexity band independently

and proficiently.

For the administration of the probe, Jonah sat at his normal table spot, with a laptop,

earphones, and a smartphone. These options are not normally used by students for Do Now

assignments. Jonah used the laptop and earphones for the ReadWorks article first. He used the

Read to Me feature, which reads the text to him while he follows along with the auditory tool.

This allowed his focus level to increase greatly. After he read and listened to the text, he was
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allowed to write down some notes and thoughts in his social studies notebook. Afterward, he

moved on to the smartphone to play a Kahoot game, answering questions on the article that

tested his recalling ability. In order to answer correctly and score higher, Jonah had to pay

attention and stay on task.

Paragraph 4- SETTING

The setting is a 3rd-grade general education classroom. The probe took place during the

Do Now morning period. Do Now begins as soon as students enter the classroom, unpack, and

prepare to begin given tasks by sitting on their rug spots or assigned seats. During the Do Now

period, students in the classroom are allowed to check their work with a partner after they have

completed their work independently. Therefore, the noise level in the classroom can become

high, which often distracts Jonah from being able to complete his work independently. This is

often the time that the teacher must give him frequent verbal cues to stay on task.

During the administration of the probe, Jonah was able to stay on task most of the time.

He was engaged in the entire process. When explained that technology was going to be used in

the activity, Jonah was very excited and adamant about beginning the probe. During the

ReadWorks article, he was not at all distracted. The auditory channel helped Jonah stayed

focused. He was able to finish reading and listening to the article independently without a single

teacher verbal cue. However, during the Kahoot portion of the probe, Jonah did get distracted

twice. However, this was during the beginning of the game. When Jonah realized that the game

was based on points, he was more engaged and stayed on track. Overall, his focus and attention
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improved greatly throughout the probe as compared to the standard Do Now periods with similar

text and question work.

Paragraph 5- ANALYSIS

The scoring procedure was marked by the number of times that Jonah was distracted

(measured by looking away from the laptop/phone screen for more than 5 seconds and/or

communicating with a peer about non-task questions), the number of teacher cues needed to keep

Jonah on task, and the accuracy the answers to the questions.

During the administration of the probe, Jonah was distracted a total number of 4 times,

needed teacher cues twice, and answered 8 out of 10 questions correctly. Overall, Jonah

performed well in this probe. The results show that Jonah is an academically bright student

whose attention skills keep him from staying on academic tasks independently. When comparing

his results from the previous day’s social studies Do Now (6 out of 10), Jonah answered 2 more

correct answers. His focus during the text reading and listening improved his ability to recall

information. This probe shows that Jonah is easily distracted by auditory distractions. When his

auditory channel was being completely used by the ReadWorks article, Jonah was able to stay on

task independently. He did not get distracted once. He did not need a teacher cue. However,

when he moved on to the Kahoot to answer questions, which did not use an auditory tool, he was

distracted 4 times and needed 2 teacher cues to stay on task. This shows that Jonah can stay on

task more effectively when there are less auditory distractions.

In the future, Jonah would benefit from auditory tools to help him stay on task

independently. During the independent Do Now period, Jonah may succeed in his tasks when
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done with earphones playing white noise or low music. Jonah may also succeed in independent

tasks by completing his tasks in a quiet corner of the room with less auditory distractions near

him. It may also benefit Jonah to be able to use educational technology in the classroom, such as

tools like ReadWorks. Reading text-dense non-fiction texts with a feature like Read-to-me would

benefit Jonah in his ability to stay focused and better recall information.

Paragraph 6- DOCUMENTATION

Jonah’s Probe:
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Jonah’s Results:
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Answer Key:
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Flexible Interview:

I- Interviewer/Teacher

I: How did you feel about the non-fiction text? Did you like the way it read with you?

Jonah: Yeah! The voice was kind of like a robot. I think it’s nice though. Sometimes I can’t read

the hard words but this time it read it for me.

I: Was it more helpful than just the worksheet? Like everyone else got?

Jonah: Yeah. I liked it because I can use the computer when no one else is, also I like that it reads

with me. The paper is boring because we get that every day.

I: Do you think you paid more or less attention with the voice and headphones?

Jonah: I liked it a lot because the voice was funny and it helped me. I didn’t get distracted. Also, I

like using the computer so I listened.

I: What about the Kahoot game? How did you feel about answering questions using that app?

Jonah: I love it! I used Kahoot before at an after-school class and it’s so fun. At the other class,

so many kids play it together so it’s really cool to see who gets the best score. Today, I was the

only one who did it but it was still fun because I just get first place so I won.

I: Do you think you paid more attention to the work you had to do because of the app?

Jonah: Yeah, because it wasn’t boring. When you have to circle the answers on just paper, it’s

boring. No one else got to do this so it’s nice.

I: How did you answer the questions in the game?

Jonah: I just remembered the answers from the text. But I think I remembered more because it

was reading to me. I like the reading, it feels like I know more.
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I: How well might you have done on the game if you didn’t have the reading tool?

Jonah: You mean the article reading to me? I guess not as good. It read all the hard words so I

was able to answer the questions about those.

I: But you got some answers wrong. What happened?

Jonah: Yeah, I mean, but those answers were kinda hard. Like, I thought it was ‘but’ because it

made sense, I’m not sure. But yeah. The other answer was so hard too. The text made that seem

like a type of fighting. How was I supposed to know that it was also a dance?

I: But the text says that it can be a form of dancing. Look here, does it say that?

Jonah: yeah, I guess so. But usually, we get to look back at the text when we answer questions.

And I didn’t look back, so.

I: What do you think might have happened if you used the reading website, and the game, and

was able to look back at the text during the game.

Jonah: I would have gotten a hundred! I like the game. Can we use it for every social studies

worksheet?

Paragraph 7- REFLECTION

Because this was the first time we administered a probe to a student, we learned a lot

about the process. When we reviewed the reading passage, we agreed that the question examples

of the reading passage were challenging, we modified some of the questions by rephrasing the

questions and adding literal questions that ask the student to reflect and find the answer directly

from the text. One of the biggest reasons we believe the Probe was successful is that we provided

both visual and auditory resources to the student: the passage and Read to Me feature. The audio
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feature reduced Jonah’s distraction and stayed him to focus on reading the long, informative text.

Furthermore, we contend Kahoot!’s point system stimulated his interest in answering the reading

comprehension questions. Based on his behavior and focus during the probe and his answers

from the flexible interview, Jonah enjoyed the method we used for the probe. The tools that we

chose were engaging and relevant, as well as appropriate, to the probe topic. If we have another

opportunity to use a new probe for Jonah, we would find another text-to-speech feature with a

variety of options to choose natural voices. Offering more choices for the student will motivate

the student to engage in learning and focusing on given tasks. We would also consider modifying

the probe by letting him look back on the text while he answers questions. Because he would be

able to read the text while answering the questions, we would provide short response questions

instead of multiple choices to entertain and challenge the student at the same time.