Case Study: Contextual Factors

I did my pupil instruction of Biological Science at Airport High School, in West Columbia, South Carolina. Airport High School is within the Lexington District Two School Community. The territory has 17 schools and about 8,800 pupils. Two of the 17 schools are high schools. The territory is composed 57.8 % White, 33.5 % African American, 6.0 % Hipic, and 2 % other. Two environmental contextual factors include socioeconomics and the community population. The socio-economic position of the community consists chiefly of a in-between to low category population. Due to the low socio-economic position, the school is provided with plans, such as free or decreased tiffins. The purpose of this plan is to enable a manner for pupil to acquire repasts, therefore run intoing the basic demand of hungriness. Meeting the demand of hungriness will enable the pupil to concentrate in category and larn the stuff. The community population has been turning over the old ages. Many new schools have been established to run into this demand. However, due to miss of financess to construct and staff a sufficient figure of schools to back up the community, each schools population has increased.

The territory shows support for the educational demands of all pupils. The territory has developed a parenting and household service plan called STAR. STAR is an acronym for Get downing Together…Arriving Ready. The plan is an early acquisition plan for parents and their kids birth to five old ages old. It helps give a head start on kids larning for qualified households run intoing the demand standards. Some of the demands standards are based off of the household ‘s primary linguistic communication and household income degree. Staticss have indicated that pupils coming from lower income households or English as a 2nd linguistic communication have more trouble in schools. This plan will assist supply them with a get downing foundation. Lexington County is composed of 5 school territories. The territory I taught at happens to be the lowest socioeconomic territory and receives less funding than the other territories. This evidently affects the teaching- acquisition procedure as they have less instructors and less financess to buy needful points for the schoolrooms in the territory. This frequently leads to pupils sharing books or the territory non being able to buy computing machines or other stuffs.

The school is geographically located near the province ‘s capital and less than a stat mi from the Columbia Metropolitan Airport. At times, planes will wing near to the roof of the school doing a break in the category room. The noise disrupts the pupils thought and causes schoolroom speaking. Both of these have a negative consequence on the acquisition procedure. The schools population is higher than norm. As stated above, the community has tried to react to a turning population by constructing new schools. Airport High School, the instructor to student ratio is approximately dual what the recommended ratio should be. This places a strain on schoolroom direction and finally affects the sum of single attending a instructor can give to a pupil.

Classroom factors that can impact the instruction and acquisition procedure are physical characteristics of the schoolroom, handiness of engineering equipment and resources, extent of parental engagement, and the schoolroom topic. Due to a deficiency of instructors, schoolrooms have to be combined. Once they are combined the schoolroom may be at capacity for the figure of pupils. The suites can go cramped for infinite and desk being closer together to suit everyone in. Uniting categories may intend that college readying and awards category pupil may be in the same room. This has an consequence on the teaching-learning procedure as the instructor has to accommodate a manner of instruction and proving that will make both degrees. A 2nd schoolroom factor is the handiness of engineering equipment and resources. For a biological scientific discipline category a research lab is needed for the survey. I have found that the budget was deficient to supply each pupil equal equipment and resources to execute some of the needed labs. To suit this, the labs were completed in little group scenes or put up as a individual presentation. Many households I encountered had both parents working or the pupil may come from a individual parent place. Because of this, the parents may merely be slightly active in the pupil larning as they do non experience they have the clip to be involved. The schoolroom topic of biological science was a new construct to many pupils. It was presenting thoughts and nomenclature they had ne’er heard earlier. This slowed the teaching-learning procedure because many things had to be introduced a small at a clip and frequently repeated.

Student contextual factors such as age, developmental degrees, civilization and particular demands affect the direction and appraisal of larning. In high schools the pupils are at an age where they feel and act as if they already know everything. Some may move disengaged or disinterested. There may be pupils with different developmental degrees in one category room. Some pupils may hold single acquisition programs and have to go forth the room to take a trial with a counsellor. A instructor could hold particular instruction pupils in the schoolroom that need alterations. Cultural beliefs may forbid a pupil from executing a dissection in a lab. All of these are factors that a instructor must believe about in the development of their programs and appraisals.

Student ‘s accomplishment and anterior cognition can besides act upon how a instructor plans their acquisition ends, direction, and appraisal. Teachers are required foremost to garner information about the pupils ‘ anterior acquisition and link the content and accomplishments to the pupil ‘s conceptual model for larning. A instructor must retrieve all, or possible, contextual factors that are present in the school, territory, and community in which the work. By understanding and cognizing the contextual factors a instructor can break fix their schoolroom direction so that all pupils are larning.