Environmental Factors on Education

 Environmental factors can a have a great effect on communities, districts, and schools. Geographic location, school and community population, socioeconomics, race and ethnicity, stability of community, and community support for education can all have a drastic effect on the success of students in the learning environment. This is true in my community, district, and school as it is in every place in world.

A community can a have a large effect on how successful students are in school. This is especially true if the community in which the school resides is stable and supportive of the school. Within the community my school resides, the community is very supportive of the school. Fundraisers are always successful, either meeting or exceeding every goal that is trying to be attained. The school teams draw large crowds, exceeding far more people than the average “parents and family” that are in attendance at some schools. The drama program also draws fairly large crowds for high school productions. The community is also stable. It has one of the highest income per capita in the state. It houses many offices of major corporations, including the largest freight trucking company in the United States. The crime rate is very low, nearly 30% lower than the average of other communities of equal size. All of these are positive influences for students in the classroom.

The district also has factors that effect the experience of the students in the classroom. The socioeconomics of the the school's district are interesting. It benefits from the proximity to three of the largest corporations in the United States and the world. This allows the district to have a more stable environment. This also gives the district a larger tax base, meaning it is able to have more funding for educational endeavors. The district is also conveniently located geographically. It is pretty much right in the middle of a metro area of about 500,000 people. The district does have a few rural areas, but most of it sits in city limits. This allows for easier access to places such as museums, theaters, and educational resources outside of the school.

The school is the last place to be analyzed. It has the most direct effect in a contextual manner on the students and their success in the classroom. The school is one of the largest schools in the state by population, with nearly 2,000 students spread over grades 9-12. At times, school population can have a negative effect because it can cause a disproportionate student-teacher ratio. Luckily for the students, the ratio at the school is 13-1, which allows for a better, more well rounded education that supplies more one on one instruction. Race and ethnicity also play a part in the contextual factors. The school is nearly 40% Hispanic, with nearly 71% of those students considered English Language Learners. This could have a troublesome effect in classrooms and learning in general when compared to the fact that 97% of the teachers at the school are white. I think this trouble is avoided for the most part though, because of the amount of support the school gets from the community, which also has a heavy mix of white and Hispanic populations.

A classroom itself has contextual factors which effects how well the students learn. The rooms physical features, the technology available, how much parents are involved, and what grade level the students are can greatly effect the success of the students.

The room is a standard class, with block walls and flourescent lights. The class is filled with individual desks for the students. These desks are in rows facing the front of the room. Two white boards are in the room, one at the front of the room and one to the left (when facing the back). Two bulletin boards are also in the room. A small board is near the back of the classroom, and a large board sits on the right side of the room. The back of the room is filled with cabinets and book shelves. Stored here are various history books as well as surplus text books. At the front of the room there is also a smart board which is hooked up to the computer. The walls of the room are decorated with various history related posters. At the front of the room in the left corner sits the teacher's desk. Another smaller desk is in the front right corner, which is where I sit.

The classroom has a fair amount of technology at its disposal. The class has internet connection in two ways: direct connection for the teachers main computer and wifi for others to connect to. The classroom has a SmartBoard which is connected to the teacher's computer. This allows the teacher to display all kinds of things, from videos to original documents. The room also has an ELMO, though this is not used as much as the SmartBoard. The classes also have access to three carts of thirty laptops for the students to use, which are fairly easy to get available.

Parental involvement in the class is good. I have had email exchanges with many of the parents wanting to keep track of their child's progress in class. Email seems to be the preferred way of communication, and it has worked well for discussing the students' progress.

The students in the class are all freshmen, which impacts the class to an extent. Many of the students are not used to a high school level work load, so they find themselves at times frustrated with their success. As the year has moved on though, they have started to learn how to balance their life with school.

Some contextual factors can impact the design of instruction and assessment within the class. Four of those ways are age, language, learning styles and modalities, and achievement and developmental levels. Age is the most straight forward. Due to the fact that the class is all freshmen, every student is fourteen or fifteen years old. This lends itself to an array of maturity levels. Some of the students behave well, acting like what would be expected of a high schooler. Other students, though, still act like they did in junior high, which can be detrimental to the learning experience by causing distractions and disruptions during the lesson. This can force the teacher to adapt the instruction to be more involved so as to keep the students from being more disruptive. Language is another contextual factor in the class which can have an effect. Over half of the students in the class are Hispanic. As stated earlier, over 70% of the Hispanic students in the school are English Language Learners. The same is true in the class. This class has five students which require a modified assessment because of their ELL deficiencies. Learning styles and modalities also have an effect on the class. I have to find a equlibrium between the students who prefer a a visual, hands on approach to those who prefer an auditory, lecturing style. To deal with this, I try to incorporate both aspects into every lesson as a way to touch all my bases. The last contextual factor that impacts instruction and assessment in the class is achievement and developmental levels. Since this is a regular class, it has a wider range of levels in achievement and development. Some of the students are smart enough to excel in a Pre-AP class, while some of the students struggle with the basic material due to language barriers or learning deficiencies such as autism. This forces me to have to adjust lessons so that I can meet the educational needs of those who are excelling so they don't suffer from boredom while not going above the heads of those who are struggling already.

Prior knowledge and student skills can greatly effect how a teacher will design learning goals, instruction, and assessments. Since the students have very little prior knowledge of the Cold War before the unit is to be taught, this will force me to broaden the learning goals. Instead of focusing on details analysis, I will have to cover broad concepts and facts. The varying student skill also forces this upon the learning goals. Student skills also effect the instruction. Since this is a regular class and most of the students are visual learners, this will make it more useful to use a more hands on approach to teach the students the material for the unit, which will limit the students' ability to do in-depth research. The student skills and prior knowledge will have an effect on the assessment as well. Since the students will be forced to learn only broad concepts, and because most do not have the skills required to do indepth research, this will force me to assess them based on facts such as dates and concept definitions instead of philosophical implications of the applications of the concepts or the contextual meaning of the dates.