Column #1

Column 1 – A) What are the specific Important Societal Factors – EDFD 460-461-
462 that serve as resources and challenges impacting the learning of the learner(s) you
are studying in your clinical setting (See the following document: Important Societal
Factors – EDFD 460-461-462) (Remember to focus on resources, not just
challenges!!!).

Racialization is a societal factor that can definitely be a challenge for the learners in the
clinical setting that I am studying. There are only a few students in my classroom who are not
white, and the racialization of being a different race can be difficult for those students. One girl
in my class is Asian American and she probably deals with the racialization that she should be
smart. This prejudgment that people make about her can be a challenge for her when she is
trying to learn.
Ideology could be a resource for the students in the classroom of my clinical experience.
The other day the class was learning about the Vietnam war, and the songs that were produced
in response to the war. The student’s ideology and their own perspective could be a resource
for them to call on when learning about certain things in social studies classes like the Vietnam
War.
Another resource or challenge could be the economic conditions. Having good economic
conditions would lead to a student being better educated and having better opportunities,
while poor economic conditions would do the opposite. Economic conditions of learners could
be either a barrier or a resource depending on what the student’s economic conditions are.

B) What developmental and/or learning theorists learned in EDFD

400/401 can be used to argue why these specific Important Societal Factors
are significant?

In the bioecological theory of development, Urie Bronfenbrenner argues that the

environment around students has a significant impact on students. This environment around
them includes societal factors like racialization, ideology, and economic conditions.
Racialization from peers and other students would be an example of Bronfenbrenner’s
Microsystem which is the immediate environment around the students. The ideology that the
student has is part of the Macro system environment in Bronfenbrenner’s theory. Lastly, the
economic conditions that a student is in could span across a couple of Bronfenbrenner’s
different systems of the environment around a student. Overall, in his theory the societal
factors around a student are very significant in their development and learning.
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C) How do specific arguments made by Eric Jensen or any other scholars used
on ANY OF the 6Poverty Analyses (Areas Discussed in the Eric Jensen Reading –
located in the D2L Discussion section) shape your present thinking about working with
impoverished learners? (Cite specific author arguments, examples, and page
numbers here!!)?

Eric Jensen’s section on Effort shapes my present thinking about working with
impoverished learners. In this section he says, “uninformed teachers may think that poor
children show little effort because they are lazy” (Jensen 26), but that in fact the students are
only responding to the teacher’s effort and their economic status has nothing to do with it.
While in my clinical setting I have kept what Jensen argued in mind. I have noticed that my
teacher does a good job of engaging all of her students, even those who might be
impoverished. However, there have been times that I have noticed some students slouching or
showing little effort, and when this happens I think about ways that the teacher could give
more effort and engage those students more.
One day in my classroom I noticed that some boys in the back of the class were on their
computers playing video games rather than listening to the teacher. The teacher at the time
was lecturing about the space race and how the USSR and the USA raced to the moon. At the
time, there was no interaction with the students and this is what likely caused the boys to play
video games. Later in the class period, the teacher had an in-class assignment in which the
students had to look up on their computers facts about the space race. This was a much more
engaging activity that led to all of the students learning and not being bored and ‘lazy’. This
observation that I had backs up Jensen’s argument that when a teacher gives more effort and
finds interactive activities for the student to do, the students become more engaged in their
learning.

D) How do you see your Cooperating Teacher addressing (or missing the opportunity to
address) students’ development of “soft skills” (Be specific with concrete examples of
these soft skills – See Closure to the Poverty Analysis Discussion) and any specific 21st
Century Framework Skills discussed in the following resources: P21 Framework –
Definitions and Descriptions (Don’t just say some lame sentence about Smartboards
here!!)

The teacher in my field experience classroom does a very good job of addressing the
student’s soft skills. Many of the activities in the class are partner activities or group activities.
These types of activities are very good for developing communication skills which are soft skills.
Rather than researching about the space race by themselves, the teacher asked the students to
research it and compare what they had with their neighbors and fellow classmates. This extra
step in learning the material factored in the students’ development of their soft skills.
To go along with communication skills, the teacher develops the students’ public
speaking by calling on students in class to present the material that they had been researching
about. Public speaking skills like these are very valuable for students to learn because they will
use them all of their lives. Overall, my teacher does a very good job of developing her students’
soft skills.

E) How do you see (or fail to see) how your cooperating teacher demonstrates any of
the concrete strategies for working with impoverished learners that you
learned from your outside scholar that you used for your group’s Poverty
Analysis Discussion OR as identified by your classmates’ outside scholar
discussed in their specific Poverty Analysis? (Cite the specific outside scholar,
the title of the article, page numbers, and specific, concrete strategies discussed in said
article!!).

In my outside research for the poverty analysis I found an article by Matthew Irvin. In
this article, Relationship of school context to rural youth's educational achievement and
aspirations, he explored strategies to help students who are impoverished. Many of the
strategies were ones that the school or school district would have to address like student to
teacher ratio, geographic location or the school, and proportion of students in the school who
live in poverty.
These different strategies that Irvin talked about could not be addressed by my
cooperating teacher because they are too large of strategies. They are not things that one
teacher could do to help impoverished learners, but instead strategies that the whole school of
Winona High school should address. The school making sure that there are small class sizes
would be something that would help impoverished learners get more attention from teachers.
Also, the school district could make sure that there are schools close enough the poor students,
so that the students do not have to travel an unnecessary distance to get to class. These
strategies that Irvin brought up are good ones on a larger scale, but from the micro level
(teacher to student) they don’t apply much.
At Winona High school class sizes are not extremely large, but they could be smaller to
improve learning. In my specific classroom, there are around 25 students. With this class size
the teacher has to work hard to be interactive with all of the students, but it is possible to do.
My cooperating teacher does a good job of engaging all the students despite having more
student than would be ideal.