Impact of a Range of Contextual Influences on Classroom Processes - Report Example

Impact of a Range of Contextual Influences on room Processes Learning in today’s world comes from various sources. If before teachers were considered as the saga on the stage, today, they are considered as the sage on the side. In this age of technology, learning does not come solely from teachers but from learners as well. What enriches learning in the classroom is cultural diversity. Learners come from various backgrounds which impact classroom processes. Huitt, W. (2003, p. 3) states that classroom processes include “teacher and student behaviours in the classroom as well as some other variables such as classroom climate and teacher/student relationships.” Teacher’s behaviour involves planning, management, and instruction (Huitt, 2003) . To effect learning, a teacher prepares for her daily lesson from the motivation or preliminary activity to make students relate prior knowledge to new concepts about to be learned to the evaluation or assessment of students’ learning either through paper and pencil exercises or performance-based activities for better retention of concepts. Classroom Management, on the other hand, refers “to the set of strategies that teachers and students use to ensure a productive, harmonious learning environment to prevent disruptions in the learning process,” (Rothstein-Fisch, and Trumbull, 2008, p. 2). Finally, Instruction refers to orchestration of student learning. The second part of classroom processes is student behaviour which comprises of the actions a student would make in the classroom which highlights one important variable which is Academic Learning Time – the time spent for learning tasks (Huitt, 2003, p. 5). Other variables which complete the classroom processes include home, peer groups, community, religious institutions, society, culture, and international conditions. Variables related to home involves educational levels of parents, socio-economic status, age and marital status, and other variables including educational materials and equipment in the home like books, magazine, computer technology, etc. (Huitt, 2003, p. 8) Other important context subcategories include the community – its location, emphasis on education, peer groups; the society – emerging TV/Films; state and national policies- laws, programs, and funding; the culture – prevailing values, language, art, music, etc.), and international/global conditions – knowledge explosion or information age movement (Huitt, 1995 as cited in Huitt, 2003, p. 9). What influences classroom processes that effect students’ learning is the students’ contextual backgrounds, their exposures to various issues in the home, community, society and state. In a classroom of thirty students, for instance, there are thirty different cultures that interact and affect each other’s perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and motivations. To further illustrate how cultural diversity works at students’ advantage, take a social studies class, for instance. For students to have a full grasp of any concept of war, they have to be situated in a context either direct or vicarious where they themselves can better understand fully the causes and effects of war. Direct experience pertains to real exposure to war. Vicarious experience, on the other hand, refers to indirect exposure to war through films. Films are powerful tool or medium for anyone to better understand war and its effects. While direct experience has benefits to learners, it may also have its downside. Take for example, a similar topic about war. While students who have been exposed to war may enrich the classroom discussion about the topic, they may also be affected emotionally and psychologically. In the process of recalling their experiences, they may exhibit fear and anxiety which may hamper their learning. At times, individuals who have been caught in crossfires may be haunted by their bad experiences, which when prolonged may result to their low productivity as learners due to inability to focus on classroom learning. Aside from the negative effects of war on people who have experienced war themselves, war has also its drawbacks in terms of economy. Since America and UK forces have started the war in Afghanistan in October 7, 2001 (Wikipedia, 2009) out of its desperate attempt to cripple Osama Bin Ladin’s terroristic activities after the latter’s alleged 9/11 attack of twin towers in New York, Tiron (2009, p.1) states that “The US spends $ 3.6 billion dollars per month, according to the data provided by Congregational Research Service recently.” This amount could have been used to add to the existing limited budget in education. The more budget allocated for education, the better learning outcomes are expected among students across levels. Another similar context by which students may find themselves in is the global problem of recession. While students’ exposure to recession may help them understand their economics’ lessons, the same knowledge may also affect their performance in school. If the students’ parents, for instance, have been laid off from their jobs, how then can their children continue their education? With the significant budget cuts to higher education institutions that are subsidized by government. Less education budget will lead to higher tuition fees. This drives students to look for low-paid and high risk jobs to finance their studies, discounting its negative effects on their health (What are the effects of recession on the youth, Anon, 2009) If students work for their studies, then they have to juggle their time between work and studies. With this kind of arrangement, for sure, one area may be affected either work or studies. But ordinarily, studies are more often than not sacrificed. Learning of concepts in school disciplines and acquisition of technical skills may be hampered and students’ future, jeopardized. Doing two things at the same time is a tough job. That’s why among students who do part time jobs while studying, some of them may have not become successful in their educational endeavours because of inadequate time they spent for schooling. Another factor to consider that affects classroom processes in terms of global recession is the teachers’ behaviour or action toward financial crisis brought about by economic slowdown. In United Kingdom, The recession: what it means for education (Anon, n.d. p.4) states “last year, a quarter of a million teachers walked out on strike against below-inflation pay-rises, disrupting nearly 10,000 schools and inspiring other workers in their fight against the governments 2% pay cap” In this kind of strike, the students are the ones affected since they are deprived of the quality education they deserve. Missing one or two sessions is some kind of a loss on students’ learning opportunities. Not only economic downturns have threatened the world with its significant impact on education and business industries, but also a dreadful illness Swine Flu which originated from Mexico in April 2009. After the discovery of the strain virus (H1N1), the Mexican Government announced on April 27 that all schools in Mexico from kindergarten through to university will be closed until May 6 (Wikipedia, 2009). From Mexico, it spreads rapidly to various countries/states in the world including that of Europe, Asia and America. A total of 4, 773 are confirmed deaths worldwide (Wikipedia, 2009). With Swine Flu virus’ continuous spreading worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the swine flu pandemic. This creates fear among nations which results to suspension of classes for ten days in schools, colleges and universities during its outbreak when an individual is found to have incurred such illness. Suspension of classes shortens school calendar which really affects students’ learning. The sessions missed can no longer be made up, hence, short-changing students’ learning. However, the mostly affected individuals in this Swine Flu outbreak are those inflicted by the disease, especially the students. Having to stay home throughout their recovery period, they have a lot of topics missed in class which they have to catch up with as soon as they get back to school. This is also one important concern that teachers have to address in the classroom; they have to prepare remedial lessons or crash course to these students to orchestrate their learning of important concepts. Besides international conditions such as Afghan war, global recession and swine flu which affect significantly classroom processes, Information Communications Technology (ICT) age also affects classroom processes tremendously. Because of ICT, Distance or Online Education was invented to cater to individuals who are already employed but who wish to further their studies and obtain a degree. With ICT’s presence in education, UNESCO aims to ensure that all countries, both developed and developing, have access to the best educational facilities to prepare the young to their future roles in society, (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2002). UNESCO also proposes to incorporate ICT in all subjects. ICT makes educators become creative too in designing learning projects to develop students’ critical thinking skills while having fun learning. One activity that promotes critical thinking, creativity and cooperation using ICT is a webquest project. A webquest is an inquiry-oriented activity designed for students to gather information from web sources and to organize and transform this information into a useful product (Dodge, 2007, p.1). For instance, students may be asked to write a web magazine after researching about the novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, incorporating about a feature article about the author, critical review of a novel, a news item about a historical context (event) when the novel was published, and an opinion about music or art prevalent during the time of Hugo. Other contextual influences which show significant impact on classroom processes are parental support, peer support and teacher -student relationships. In a study conducted by Mansfield (2001, p. 6), she found out the following: ‘Students’ perceptions of teacher support appeared to have a significant impact on school adjustment, school affect, sense of belonging, academic engagement and effort, and for some students even academic outcomes; students with supportive peer relationships appeared to pursue social responsibility and relationship goals; students’ desire for parental approval and wish to avoid parental disapproval seemed to be a significant influence with regard to the motivational goals they pursued in classroom and school contexts.’ Mansfield (2001)’s study proves that academic achievement is the result of good relationship with parents, peers, and teachers. If students receive parental, peer and teacher support, chances are they will have good academic performance. While the aforementioned external factors have proven their effects on classroom processes, internal factors that reflect cultural diversity within students’ context such as socio-economic status, thinking/learning style, and exceptionalities (Lucas & Corpuz, 2007) also prove their significant impact on learning – the output of classroom processes. Students’ economic status in a way may affect their learning, considering the fact that the rich have access to books, magazines, journals and even to internet sources from which various knowledge come from. Thinking/Learning styles like auditory, visual, kinaesthetic and Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences vary from one learner to another. Therefore, in the lesson preparation, teachers have to consider various learning styles of students so as to be able to design learning activities that will address students’ needs. For instance, a teacher may ask her class to watch a film adapted from a novel to address the need of visual learners. For kinaesthetic learners, the class may be asked to present a drama to better understand the plot and to give life to characters. To cater to students who have varied intelligences like musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, logical-mathematical, verbal-linguistic, etc., the teacher may provide varied activities like journal writing for those with intrapersonal intelligence, song writing for musical, group interaction for interpersonal, etc. Designing different activities for the class may result to improved learning among students. In a class, at times, we may not be aware that some students may be displaying some kind of exceptionalities like Autism (a condition manifested by different levels of impaired social interaction and communication), Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (difficulty in focusing and maintaining attention and recurrent hyperactive and impulsive behaviour) , mental retardation (characterizes by significant sub-average intelligence and deficits in adaptive behaviour), etc (Lucas & Corpuz, 2007, p. 85). These special needs serve as a challenge to teachers. Awareness of these special needs will help them design specific remediation or activities that will suit the students with exceptionalities. On the whole, a range of contextual influences really impacts classroom processes. Context refers to the factors outside of the classroom that might influence teaching and learning (Huitt, 2003, p.2). In this paper, contextual influences discussed previously include the impact of Afghan war, recession, swine flu, ICT, home and school environment on classroom processes involving teacher behaviour (as planning, management, and instruction) and student behaviour (like his academic learning time – learning engagement and effort). Consequently, learning is the outcome of classroom processes. Hence, looking into the impact of Afghan war, recession, Swine Flu, ICT, etc. on learning, all these factors point to both positive and negative effects. Positively, having been exposed to these global concerns on war, pandemic Swine flu, ICT, learners have gained a solid understanding of these concepts. These pieces of knowledge are easily stored in the long term memory and are retrievable any time. According to Piaget (1983) as cited in Lucas and Corpuz (2007), meaningful experiences help the learners accommodate and assimilate information in the brain. However, war deprives the youth of quality education since the budget supposedly to be used for education or health services has been diverted to ammunitions and salaries and benefits of soldiers fighting in the war. Similarly, since recession lessens the budget in education, it lowers down the schools’ efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of instruction. With the advent of Information Communications Technology (ICT), teaching is made easy. Designing of creative activities and projects using the Net has resulted to students’ high engagement in learning. Yet, who can utilize technology for learning’s sake? Again, it boils down to another serious problem, because only the rich can access the Net. Economic status, therefore, is a variable to consider that affects one’s learning. To effect learning among students, teachers must also consider not only the external factors such as recession, swine flu outbreak, ICT, Afghan war, but also some of the internal factors that make up cultural diversity in the classroom setting as well. These include students’ economic status, cognitive abilities, learning/thinking styles and exceptionalities (if any). Planning daily lesson, managing a class, and guiding learning (instruction) require understanding of individual differences so as to be able to design appropriate teaching methods, strategies, activities, management styles, and materials suitable to various types of learners. As what contextual learning theory says, “learning occurs only when students (learners) process new information or knowledge in such a way that it makes sense to them in their own frames of reference (their own inner worlds of memory, experience, and response),” (CORD, 2008) References Cord, 2008. What is Contextual Learning? Available at: http://www.cord.org/contextual-learning-definition/ (Accessed 19 October 2009). Dodge, Bernie, 2007. Webquest.org. Available at: http://webquest.org/. (Accessed 19 October 2009) 2009 flu pandemic. Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic. (Accessed 17 October 2009) Huitt, W. (2003). A transactional model of the teaching/learning process. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Available at http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/materials/tchlrnmd.html (Accessed 17 October 2009). Huitt, W. (1995). Success in the information age: A paradigm shift. In Huitt, W. (2003). A transactional model of the teaching/learning process. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Available at http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/materials/tchlrnmd.html (Accessed 17 October 2009). Lucas, Maria Rita and Corpuz, Brenda 2007. Facilitating Learning: A Metacognitive Process. Philippines: Lorimar Publishing, Inc. Mansfield, Caroline, 2001. Contextual Influences on student motivation in the first year of middle school. In Australian Association for Research in Education. Western Australia 2-7 December 2001. Australian Association: Australia. Available at: http:/wwww.aare.edu.au/01pap/man01473,htm. (Accessed 18 October 2009) Rothstein-Fisch, Carrie and Trumbull, Elise. Managing Diverse Classrooms: How to Build on Students Cultural Strengths.(pdf) Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2008. Available at: http://www.unc.edu/world/2008Seminars/Diverse%20Classrooms,%20Cultural%20Strengths.pdf (Accessed 19 October 2009) The recession: what it means for education. Available at http://libcom.org/library/recession-what-it-means-education(Accessed 18 October 2009) Tiron, Roxanne, 2009. U.S. spending $ 3.6 billion a month in Afghanistan according to CRS report. Available at http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room (Accessed 18 October 2009). What are the effects of economic recession on the youth? Available at http://www.content4reprint.com/culture-and-society/current-affairs/what-are-the-effects-of-economic-recession-on-the-youth.htm (Accessed 18 October 2009). UNESCO, 2002. Ed. Anderson and Weert, Tom van. Information and Communication Technology in Education: A curriculum for Shcools and Program of Teacher Development. (e-book) Available at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001295/129538e.pdf. France: UNESCO (Accessed 19 October 2009). Read More