all right hi 2100 students today we're going to talk about contextual factors I I know you've been working on this for your major course assignment on the Utah case study uh but we want to talk about what this actually looks like in the classroom and how it impacts teaching um so that teachers can make a greater difference with their students so to get started um let's think about all the different contextual factors there are you've read about these what do you personally think are the most important things and it might be um Family Life of your students it might be household income it might be race it might be language so there's a lot of big things right when it comes to contextual factors when we think about school districts we think about like the resources available to them maybe what part of town it's in um there are cultural factors uh certainly here in rural Ral Utah we have agricultural versus uh industry we have um religious factors uh even political factors and and so of all those things what would impact your students the most um I I think that obviously uh all the factors matter and so there's not one thing that determines uh instruction or it determines the culture of a classroom uh but it's important to be aware of kind of the big ones and we know from research that the the biggest things are the household factors for your student um in particular household income how much your parents make uh because that dictates what resources are available to you and what you can do after school you know somebody who can go to summer school and has tutors versus someone who's going home to support their family right and so that makes a big difference in their education and in their socialization um a lot of these factors are um cultural factors right that um certain things are espoused or or emphasized in one area over another and so certainly teaching in rural Utah would be different from teaching in inner city New York um and so we have to take these things under consideration uh in the article that you read it talked about the location the school factors and the student factors and I just want to go through some of these really quickly um here is my hometown and it's a cute little Main and I think about the the opportunities I had because I was from a working class Community uh very agricultural a lot of farmers a lot of hardworking uh people but also not a lot of wealth in my community we didn't deal with um extreme wealth um and at least I wasn't aware of extreme poverty I'm sure it existed um contrast that with where my wife grew up in Utah Valley and neighboring high schools one would be super super wealthy and have lots of resources and the other one would be kind of ghetto and and not have as many resources so those things make a difference um just where you're at in town or what city you're in versus others even regionally um or even nationally so communities um impact what kind of resources are available in schools what things are available in homes what extracurriculars there are uh certainly when it comes to like crime and other safety concerns um that's tied to where you live and then a big thing is religious racial diversity um we could talk about even gender identity here and um where certain things are more acceptable or less acceptable or or accepted I guess is the better word um cultural attitudes regarding education and we know those can vary widely and then even events and Tra Traditions here in in Cedar City uh we put a a premium on theater um and so there's lots of opportunities to be involved with Shakespeare or local theater and so that impacts uh what happens in the classrooms often um we also you know most places if if we were in Texas we'd talk about football right um here in in Cedar City we also we do have a strong Community there's parades all the time there's different cool little things and so those things matter all right thinking about students obviously you're going to teach a Kindergarten class different than you're going to teach a fifth grade class which is different from how you teach a bunch of juniors in high school so uh age is a big factor in cognitive development where they're at um socially that's those are all factors gender and gender identity again is a big deal um and being able to help students be accepting of one another um and doing the same as as teachers of course um the culture of our student students and accommodating that in the classroom and then of course personal interests um you're going to have greater success with students if you can find those Common Grounds things that you enjoy that they enjoy or or being genuinely interested in what interests those uh students um so we want to be able to anticipate our students needs and that comes by understanding our students and so once like in our assignment we're going to um really dig into the research on the school districts and the individual schools but once you get your classroom then you really dig into your students interests their backgrounds um and go from there now each school is going to be impacted by both of those things right so it's within a community and how much money that Community have will often dictate the size of the school the resources within that school what's available to students and then of course those individual students and what uh is important to them and their family amilies that's Alo going to influence what's in these schools and so um we'll find different things from place to place so a couple questions and then we're going to dig into some case studies um how can you or is it even possible to totally differentiate instruction for each of your students of course differentiate is something that we use in education which simply means to customize the curriculum to the individual needs of each student so if you have a class of 20 students can you teach every lesson personalized for each of those 20 students um that's a pretty tall order so some people would say no that's not possible others would say there's little subtle little things that you can throw in to tweak the curriculum and to customize it for your students to differentiate that instruction um the reality some between those two right that maybe we'll we'll get an understanding of the whole culture of the school and of the community and that will impact our curriculum and then those little things that as we get to know our students better and better we throw little things tied to their interests or tied to their abilities or to their culture into what we're talking about in the classroom and this is a great opportunity I know some of my favorite experiences in the classroom are like I had a a really awesome uh student a few years ago who whose family was Indian and she actually invited me and my family to join them for a few of their uh festivals and celebrations and so uh I got to see that culture a little bit more and it was really cute because they would like dress up our little daughters in their cute outfits and they would do dances with them and stuff it was really fun but then when there was a religious holiday for this particular student she was very open and comfortable sharing about it in our class and then our whole class could ask questions and and get to know the student better but also get to know this part of the culture which was also a part of our community a small part of our community but a part of our community so there's some opportunities there now the higher number of students the more difficult it is to do that right so when you have 20 or 25 students and you're with them all day long every day you get to know your students pretty well um the amount of time I've spent with you so far via lecture is like the equivalent of less than one day in the classroom and so I don't know you guys nearly as well as I would in a a k uh six setting if you're a high school teacher and you teach five or six classes and each class has 20 or 30 students now you're dealing with hundreds of students and so it's going to be harder to differentiate instruction in those situations but it's not impossible and that's why we're looking at Community factors School factors and then individual factors for these students um what can we do to make our our classroom a safe place and this is the first step in differentiating our instruction having a place where our students feel like they can ask questions where they can contribute where they don't feel like they're going to be judged and so you have to think about what can you do as a teacher to create that safe space for them initially so then you can get to know them better because they're going to feel more comfortable sharing if they feel like they're not going to be judged or it's not going to have a negative impact on them all right so that takes us here to our case studies I want to give you a few different kinds of of students and I'm using generalities here I'm using different groups for the purposes of this assignment obviously not all students are going to fit into any of these groups or some students will fit into many of these groups and so uh we're just going to talk about them hypothetically your job is as I talk about these different student profiles you need to think about how can you accommodate these students in your classroom what are little things that you can do to make their lives a little bit easier or better to improve learning and this is something that you might want to put notes of into your lecture reflection excuse me all right so let's start with oh actually let's start with this this is actually great because one of the things that we've done for you again you can find this form here by just Googling suu student teaching going down to the forms and then finding the suu daily lesson plan and I pulled this up because here in this third column I often have student teachers who don't feel confident in filling out this third column which is meet learner differences and that's what we're going to talk about today and so I'm trying to give you some ideas of things that you consider about individual students or a whole class even that you might put in this third column it's saying let's identify evidence-based practice to meet specific individual group learner needs and consider content process product and environment so we're going to think about these student profiles and then think you know what would that look like in the classroom all right so um this is from my face tace uh so we'll skip that slide and just head on to this um so first group of students the seemingly disengaged but thoughtful student many of you uh probably identify with this I know I certainly did um I have a lot of students who would fit this category um generally uh and even you know as a parent I see this sometimes in my my own kids where it's sometimes hard to tell are they bored are they totally disengaged or are they off in their own world deeply thinking about these things that we're considering as a class and sometimes it's hard to tell now as an example of this I I put some some of the extremes here uh down uh kids on the autism spectrum often exhibit these behaviors um introverts um and I would put myself in that camp often you know don't raise their hand don't participate or or offer a lot um vocally in the classroom so shy students people with social anxiety there's there's a lot of students who fit in here how do we meet their needs so if you have students in a class who are reluctant to participate how can we include them well uh you think about that and you can include your ideas in your lecture reflection but let me just give you a couple ideas I I know that if if I just randomly call on these students um often it will totally stress them out and they'll have a bad experience and then they'll start dreading going to class and so if I have created a safe environment and that's where we start then they know that they're not going to be judged right one of the things that I love to do uh in regards to that is think pair shares um if you give students a question to consider by themselves then put them in a very low stakes environment where there's no right or wrong answer it's an opinion thing but share it with your neighbor neighbor or share it with your group and then once everyone's had a talk a chance to actually talk about it then I can randomly call on any student in the class draw popsicle sticks or put them their names in a randomizer or just call on people and they've already talked about their answer so it shouldn't feel as stressful at that point to participate in the class I love using the strategy especially early in the school year because uh if I can do it and especially with things that are less consequential like what's your favorite movie talk to your neighbor about it and then I'm going to just randomly call on kids in class to share their favorite movie the class there's no right or wrong to that it's an opinion it's me trying to get to know you and your interest so it definitely builds with the culture of the classroom now we can also do that with content specific things um but it's a little more tricky there because now student preparation goes into play student understanding and so there you might want to stick more to the small groups and the one-on-one or let students volunteer their answers rather than randomly calling on students all right so that's just one thought um next group The seemingly always distracted and disruptive student I also can relate to this not because I was a classc con or anything but because with my ADHD I I have a hard time focusing I am often distracted and and trying to multitask and think and do a lot of different things all at the same time and so um you know that there might be stimulus overload uh in a class for certain students where other students seem to thrive by having lots of things going on um and I included here class clowns extroverts outgoing students but I think even students from this previous group sometimes they act this way and sometimes they act this way and so it just depends on your situation but what can we do for the disruptive students and and this is an important one for new teachers especially um the number number one issue that we see with new teachers and this is universal as we look at the research on what's the biggest challenge that you face as a brand new teacher it's always classroom management it's always dealing with those students who want or or even need more attention but they're seeking out that attention in ways that are disruptive to other students and take away from the overall learning in the classroom so what can we do for these students I observe this all the time as I see student teachers in the class room and of course with my own experiences and what I would say is look for ways to reward progress to reward good behavior focus on the positive things rather than POS focusing on punishment and negative behavior um give opportunities for students to succeed so sometimes a student who um is doing things that are very disruptive maybe it's because they're in a position in the classroom where it's really easy to be disruptive so simply moving them to a different place in the classroom could help that student Focus could help that student work more collaboratively Etc so sometimes it's as simple as classroom Arrangement other times it it might take giving positive attention right so if I have a student who is making off-handed remarks about everything I say well that could be an opportunity for me as a teacher to seek out that student oneon-one outside of the classroom because if I react publicly in the classroom it's going to make it worse because they're getting attention which is what they wanted so if I give them attention In the Heat of something and I'm frustrated or whatever that's simply going to reinforce their bad behaviors but if I can pull them aside some other time and say hey I love your personality I love that you're making a smile in class let's be strategic with this today so I'm going to want to call on you in these few areas today can you prepare in advance and be thinking and and even come up with something funny to respond and I'll be anticipating that it's going to be really great looking for those opportunities to get get on the same page with those students that can really go a long way now of course you have to be careful with that don't overdo it and make sure that you can maintain some dignity within your classroom uh but you might need to be creative here if you have some thoughts on this one this is one that of course uh we could all do a lot better on so I'd love to hear your thoughts in the lecture reflection next case study students with a uh barrier and I say language barrier but then you'll see here in the examples some of these things are just communication barriers right so uh an English language learner obviously is going to have a harder time learning in the classroom and some of the easy um helps for that is to translate materials like have worksheets in multiple languages um even students really appreciate effort so if you don't speak their language if you're not a native speaker of their language and you wanted to create maybe not every document for them but maybe one document over a month and just so they have it in their own language and you say look um I used Google Translate to create this so I bet it's not perfect but I spent four hours working on it they are going to appreciate that and they're going to work hard to um do their best on that thing because they know that you're invested in them if you show that you care about them H they're going to reciprocate that more often than not and so helping students with a language barrier it it could be as simple as doing a translation uh getting to know their families things like that um I've had non-verbal students before and it was really hard sometimes we used whiteboards to communicate with each other um hearing impaired fortunately now with technology I love that like videos that I make like this I can put on a Clos captioning track and so uh for an online situation it's actually easier now than ever before to help with hearing or visually impaired um visually impaired is an interesting one because obviously we could have students who are completely blind but more common and this is common in every classroom we have students who maybe struggle seeing the board um and so you need to move them to the front row or you need to move them from one place to another and so that would be uh accommodating a learner need right so in that third column of our suu lesson plan you could even just say hey I have one student who can't see very well from the back uh row so this class period I'm going to move them up to the front row and see if it makes a difference and so you can include things like that in your lesson plans all right this next one hopefully I don't get too emotional here uh but this is both one of the hardest things that we deal with as a teacher but can potentially be one of the most rewarding and that is dealing with students in the midst of Crisis um you almost assuredly will have students uh at any level and I have this with my college students uh students who their parents are fighting or going through a divorce students who are struggling with gender identity or or feeling not accepted uh by a particular group um a death in the family an injury um and sometimes injuries or illnesses can be prolonged right so maybe you'll have a student on crutches for months and months that's going to impact their um how they work within a classroom and so anticipating these students needs these all have to be on a one-on-one individualized basis right because uh if for example if a student just went through a a traumatic thing for one student saying hey let's give you a couple weeks to mourn or to adjust or whatever and then we'll ease back into school work so I'm going to exempt you from certain assignments that might be really good for some students but other students might benefit by throwing themselves into their work and not having that time off and so the important thing here is understanding your students and understanding what they feel will help them best without them taking advantage of the situation or advantage of you however if you're going to air air air on the side of compassion and kindness here right if a student's going through a hard thing and maybe they're they are suffering academically and maybe that even has long-term implications um if they feel that their teacher cares about them it's doing their best to support and love them that's more important than having a high GPA at least in my opinion so here I am on my sub subbox um but this is something one-on-one as far as what we can do as teachers um the same thing we would do for our friends for our children to show kindness and compassion I love one of the things that we started doing as a family a while ago is when we knew someone was struggling with something even if we didn't know what that something was we would go to the dollar store and create a hug boox where we' just get lots of cheap little treats and toys and just snacks and stuff like that we'd put it together in a little box we'd write them a short note that just says hey we're just thinking about you wanted to send you this hug and and then drop it off on their porch or hand it to them and I've done that with students as well and they're always well received those those things don't take a lot of time don't necessarily cost a lot of money um but help somebody feel uh important WR writing thank you notes or notes of encouragement that's an easy way to deal with this um pulling your students aside and simply talking to them can me the world to certain students often we don't know what they're going through right and some students will be going through a major traumatic thing but they don't want to share it publicly maybe they don't feel safe or don't want to be vulnerable we don't know uh but you're going to be more likely to be able to help students if you're asking questions how do you feel today you know put your little popsicle stick up on the board in the happy pile or in the sad pile doing things like that to start the day goes a long way um having journaling opportunities with the classroom goes a long way simply checking in with students and this is one of my favorite things I ever did as a a K12 teacher was every once in a while having an aid or another teacher come into my class to do a really easy to monitor thing like read a book with my students and then while they're reading with the whole class I would pull students out one at a time I wouldn't be targeting students or anything I'd do it for everyone so it usually go alphabetically or number order and I would simply have a sit down check-in with students and tell me how things are going and it wasn't always about grades and sometimes it wasn't about grades at all it'd be are you making friends uh what do you look forward to the most at school um how are things after school like do you look forward to going home what are your favorite things to do stuff like that simply having these very low stakes just conversations with students often help them open up to talking about things that they're they are struggling with and then you can support them better on those things so just something to consider um that's the end of our case studies I have a few other just questions that I want to cycle through really quickly uh just to get your mind thinking and of course in your lecture reflection I'd love to know what have your teachers done or what have you considered on things that you could do to help support any of these groups of students or students generally um so just a couple quick questions um what are things uh what are things about students that impact how they learn in the classroom so we already talked about that it's sry redundant here here's a quote that I liked from one of the Articles when kids are loved at home they come to school to learn other kids who aren't come to school other kids who aren't loved at home uh come to school to be loved and and I've certainly seen that and I I say does this apply to college students because I I totally believe this like I see this with my students even online where if they're struggling with mental health if they're struggling with things at home are they showing up in this classroom almost never right it's hard to balance traumatic experiences with focusing on school and so um what does that mean for us as teachers how do we support those students how do we find out what's going on in their lives and and how much is too much and so that brings us to this what if students just don't want us to be involved in their lives what if they don't want us to know what's going on I I think there's a fine line here between respecting those kinds of wishes but doing what's best for their long-term growth and development and some times you have to ask questions um sometimes it's like legal obligations like if you see uh evidence of abuse for example um you need to ask questions you need to refer to Professionals in those situations um if students just aren't interested in being friendly with you can you still ask them questions you know what's your favorite ice cream that it's not I guess it's personal but it's not intrusive and so you can keep things more at that uh professional level uh if if you're in those situations all right um what does this look like in other countries and I bring this up because as I've well I've taught entire courses to students from other countries um I've had different cohorts of students U International students and and I've noticed that for many of my International students at first it's almost a little frightening to see how informal teachers are here and how teachers get to know students and their interests because in their home countries it's business right you don't get to know your teachers at all you don't know anything about them they don't know anything about you now that's not true of all countries uh but it is true in some countries and so if you have students who have that background you might want to approach them more delicately in your own classroom so just something to think about there um and then this is something I do with one of my face-to-face classes think about detail in your life and um if your teacher understood that better how could that make a difference um a lot of uh teachers do this activity that says what's something that you wish your teacher understood about you and this is something where if you want to include this in your reflection this week I'd love to hear it um obviously with my face tof face class we we talk about this a little bit more but it's something worth considering um ask your students what what's something you wish that I knew or understood about you and often students will open up um and that can make things better for you um we're going to go ahead and end with that today I think this has gone on long enough a lot to think about as far as creating an inclusive classroom uh and being able to support our students because we understand the contextual factors that impact how they're coming to our classroom so a lot of things to consider here have a wonderful week byebye