Learner Analysis Assignment

Learner Analysis Assignment内容摘要：

Learner Analysis Assignment FRIT 7430 – Instructional Design Tye Beck Judith Haggerty Kimberly Minter Tammy Stratton Georgia Southern University Summer 2011 Learner Analysis Assignment Introduction The environment for this analysis is an 11th grade American Literature class from an urban public high school located in southwest Georgia. The instructional goal is for students to demonstrate reading comprehension and interpretation skills by identifying figurative language in a variety of texts from many different genres in American literature. Demographics The demographics for the specific learner group include 85% African-American male and females, with approximately 10% Caucasian male and females, and 5% Hispanic male and females. The majorities of learners come from a lower-socioeconomic background and live in a single-parent home with their mother or grandparents. Classroom Profile School Population Information Students Per Teacher 16.5 Enrollment 1,106 Economically Disadvantaged 77.9% http://www.schooldatadirect.org/?gclid=CNmskaXSkqkCFQHsKgodiGNAqA Entry Skills & Prior Knowledge These students are juniors that have passed the End of Course Test (EOCT). The students had previous experience with figurative language based on the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) for 9th and 10th grade literature. Academic Motivation Most of these students do not perceive the need to understand figurative language. They do not like reading entire novels, but prefer to skim and use on-line sites like Sparknotes.com to do their thinking for them. They also do not spend time reading poetry that is part of the American Literature canon. There is a disconnect and inability to see how it relates to current music, literature and media. African American students comprise approximately 85% of the students in this learners’ group, with the majority coming from low to middle income families. It is important to note that since the majority of the students live in single parent homes, they tend to have difficulty with takehome assignments due to limited parental support and resources. In addition, Banks (2005) found that the emphasis on individuality is generally not as important to African Americans compared to European Americans, thus highlighting the importance of cooperative learning within the classroom. Because of this finding, we plan to incorporate numerous opportunities for cooperative learning within the learners’ group. To address the lack of at-home parental support we found a recent article from Fan and Williams (2010) that points out that student achievement and self-efficacy are directly related to parental involvement. However, their study showed that parents who supported their children without appearing in the schools were more effective than those who volunteered, especially in the higher level grades, such as the students being reviewed. The study broke down the parent-student dynamic and determined that some of the strongest achievements across the socio-economic and ethnic boundaries came about in the area of self-efficacy in Math and English when coupled with parental involvement and positive expectations in the home, even when the home consisted of a single parent (Fan & Williams, 2010). Further, Gonzalez-DeHass, Willems, and Holbein looked at recent articles and studies to determine the connection between parental involvement and student motivation. One of the most telling findings was the researchers who focused on school-to-home communications. The researchers found that elementary parents were much more involved and more ready to communicate not only with their child regarding school, but also with the teachers. Indeed, looking at high school students in another study, Trusty and Lampe (1997) determined that students felt more confident and more in control of their academic lives when there was parental involvement. The authors go on to report that while, “teachers may most directly influence how the student experiences school, parents have an additional and important bearing on student experience,” (Gonzalez-DeHass, Willems, & Holbein, 2005). This is vital information concerning our learning group and proves to be an issue for the students in our study because parents appear to be disconnected from their children. Motivational Strategies According to John Keller’s ARCS Model of Motivational Design, there are four steps for promoting and sustaining motivation in the learning process: Attention, R