Learner Analysis

Introduction

Learning can take many forms and can happen at many places. Learning is
an essential for all types of schooling. For my unit I chose to use learners from the
Bartow County Summer School program. This group of learners was made up of
students from Cass High School, Woodland High School, and Adairsville High School.
The standard that this group of learners will mater is from the state of Georgia’s
Georgia Performance Standard (GPS). The standard reads as follows:
SSEMA3 The student will explain how the government uses fiscal policy to promote
price stability, full employment, and economic growth.

a. Define fiscal policy.

b. Explain the government’s taxing and spending decisions.
This analysis will provide information about the students’ academic motivation, the
students’ learning intelligence, and the students’ prior knowledge of the subject.
Demographics
Because of the nature of summer school, I do not feel as if I was getting a true
representation of what a typical class would look like. Though the class was not as
diverse as I would have liked it, I did find a lot of similarities between these students in
summer school and the student in my regular classes. This information was collected
from a brief survey that was given to the students. The survey can be found in the
appendix under the title “Student Survey”

Student Ag Gende Ethnicity Part- Hours Reason English Number Parents

e r time spent for is the of level of
job studying summer primary people education
a week school languag living at
e home.
1 19 Male Caucasia No 0 Credit Yes 9 High
n Recover School
y
2 16 Male Caucasia No 0 Credit Yes 4 High
n Recover School
y
3 19 Male Caucasia No 1 hour To get Yes 4 High
n ahead School
4 17 Male Caucasia No 1 hour Credit Yes 3 College
n Recover
y
5 16 Male African- Yes 5 To get Yes 5 High
 American Minutes ahead School
6 16 Male Caucasia No 0 Credit Yes 3 High
n Recover School
y
7 16 Male Caucasia No 2-3 Credit Yes 4 College
n Hours Recover
y
8 18 Female African Yes 2-3 Credit Yes 2 College
American Hours Recover
y

Entry Skills and Prior Knowledge

Again, because of the nature of summer school I could not find eight students
who needed the Economics course. Therefore, I used students who were in summer
school for world history, US History, Economics, and Algebra II. Of all these students
only two had taken an Economics course. These eight students were given a pretest
of ten matching questions and fourteen multiple-choice questions. The pretest was
developed by Junior Achievement and is actually the chapter review for the chapter
on Government and the U.S. Economy. The test can be found in the appendix labeled
“Pretest.” The following table shows the students scores and their percentage
correct out of 24 questions.

Student Number Correct Percentage

1 3/24 12.5%
2 4/24 16.7%
3 8/24 33.3%
4 11/24 45.8%
5 3/24 12.5%
6 7/24 29.1%
7 6/24 25%
8 10/24 41.6%

Academic Motivation

Though these learners come from different disciplines in which they are
studying they all need to know about the Government’s taxing and spending
decisions. They will all be influenced in some way by the government’s fiscal policy.
Though they might not realize it in the beginning they will soon learn the
Government plays a greater role in their life than they once thought. For example,
next year many of these students will be sitting in classrooms with 35 other
students because of a taxing and spending decision. Other examples as to why the
students need to be motivated to learn about the fiscal policy of the government
could include: military pay, who gets student loans, Health Care cost, and the
amount of their hard earned money that will be taken from their checks through
taxes. Once the students learn how much the government affects their lives they
will become more motivated than they were in the beginning.

Motivational Strategies

In order to motivate the students to learn I will use the ARCS motivational
strategy developed by John Keller. ARCS is an acronym for Attention, Relevance,
Confidence, and Satisfaction (Keller 1999). In order to get the students attention I
will give them a quiz at the beginning of class. Then, on the quiz they just
completed, I will start taking points away from them in order to do things like turn
on the lights, run the air conditioning, and for them using their desk. As the class
goes along I will explain that other things will cost them points, such as using the
restroom or the pencil sharpener. This should make the students extremely upset
and once they settle down I will explain how the government uses taxes to create
revenue for things we use on a daily basis such as roads and drinking water. By
doing this I will be explaining why this information is relevant to the learner.
During this time I will also discuss current events such as: wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, health care cost, bail outs, student loans, and oil spill clean ups. I will
show the student how the government is a part of their lives a lot more than they
realize. In order to instill confidence in the students we will begin to learn the
details of fiscal policy. First, I will have the students define the different types of
taxes. Then the class will discuss the different types of fiscal policy, supply side and
demand side policies. After that we will discuss if there is such a thing as too much
government. Once I feel the students are confident with the information I will
provide them an opportunity for satisfaction in their learning. They will take part in
the Budget Hero game at
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/budget_hero/. This game will allow
the students to make spending and taxing decisions in order to lower national debt
and balance the federal budget.

Learner Characteristics

People learn differently, and according to Howard Gardener these different

types of learning are called multiple intelligences. Through research Gardener has
determined that there are seven different intelligences, which are verbal-linguistic,
logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical-rhythmic,
interpersonal, and intrapersonal (Nolan 2003). I gave my students a brief multiple
intelligences quiz, which can be found in the appendix, that showed me where the
student were proficient.

Intelligence Number of
Student
Proficient
Verbal- 1
 Linguistic
Logical- 2
Mathematical
Visual-Spatial 1
Bodily- 5
Kinesthetic
Musical- 4
Rhythmic
Intrapersonal 1
Interpersonal 3

There are several factors that might influence what intelligences a student
might be proficient in. One factor might be the culture the student is from. Different
cultures raise children to value different things. These values could effect how a
student learns. For example if a culture values reading then that student might
become a verbal-linguistic learner. Another factor that could affect a students
intelligences is ethnicity. For example, if an ethnicity values hunting and fishing a
student from that ethnicity could develop a proficiency in bodily-kinesthetic
learning. There is no set equation that determines where a student might be
proficient, but it is our job as the teacher to identify those proficiencies and design
our instruction to meet the needs of the learner.

Accommodations

Not only do teachers teach students who are very gifted learners, teachers
also teach students who have special needs and accommodations. Before any new
class starts teacher must identify those learners and work to meet those needs. One
example is that of a child with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). To
meet the needs of a child with ADHD the teacher might accommodate learning by
making the instructions clear and brief, and making sure they are presented visually
(Barkley 2008). Some students might have a more sever disability and might need
more accommodations. A student with some type of physical disability or severe
autism or other disability might be able to use a new special computer vision
software that takes advantage of flash lights that will help them operate a computer
(Cobb 2007). There is a large spectrum of special needs and the classroom teacher
must be aware of those needs and how to accommodate them. If the teacher
requires more help finding accommodations to meet the needs of special needs
students they can use the database EBSCO, Academic Search Complete.

Peer Review Feedback

They changes that were made due to peer review feedback were minimal. I made a
few grammatical changes which makes the paper much easier to read. I also
describe in further detail how I would “tax” the students after the quiz.
References

Barkley, R. (2008). Classroom accommodations for children with ADHD. (pp. 7-10)

Cobb, S., Mallett, A., Pridmore, T., & Benford, S. (2007). Interactive flashlights in
special needs education. Digital Creativity, 18(2), 69-78.

Keller, J. (1999). Using the ARCS motivational process in computer-based

instruction and distance education. New Directions for Teaching & Learning, (78), 39.

Nolen, J. (2003). Multiple intelligences in the classroom. Education, 124(1), 115-119.

 Appendix 1

Student Demographics Survey

1. How old are you?

2. What is your ethnicity?

3. How many hours a week do you study?

4. Do you have a part time job?

5. Why are you taking summer school?

6. Is English your primary language? If no, please list.

7. How many people do you have that currently live at your home?

8. What is your parent’s highest level of education?

Appendix 2 Diagnostic Test
Appendix 3 Multiple Intelligence Assessment