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Nicholas Lacasse
2/21/2016
Contextual Factors Analysis
To effectively teach, teachers must have an understanding of their students. To
understand our students is to understand their community, their cultural backgrounds, their
families, their strengths and needs, the classrooms and district they are a product of, and their
opinions on all of these factors that have influenced their growth. Therefore, it is recognized that
a teacher’s work does not begin in the classroom but in an evaluation of the school and the
community that surrounds it.
Poland Regional High School is part of RSU 16 and serves families from Poland,
Mechanic Falls, and Minot. These are rural communities that have a total population of 11,014
over approximately 83 square miles of land [10], [14]. Though there is a low population density
there is still some variation among the towns. Minot has a population density of 88.2/sq mi.
while Mechanic Falls has a population density of 275.6/sq mi [10], [14]. While I can expect most
students to live in a fairly rural environment, there will be some level of heterogeneity among
our students regarding population density. Due to this low population density, it can be expected
that there will be few students that walk to school. Most students will rely on transportation from
parents or the school district to make it to school. Mornings with snow could result in many
students being late as parents (and possibly children) shovel out vehicles and driveways.
Across the three towns, many of the most significant features appear in Poland: Range
Pond State Park, Poland Spring Bottling, Poland Spring Inn, and three of the five schools in RSU
16. The other two towns are intermittently marked by local businesses. In the summer, students
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may find outdoor recreation at any of the several golf courses or at Range Pond State Park. In the
winter, they are not far from Lost Valley, where they could ski or snowboard. Other year-round
entertainment can be found in the Lewiston/Auburn area. These will likely be experiences shared
by many students, potentially serving as points of engagement and connections to the local real
world they know. The location of these students put them in a unique position to appreciate and
relate to both small local businesses and well known franchises. Lessons could be prepared in
relation to either type of business to engage students.
There is very little diversity in this region. The communities served by RSU 16 each have
approximately 97% of residents identifying as white [10]. Furthermore, no minority composes
more than 2% of any of those communities [10]. Between a fifth and a quarter of households in
the community are husband-wife households with children under the age of 18 [10].
Approximately 30% of households have individuals under 18 years of age [10]. This means most
students will come from a family of traditional structure, but I must be careful to not make those
assumptions about all students. Students could come from families of many different structures,
including those with less than two parents. Students with less than two parents or guardians
could miss school to watch for younger siblings, take on part time jobs to supplement guardian
income (see: Figure 1), or have excessive duties at home. The unemployment rate of those
regions all fall around 10% [13], and 34% of high school students received free or reduced lunch
in 2013 [9]. There are many ways that students’ life at home could impact their health and
performance in school. To be mindful of this, it would be best to continually promote an active
dialogue with students and give them means of confidential communication.
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In September 2013, there were 504 students and 47 teachers, resulting in a student
teacher ratio of 11:1 [6]. The school uses standards based grading (following the Maine Learning
Results and the Common Core). Throughout the semester I will need to continually evaluate all
of their skills to determine their proficiency. The only grades that are final in their school are the
standards the students have achieved by the end of the semester [8].
Figure 1
Data from [12].
The classroom is a 500 square foot area that is utilized, on average, by 19⅓ persons each
class. This means that each person could have nearly 26 square feet of their own space. Student
space is reduced by the margin the teacher maintains at the front of the room to utilize the
whiteboard and in practice the single-person desks the students sit at provide them with only 16
square feet of personal space. Such constraints should not be underestimated, especially when we
consider that students may be under these physical constraints all day. To maintain student focus
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and prevent nerves from building, it is important to give students a chance to move and stretch.
Physical discomfort could lead to further distractions. To prevent physical and mental fatigue in
the eighty minute class block, I would advise having several distinct shifts in activities during
each lesson.
Being on the second floor and near the end of a hallway, distractions outside the
classroom and inside the school are limited and it is often appropriate to simply keep the
classroom door open. The open door helps to promote a nonconstrictive environment and helps
to minimize distractions when students need to leave or enter the room. Due to the vacant
hallway, we can generally allow students to take a short walk outside of the classroom without
fear of them being caught up in social activities. The silver-day math one class is from
11:30-12:50, directly after lunch. Though this may help them focus because they are not
distracted by hunger or social needs this class is reportedly more chatty [1]. The blue-day math
one class is the last block of the day. This means special attention to classroom management
techniques may be needed to effectively facilitate a lesson.
There are a set of windows along the wall to the students’ right. Fortunately, they look
into an uneventful wooded area and do not strongly contest student focus. However, the room
shares a partition wall with another classroom. The partition allows enough noise through that if
the adjacent classroom is being loud, but appropriately so, it can be easily heard in our
classroom. At best, it is masked by our own students. At worst, our students are silently working
on summative assessment. A potential way to combat this is to use sparingly, if at all, strategies
which require silence in the classroom.
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All students at the high school are issues iPads. Though many of them have a separate
graphing calculator, many students will use Desmos or the very capable TI - Nspire app on their
iPads. This means that we always have a powerful array of portable tools and can easily conduct
class outside of the classroom. These tools give extremely diverse ways to conduct the
classroom. It allows us to move the classroom to different locations. It allows us to let students
download useful videos for use at home (if they don’t have access to the internet) or watch the
videos directly online (if they do have internet access).
The classroom is also equipped with other standard tools such as rulers, meter sticks, and
protractors. Such ease of access means I can incorporate them into my lesson plans without
concern. Students also have access to personal whiteboards of various sizes. These can be
utilized in team activities where responses are necessary, or as an impromptu decision if several
students are without writing implements.
The Poland Regional High School Course of Studies reports that students have seven mandatory
student led parent-teacher conferences throughout their four years at the high school and that
parental attendance is at 95% [8]. However, Michael Hayashida, a teacher at the school, reports
that there is very little parental involvement and he expects to receive no emails from parents
each week [1].
According to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, most students of this age are
equipped to deal with the abstract reasoning required for success in a freshman mathematics
classroom [7]. However, many of them still lack finer executive functioning skills. It is not
uncommon for a student to ask for a pencil, or to pull an important paper, crumpled, directly
from their backpack – if they are capable of finding it at all. To encourage healthy organizational
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habits I must be a model of how to be organized as well as demonstrating how my organization
helps me accomplish things more efficiently. Related to this is a standard named Habits of Work .
It accounts for turning in homework, being positive in the classroom, staying on task, and being
prepared. Most students (25) score higher in the content standards than their Habits of Work
standard. The school uses a 4 point scale for their standards based grading. Twenty-three of the
students have Habits of Work scores below a 3.0, and seven show a significant deficiency with
scores below 2.0 (see: figure 2).
Figure 2
Data from [2].
Observations of the classroom have indicated that the low scores in the Habits of Work
standard are not due to insubordination or unruliness. Instead, it appears that the deficiencies in
this standard are caused from not completing homework, and occasionally detracting from the
learning environment by distracting others or not supporting a positive learning environment.
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Throughout my unit, I will need to emphasize the importance of the completion of homework
and take extra measures to ensure its completion. These extra measures will likely include
bringing students to my room during their academic support block to have them do the
homework there. In efforts to support a positive learning environment I will offer ample praise
and be quick to correct any behavior that detracts from the positive environment.
Math 1 encompasses the fundamentals of algebra, functions, geometry, statistics, and
probability. Though the first half of the academic year was largely centered around algebra and
functions, skills from those two domains will appear frequently throughout the second half of the
academic year. During my time there, students will learn about geometry, statistics, and
probability. I will be teaching the unit on probability.
Students attend Math 1 every other day. The two sections we have are placed on opposite
days. This alternating schedule gives time to make adjustments to the lesson after its first
performance. Furthermore, for students, it maintains the traditional schedule of alternating class
and homework. The composition of the two sections of the course are comparable – each have
proportional representation of students of all ability levels. Across both sections there are 39
students. Most students are making satisfactory progress toward their learning goals earning in
the 3-3.5 range. A few in each class are advanced and are earning in the 3.5-4.0 range. A few in
each class also fall below the 3.0 mark and require additional support to be successful in the
classroom. The class average in each standard is higher for blue day students than for silver day
students (see: figure 3). Stronger statistical techniques are required to determine if there is an
actual difference between the groups. This diverse group of learners will require deliberate
differentiation. There will need to be opportunities for students to have extended amounts of time
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Students are familiar with slope intercept form and are able to construct lines in slope intercept
form that model a data set or create the slope intercept form from a graphical representation of
the line. Students also have some familiarity with point slope form. They have experience with
factoring constants and single variables from equations but do not have experience with factoring
quadratics or larger polynomials. Their experience in factoring was within the context of solving
linear equations and inequalities. These skills were put to more specific use in their unit on linear
modeling.
The skills the students learned in the algebra, and functions units were heavily relied
upon in the unit on linear modeling. The linear modeling unit took the mathematical skills and
focused on application in real world contexts. This means I can expect some level of competency
with problem solving and word problems, as well as the ability to transfer skills to new contexts.
Confidence in their problem solving abilities are bolstered by a series of problem solving tasks.
The tasks include a mathematical problem within some context, and an accompanying typed
report on the issue, their process, and their solution. Though linear modeling in classrooms is
typically formed around perfect models that entirely describe a simple theoretical scenario, these
students have gone further by examining relationships that are nearly linear. Through the use of
their technology (predominantly graphing calculators, or iPad apps) they are able to perform
linear regression. Their skills in linear modeling are well established and they have recently
begun a unit on exponential equations. Despite students fairly solid mathematical skills, there is a
split between students enjoyment of mathematics and numbers. The split is unfortunately skewed
to the right, as seen in figure 4.
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smooth, if slightly less informative than a platform that offers reports with feedback for specific
student success. The success with the Kahoot! prompts future use of the tool. It will be a quick
and engaging way to get students warmed up for the class. Their familiarity and excitement for
technology also suggests the possibility of non-traditional, technology centered, summative
assessment. The minor challenge associated with this is that there is a student without an iPad,
and a student with an iPad but without internet access. In class, this can be remedied by allowing
students to temporarily use the iPad of a faculty member (myself, my mentor teacher, or the
special education teacher). The unit on probability will be able to make use of the Numbers app,
especially during the section on probability distribution tables.
The students at Poland Regional High School are very skilled in the traditional academic
sense as well as with their technological skills. Their organizational skills leave something to be
desired, but most of them still find success in spite of their poor organization. Their familiarity
with word problems, applications of content, and problem solving experiences will allow me to
engage them with their interests. By shaping a lesson’s content to be within the context of their
interests, it will help to engage them and fortify their learning experience.
Through the implementation of a student survey I have discovered many of my students
interests. Throughout the two classes, there is significant interest in outdoor activities, sports, and
the arts. Each of those major categories are represented fairly evenly across the classes. Across
the survey, students listed, collectively, counting multiplicity, a total of 96 interests. Some of the
most frequently listed interests include: hunting, fishing, soccer, drawing, friends, music,
animals, basketball, reading, sports, and video games. Collectively, those represent 49% of all
listed interests. An important consideration is that even though a student may not have listed a
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specific interest, it does not mean they are not interested in that thing. In that sense, this
particular data serves as guidelines and not as strict rules. These larger collective interests could
be useful topics to design problems around.
Sports of any kind (namely soccer, and basketball for this group of students), and video
games have especially obvious ties to probability. Both often use probabilities in percentages or
decimals and it is natural to wonder about the likelihood of a series of events occurring or if at
least one of two things will occur. It can be assumed that there are likely some cultural
commonalities between our students. For instance, it is likely that our students have played many
games that involve chance: Monopoly, Parcheesi, Scrabble, and many more. These can be a
springboard to understanding or serve as motivation for students.
Though these topics may have general appeal to many, it is notable that some students
may be left out or require a topical connection they care more deeply about to become engaged.
This is particularly applicable to students who tend to care less about their academic
responsibilities, or are very distractible. By meeting them on their own ground, I can make a
student who normally struggles feel like an expert, and I can deeply engage a student who
normally finds it difficult to be motivated to learn about mathematics. These singular but potent
interests listed by students include: slavery, civil war, cars, Egypt, racing, and technology.
Students interests in these topics may influence their content knowledge, and how they perceive
new content knowledge. For instance, the car enthusiast in the classroom may not think he
knows much about algebra and ratios, but has an intuitive sense for gear ratios. It is likely that
the interests students have listed relate to the style of thinking they perform. A visual thinker
may be more likely to appreciate drawing, and a logical learner may be more likely to appreciate
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do not learn best through verbal explanations, it also indicates that students need support and
practice at developing their verbal skills.
The least represented intelligences in the classroom are logical, and naturalistic, both
appearing in the top three just below 7% of the time, and students scoring above 30 raw points at
3.5% and 13.8% of the time respectively. Though this may seem to indicate that connections to
nature may not be intrinsically motivating for students, it is important to recognize our previous
conclusions. Though connections to nature may not be intrinsically motivating to many, it can be
deeply motivating to a few select students.
Figure 6
A raw score of 40 is the highest possible for any category. Data from [3].
The most significant information gathered from the multiple intelligences survey is the
significant representation of kinesthetic and visual/spatial learners. In particular, 93% of students
have either visual/spatial or kinesthetic in their top three intelligences. These results indicate that
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the implementation of manipulatives to further instruction will be essential to the engagement
and success of this class. It also suggests that I should investigate appropriate strategies for
including these intelligences in assessment. For example, allow students to convey their
understanding through sketches, by making physical model that describes their ideas, or even a
video that allows them to express their understanding through manipulatives. With the use of
their iPads, these all become easy feats that can be seamlessly integrated. The results of the
multiple intelligences survey is supported by additional questions posed to the students during
the survey.
A free response section of the survey asked them to list something a teacher can do that
would prevent them succeeding in the classroom, and two things a teacher could do to help them
succeed in the classroom. Students were largely in favor of group work and access to their peers,
with 41% of students reporting such preferences. Other common items listed as being helpful for
their success included individual work, teacher support, the option to listen to music, and hands
on activities. To promote these self-reported supports, I will emphasize the use of manipulatives
and provide diverse groupings (individual, pairs, small groups, class discussion). It is typical in
the classroom for students to listen to music if the setting is appropriate. Due to this well
established routine, it will be easy to implement into the classroom. Cooperative learning
strategies such as the think-pair-share will be implemented to encourage the diverse groupings
that students desire.
The quality most cited as undesirable was a teacher that talks too much. This reinforces
recent professional development at Poland Regional High School that focuses on the ratio of
student to teacher talk. Students reporting this quality accounts for 25% of all reported
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hindrances. To combat this, I should reduce direct instructional time when appropriate and
replace it with group discovery or other cooperative learning strategies that keep students as the
primary agents in the classroom. The next most common complaints include not explaining
things well, going too fast, or going too slow. Though these are vague, blanket statements that
are often cited as difficult to work with, I propose two solutions. To combat poor explanations,
formative assessment will be a continual process. Exit tickets will check for understanding at the
end of lessons and methods such as 1-2-3 (a self-reported representation of understanding) will
inform and influence instruction. To prevent going too fast or too slow, it is important that
students stay the primary agents in the class and differentiation is incorporated. Developing
extensions of content will be critical to maintain engagement and academic rigor in all students.
The student survey that was conducted has given me powerful insights into my individual
students. Having two sections of math 1, the survey results are split between the two blocks (H
block and D block). Most students participating in the survey, but others have managed to elude
it – some intentionally, others innocently. Unfortunately, the students that would elude the
survey are the same students who would elude other homework and duties. It is therefore
difficult to get them to take the survey at home, and inefficient for us to make them do the survey
in their academic support block where academic instruction takes precedence. The vast majority
of students have taken the survey. The results of the survey can be found in addendum A and
addendum B.
The overwhelming majority of students scored highly in kinesthetic, interpersonal,
intrapersonal, and visual/spatial intelligences. Immediately, this informs me I should be using a
variety of grouping strategies to satisfy these students interpersonal and intrapersonal
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intelligences. The kinesthetic and visual/spatial intelligence is an indicator that hands on work,
graphic organizers, drawings, and diagrams will help them understand ideas. Nearly half of the
students are interested in or participate in sports. Relating the content to sports provides both
real-life examples, motivates content, and engages students with their own interests.
We are all each of us a product of our environment. To understand ourselves or others we
must also understand their environment and their perception of it. The students at Poland
Regional High school are residents of rural Maine, and many of them hover near the poverty
line. There is significant variance in the amounts of support students receive at home and access
to the internet or technology should not be assumed. Though most are able to think abstractly, a
significant portion of them also lack executive functioning skills that help them be successful in
the classroom. Their impressive grasp of technology and strong algebra skills will be relied on in
our unit on probability and give us access to many different avenues of exploration. The
students’ widespread love of games of all kind (sports, video games, board games), their
appreciation of hands on activities, and their aptitude for group work provide the perfect
combination of attributes to kick off a unit on probability.
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Addendum A: Survey Data from D Block
Student Verbal LogicalVisual
SpatialInterpersonal Musical Naturalistic Kinesthetic Intrapersonal
S1 20 28 33 27 38 31 34 30
S2 33 29 39 32 39 31 29 39
S3 26 21 25 21 19 21 28 33
S4 20 23 30 33 31 18 37 30
S5 25 21 25 29 21 21 25 29
S6 18 22 22 27 29 25 24 24
S7
S8
S9 25 28 34 29 21 17 37 27
S10 18 23 28 25 30 24 32 23
S11
S12 24 24 30 32 31 26 34 33
S13
S14
S15
S16 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24
S17 31 29 31 32 40 32 31 36
S18 23 27 30 30 37 26 37 32
S19 23 21 34 26 29 22 31 30S20 25 28 36 35 39 26 30 31
S21 20 28 33 27 38 31 34 30
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Student Interest 1 Interest 2 Interest 3 Interest 4 Interest 5 Interest 6
S1 Hunting Soccer Fishing Running
S2 Technology
Monopoly
(b/c/
strategy
and math) Photography Music
S3 Baseball
Building
models
S4 Softball Painting Puzzles
Lord of the
Rings
S5 Basketball Soccer
Pretty Little
Liars Camping
S6 Soccer Swimming
S7
S8
S9 Racing Basketball Working
S10 Cheerleading Drawing Painting Animals
S11
S12
S13
S14
S15
S16
S17 Running Gardening Hiking Flute
S18 Sports
S19 Video Games Golf Arrow (TV) Nature/Animals
S20
Car
Enthusiast Hunting Fishing Skiing Soccer
Video
Games
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Co-Curricular 1 Co-Curricular 2 Co-Curricular 3
Soccer
SRB Golf
Cooking Baseball
Softball
Basketball Soccer
Cheer Chorus Soccer
Basketball SRB
Football Baseball
Poland Regional Golf
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Works Cited
[1] Hayashida, Michael. "Instructional Strategies and Classroom Management." Personal interview. 29
Jan. 2016.
[2] JumpRope. Digital teacher grade book. 2016.
[3] Lacasse, Nicholas. Student Insight Survey. 2016.
[4] Maine Department of Education; Resident Expenditures by Budget Categories FY 2013-2014 (Per
Pupil Amounts); ; Retrieved 20
December 2015.
[5] Maine Department of Education; Resident Expenditures by Budget Categories FY 2013-2014 (Total
Amounts); ; Retrieved 22
December 2015.
[6] New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Poland Regional Final Report. 2013. Retrieved
20 December 2015.
[7] Papalia, Diane E., and Ruth Duskin. Feldman. A Child's World: Infancy through Adolescence. 12th ed.
p. 418. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print.
[8] Poland Regional High School. Program of Studies and Course Descriptions 2015-2016. 2016.
; Retrieved
3 January 2016.
[9] RSU 16 Budget Committee. RSU 16 Budget Committee Meeting Minutes RY2014, Meeting 4. 2013.
Retrieved 23 December 2015.
[10] U.S. Census Bureau; Census 2010, Table DP-1; generated by Nicholas Lacasse; using American
FactFinder; ; Retrieved 22 December 2015.
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[11] U.S. Census Bureau; 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table S1901;
generated by Nicholas Lacasse; using American FactFinder; ;
Retrieved 22 December 2015.
[12] U.S. Census Bureau; 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table S1701;
generated by Nicholas Lacasse; using American FactFinder; ;
Retrieved 22 December 2015.
[13] U.S. Census Bureau; 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table DP03;
generated by Nicholas Lacasse; using American FactFinder; ;
Retrieved 22 December 2015.
[14] U.S. Census Bureau; 2010 Census Gazetteer Files. Retrieved 22 December 2015.