Digital Citizenship Learner Analysis

Learner Analysis

6th Grade Copyright vs. Plagiarism Unit

Introduction

The learner analysis was taken from a middle school environment that houses 6-8 grade

students. Pierce County Middle School in Blackshear, Georgia, serves approximately 825

students. The school is a Title 1 School that has meet AYP several years in a row. The learner

analysis complete on one 6th grade class of students. The information was obtained from Mrs.

Denise Brown’s 6A connection class. The goal of the unit was for students to understand the

importance of copyright and plagiarism. Listed below are the standards for the unit:

ISTE Standards (formally NETS):

http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-students/nets-student-standards-2007

5. Digital Citizenship

Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and

practice legal and ethical behavior.

a. Advocate and practice safe, legal, ad responsible use of information and technology.

b. Exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration,

learning, and productivity.

c. Demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning.

d. Exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.

exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.

Georgia Performance Standards:

https://www.georgiastandards.org/standards/Pages/BrowseStandards/ctae-middle.aspx

CTAE-FS-5 Information Technology Applications: Learners use multiple information

Lauren Sinclair Hyers / 2

technology devices to access, organize, process, transmit, and communicate information.

Demographic

There are 822 students enrolled at Pierce County Middle School. These students are in

grades 6-8 and are between the ages of 11 and 15 . Of the 822 students in the school, 671

students are caucasian. There is a wide range between percentages of ethnicity as you can see

below in figure 1.1. Figure 1.1 is the demographics for the school. Table 1.1 is the demographics

for the students in Mrs. Brown’s 6A class.

Figure 1.1


Table 1.1

Entry Skill and Prior Knowledge

The students’ prior knowledge was provided through the results of the pretest. The results

from the teacher-made pretest (Appendix A) indicated the students were not familiar with the

terms copyright and plagiarism. It is my assumption the students have heard the terms copyright

and plagiarism, but not know what they really mean. The results indicated the digital citizenship

unit over plagiarism and copyright will be beneficial to all the students. Table 1.1. notes the

students who will need accommodations or modifications throughout the unit. Due to this being

a connection (elective) class there is a wide range of ability levels.


Academic Motivation

Past experiences have lead me to believe students are not as academically motivated in an

elective setting as a math, ELA, science, or social studies setting. Some students do not perform

as well in elective classes due to their lack of motivation. Along with motivation is ability level.

There are many different ability levels in a school, team, and class. High ability students usually

excel in all classes. Lower ability students seem to become frustrated with themselves or the

situation and become less motivated to do well.. Ability and motivation can work together or

against each other. The class that participated in the digital citizenship unit has an overall

academic motivation level of average. This was based off s class discussion Mrs. Brown had

with the students prior to us teaching the unit. Many students in the class wanted to know

“what’s the big deal” about copyright and plagiarism.

Learner Characteristics

No two students are the same. This definitely applies to Mrs. Brown’s unique 6A group.

As all good teachers do, Mrs. Brown conducted a learning styles inventory at the beginning of

the nine weeks (see Appendix B). I wanted to conduct another one, but do to the time constraints

and Mrs. Brown only being able to allow me three days to work with her on this unit, we decided

to go with the one she had completed a few weeks earlier to meet the needs of the students. The

following table shows the learner's learning style inventory.


Figure 1.2

The learning styles inventory allowed us to see what type of activities we needed to plan

for to meet every learner's needs. After reviewing the learning styles inventory for each student I

noticed all three styles were very similar in range. Of the 24 students, 9 were tactile learners, 8

were auditory learners, and seven were visual learners. The lessons planned were to meet the

needs of each type of learner.


Accommodations/Modifications

In order to make all student successful, some students need to have accommodations or

modifications made to assist with learning. The class of 24 consist of only one, special education,

student who has a plan written for accommodations to be made (Table 1.1); however, some of

the ESOL students could use accommodations as well. The student listed as special education

has an IEP, individualized education plan that states the student is allowed extended time and

read aloud on his assignments. The ESOL students can receive testing accommodations based on

their need.

It is imperative that all students master the standards in order to meet the expectations of

state testing. In the classroom the teachers can provide several different instructional

accommodations for the learner such as read aloud, peer support, assistive technology, repeating

directions, giving several options for presentation tools, and allowing extra time. We must

incorporate learning strategies that work for the students.


References

Appendix A (Pretest)

Digital Citizenship

Copyright and Plagiarism

Pretest

1. What is copyright?

2. What is plagiarism?

3. If Wendy uses a picture she found on Google to advertise for her dog

grooming business has she violated any copyright laws?

4. What is the public domain?

5. Austin overheard Ramsey talking to other students about a play he was

writing. Austin really liked the idea and decided to use it for himself. Did

Austin violate any copyright rules?

Appendix B (Mrs. Brown’s Learning Styles Inventory Assessment)

Digital Citizenship Learner Analysis

Documents

Transcript of Digital Citizenship Learner Analysis