Introduction
Society has a very strong influence on education, and specifically on the performance of a learner. The world has been reduced into a small village due to the emergent of technologies that have improved communication and transport systems. According to Sylwester (2002), learners in the current society live in a multicultural community, which in one way or the other, has direct effect on their performance.
Factors such as socioeconomic status of afamily have direct influence on the learners. Familial make-up and the extended families will always influence educational achievements of learners. Culture is another factor that has a very strong impact on the educational developments of a learner. Other factors that have direct impact on educational performance of a learner include physical, social, emotional, and intellectual developments of a learner.
It is important, based on the above facts, to ensure that there is a differentiated instructional approach to learning, based on the abilities and needs of these diverse learners. Each student has different abilities and needs in the education system. Differentiating instruction for these students would mean that there would be an effort to focus on every individual’s performance.
Those learners with special needs due to such issues as dyslexia may be given special attention in order to ensure that they attain the desired level of academic excellence at different levels. This research focuses on analyzing the effects of socioeconomic factors on education, and the need to have differentiated instructional approach to teaching due to the differences brought about by the society.
Comparing Socioeconomic Status, Familial Makeup and Influence of Extended Family in Educational Achievement
It is important to analyze how different factors would affect educational achievement of a learner. Success of a learner depends on a number of factors. From the socioeconomic perspective, a number of issues would influence a learner. There are families that are economically challenged. The parents may be too poor to afford simple basic educational requirements for their children.
Items like books, school uniform, pocket money and other requirements that a learner may need may not be available because of the economic challenge. Such a learner may not be in a position to perform to the best of his or her capacity (Glomm & Ravikumar, 2003). The condition may be worse to the level where the learner lacks adequate meals while in school or back at home. To such students, learning becomes extra burden whose fruits may not be important given the fact that they are now faced with starvation.
Their educational achievements may not be at par with their peers who come from economically empowered families. With economic strength, parents are able to take their students to the best schools with the best facilities. Such students would be provided with every little necessity they may need in their learning process.
Such students would take most of their time learning, instead of worrying about what to eat or wear. Comparing students from these two divides, a learner who comes from a poor family will lack confidence even when in class. This may be because of the poor state of the dress, or the general inferiority felt before others. This lack of confidence will have negative impact on their performance.
Familial make-up will also have an effect on the performance of a learner. There are some families, which are relatively large. A family of over six children may not offer a good learning environment to the learner. This is because the attention of the parents or guardians will be divided among many children. This is unlike those families with limited number of children. There are also those families that are single parented.
Academic performance of children who are single parented may be lower than those who have both parents (Kaplan, 1996). A single parent may not have time to focus on the academic performance of the learners because most of the attention is diverted to the need to be the breadwinner. Such important issues as monitoring academic performance of the learners may not be a priority to these parents. This may be a challenge to achild who may need parental motivation and guidance in order to achieve academic excellence.
The extended families may also have an influence on the academic performance of the learner. This is specifically so when one considers the attachment a learner has towards the extended family, and the nature of this family.
In cases where the an extended family has academic performers who are readily available to offer a learner motivation and support whenever needed, then it will be easier to for the learner to perform well. However, in cases where the extended family lacks such individuals, then their presence may only be a distracter to the academic excellence of astudent.
Analysis of How Physical, Social, Emotional, Intellectual Development and Culture Influence Learners
Students are always open to a number of factors that would affect them to different degrees. The physical factor involves the physical well-being of the student. A student who is physically challenged may find it challenging to cope with the physical disability in a learning environment.
This is because the movement from one place to another within the learning institution will be limited. The learner may also not be in a position to play various games with peers, a fact that may affect him or her socially. Social effects may also influence a learner positively or negatively.
A learner who finds it easy to socialize will always be in a position to engage peers in developmental activities such as group discussions. This may not be the case with a learner who is unsocial. Emotion also plays a role in the development of a learner academically.
A learner who easily gets emotional may find a number of challenges in the learning environment. This is because it is common for a learner to encounter various cases where a fellow learner acts in a manner unpleasant to him or her (Hongyi & Heng-fu, 1998). In such cases, the ability of the learner to control emotion and act rationally will be of great importance.
Approaching academics with a lot of emotions can both be constructive or destructive depending on the nature of the emotion. Developing a strong emotion to succeed may make a learner put extra effort in academics, which may result into higher academic performance. However, when the emotion is negative, then such a learner may not easily succeed in this field. Such emotion would block his or her mind, and this would make it impossible to achieve the desired success in the academic arena.
Intellectual development has direct influence on the achievement of a leaner. Different learners have different intellectual capacities. A leaner who is developed intellectually, will find it easier to grasp what is taught in classroom. Such a learner will also be in a position to conduct private studies without any supervision from teachers or parents.
This will enhance understanding of such a learner further. On the other hand, a learner with limited intellectual capacity will find it difficult to understand what is taught in class. Conducting private studies may also be a great challenge to them. This would result in a situation where there is academic gap between the intellectually strong individuals, and the intellectually challenged groups.
Culture is another factor that has had serious impact on learners’ development. According to Sanjeev and Alonso-Terme (2002), some cultures are retrogressive. There are those culturesthat do not appreciate the need to go to a formal school as a way of achieving success.
Although this culture is dying down in various parts of the world, some communities in Africa and Asiastill do not appreciate the need for women to go to school. In such societies, women should take care of house hold chores instead of pursuing academic and corporate success. Such culture may not support a female learner who hopes to achieve a lot in the field of education.
Evaluation of Differentiated Instructional Approach to Learning with Focus on Strengths and Needs of Diverse Learners
According to Andreas (2002), learners have different capacities based on a number of factors.Most of these factors have been discussed above. Given this fact, it is prudent to ensure that when giving them instructions, care should be taken to ensure that they are all in a position to understand the question that is posed.
This would demand that there be developed differentiated instruction for different learners with different capacities. The academic achievement gap can only be reduced when each learner is given instructions that are within his or her level of understanding. Differentiated instructional approach should be based on the strengths and needs of diverse learners.
Learners have diverse capacities, and each learner should be subjected to instructions within his or her understanding. As a learner gets to develop in understanding of various academic aspects, the instructional approach given can be reviewed upward in line with the developed capacity. It is through this that there will be created a forum where learners are given an equal environment to compete for academic excellence.
When determining success of an individual, it would be unfair to put a learner with a higher intellectual capacity and good socioeconomic class with another who is having limited intellectual capacity and troubled socioeconomic background on the same scale. This is because in learning environment, it is not sensible to test the obvious. The two learners will obviously not score similar marks when given same examination.
According to José and Jong–Wha (2003), such incidents would make it difficult to determine the level of academic achievement of the learner. These scholars say that how well a learner scores in a given exam may not determine academic excellence appropriately. However, the excellence should be based on how much a learner has expanded his or her knowledge on what was taught, from the time he or she started learning to the time of the examination.
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