Background
Students’ individual preferences can be detected through the analysis of their diligence in different subjects and observation of their behavior in these subjects. In addition, it is possible to conduct a test with direct questions about which subjects seem most interesting to students. Similarly, conducting readiness tasks can reveal students’ intelligence. Cultural and gender impacts can be unleashed through enhanced diversity and inclusion policies, which help highlight differences in cultures and genders and expose students to the customs of different communities. The interests of students are best revealed through creative tasks in which you can implement various exercises for creativity, the humanities, or technical sciences.
Cultural and Family Background
The student is a representative of Mexican culture. His family moved to the United States ten years ago and has lived here ever since. Due to the student’s origin, it is essential to consider his family’s culture when conducting lessons to avoid creating a strong contrast. The student’s family consists of him, his older sister, their father, and his mother. His older sister went to the same school as him.
This can help in improving the student’s relationship with the teachers because, through his communication with his sister, he can learn many important details about the school and its rules, as well as about the teachers. Familiarization with the student’s family traditions and customs can facilitate a better understanding of their state of mind and, depending on this, inform learning. Familiarizing oneself with students’ cultures is a crucial factor in creating a diverse classroom where all children feel comfortable.
Relations within the family are generally good, but the student claims that they often quarrel. To prevent the child from experiencing excessive psychological pressure from the family, classes can be held with a psychologist to address internal issues. Such an approach can have a positive impact on the student’s future progress and help them socialize better. An essential aspect of student learning is the cooperation between the school and the family, which improves the student’s learning process.
To effectively integrate families into the learning process, it is essential to conduct regular meetings and seminars for parents. This will help them better understand what their child needs so they can give it. This aspect of learning is vital for the student to be able to adapt generally in the future to external social conditions. In addition to specific work with a psychologist at school, it is crucial to raise parents’ awareness of the problem and ways to solve it. Thus, it will be possible to achieve results in resolving conflict situations.
Behavioral and Learning Characteristics
The cultural characteristics of the family suggest that, in the educational process, it is worth paying attention to how the student is accustomed to behaving in society, which is largely influenced by the behavior within the family. The student is moderately active and sociable. He shows an interest in new information and enjoys learning about topics that pique his interest. He has a unique curiosity for reading but does not like to write.
The behavioral characteristics of the child are within the normal range. The student is moderately active and shows interest in many things; however, he sometimes gets distracted or teases other students. Most often, pranks do not go beyond and do not develop into conflicts. At the same time, if the situation requires it, the student can always share something with other students or help them complete tasks that he understands better.
However, when he encounters any difficulty, he never asks for help and instead tries to find a solution. In cases where this fails, he becomes irritated and can become very upset, which leads to a long period of bad mood. There is some carelessness in the child’s behavior; he often scatters his things, forgetting to collect them. Absent-mindedness also affects the student, as he often forgets some of his things in class and needs to be reminded of them.
Understanding a student’s learning style is crucial to effective teaching of the school curriculum. The success and interest of children depend on the adaptability of teaching (Magulod Jr., 2019). The student exhibits an unmistakable visual style of learning. This could be traced to how the student memorized the information presented in the form of words and visualized it. Graphs, tables, and drawings are visual aids that significantly enhance a student’s ability to perceive information.
When a topic is presented only orally, the student often becomes distracted and does not fully grasp the material. At the same time, when the topic is taught using a visual representation, feedback improves significantly, and it becomes much easier to work with the child. At the same time, the child’s imagination is very developed, and he can immediately imagine many things discussed in class. This is a positive side, as it helps to simulate various situations in the lessons in a significant way.
Student motivation is predominantly high over the vast amount of study time. There are periods during the semester when a student is in a bad mood, and their progress drops because they do not complete all the assigned tasks. At the same time, the student does not talk about the reason for his bad mood and lack of motivation. It can be assumed that such behavior may be associated with the scandals and quarrels that parents exhibit, which the child observes.
In this case, the problem should be solved with the help of a family psychologist. Except for the aforementioned moments of low morale, the student consistently demonstrates high motivation and strives to continually learn new information in the classroom. Thus, the student’s motivation can be generally characterized as relatively high.
Among the students’ interests, paying attention to football stands out especially brightly. The student not only constantly strives to play it in his free time at home, but also reads books about the history of this sport and news reports on the latest events in football. This interest has a positive effect on the student’s physical development and may develop into a good hobby or career in the future. Other interests are not as vital and are more temporary. The student tends to be interested in certain things for a short time and then forget about them.
Despite the overall good academic performance, some questions caused the student difficulty in resolving them. The boy does not like to write and read, and when he had to learn how to write letters and form connections, it did not go well for him. This aspect requires increased attention from teachers because if there is no progress, the question will arise of checking the student’s fine motor skills. However, the current level of the problem does not indicate significant deviations from the study’s course.
Diagnostic Task and Learning Readiness
The purpose of implementing the diagnostic task is to assess the level of student preparation for the next study topic. The diagnostic assignment should include the following:
- Think up and write down a sentence using secondary members.
- Write down the words that seem difficult to you.
- Write your full name.
- Rewrite the following words in alphabetical order: notebook, tetris, garrison, opportunity, pen, tree, poison.
- Write down the following numbers in letters: 6484, 3924, 7933, 2991, 2635.
- Come up with a rhyme for the following words: forward, slope, analysis, house, square.
- Rephrase the text by inventing and adding details: A big white cow grazes in a meadow.
The advantage of this diagnostic task is that, based on its results, the teacher can adjust the work with students to determine whether they are ready to study a new topic (Soeharto et al., 2019). The design of the task will help to indicate the level of preparedness of the student by comparing the received data with the required minimum level.
The readiness test is based on the curriculum and consists of several questions, each addressing a specific topic to determine how much the student has learned about it. Based on the hypothetical data of the test passed by the student, he is successfully prepared for the next course in all subjects except writing. The indicator for this subject is below the average for the class, and also does not meet the standards that a student should achieve at their age.
The student showed a high level of preparation after passing the test task. Knowledge of all the units that have been passed has been learned, and, accordingly, the student can begin to study the following topics. The student coped with the task in the allotted time, and its implementation did not cause any difficulties. Based on this, it can be inferred that the student has carefully assimilated the taught information and, accordingly, can continue learning successfully.
References
Magulod Jr, G. C. (2019). Learning styles, study habits and academic performance of Filipino University students in applied science courses: Implications for instruction. JOTSE: Journal of Technology and Science Education, 9(2), 184-198.
Soeharto, S., Csapó, B., Sarimanah, E., Dewi, F. I., & Sabri, T. (2019). A review of students’ common misconceptions in science and their diagnostic assessment tools. Jurnal Pendidikan IPA Indonesia, 8(2), 247-266.