Contextual Factors in the Classroom

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses community, classroom and student characteristics that include geographic factors, community and school population, socio-economics, race/ethnicity, community stability and classroom rules and routines, grouping patterns, scheduling and arrangement and how they affect the teaching/learning process. The paper explains that contextual factors also acknowledge the impact of aspects like attitudes, perceptions, expectations, abilities, gender, socio-cultural background and maturity on every learning experience. The paper also looks at how community, classroom and student characteristics influence instructional planning and assessment.

From the Paper:

"It generally goes without saying that contextual factors play an important role in mathematical classroom via the way they affect the teaching/learning process. Among these factors are environmental (geographic location), community and school population, socio-economics, race/ethnicity, community stability, political climate and community support for education as well as classroom factors represented by rules and routines, grouping patterns, scheduling and classroom arrangement. Student characteristics should also be examined when designing instruction and assessing learning, such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, special needs, achievement/developmental levels, culture, language, interests, learning styles/modalities and skill levels."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cruickshank, D.R., D.B. Jenkins and K.K. Metcalf. (2006). The act of teaching. (4th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
• Dale, D.C. and G.J. Cuevas. (1987). Integrating language and mathematics learning. In C. JoAnn (Ed. ). ESL through content-area instruction. Regents, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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