Methods Of Instruction And Their Influence On Diverse Students

As I began my teaching career, I observed the same phenomena. My male African-American and Latino students were performing at a lower rate than other subgroups. At a newer high school in

Male students are performing below other students in Math; the achievement gap between Male students and non-Male students is 8%. LEP students are performing below other students in Math; the achievement gap between LEP students and non-LEP students is 29%. FLEP students are performing better than non-FLEP students; the achievement gap between FLEP and non-FLEP is 22%

Some researchers argue a key reason this achievement gap has persisted, even grown, is the cultural mismatch between White teachers (who continue to comprise the majority of teachers in the U.S) and their Black students (Bergeron, 2008). The term cultural mismatch refers to the phenomenon where teachers of one race or ethnicity (usually White) teach students who are predominately from another race or ethnicity (Bergeron, 2008). Researchers agree this mismatch can lead to misunderstanding between teachers and students which can lead to their academic needs not being addressed and ultimately causing them to underachieve academically (McGrady & Reynolds,

However, many people feel that these tests do not measure any sort of knowledge, but rather indicates the economic background the child came from. According to Kohn, a major spokesperson on the damaging effects of standardized testing, ?What standardized tests actually measure best is the economic backgrounds of the groups that take them? (Gallagher). If you broke down the income of the test takers family and measured it in increments of $10,000 you would get a graph where for each increment of income the students score would undoubtedly increase directly. This is because higher income areas have more teaching resources readily available which gives the students a varied and comprehensive learning environment and also attracts more qualified teachers. The high salaries and vast resources available attract many well-qualified teachers vying for the space. Therefore, the school district has an advantage of a larger pool in which to choose the most qualified teacher. These factors can give the students an advantage which makes the standardized tests a poor scale of students or schools progress but rather a good scale of their economic background.

Additionally, another main point included in my research centered around the favoritism towards certain groups of people that occurs in numerous amounts of standardized tests. Articles by Rooks and Nelson

“One thing it seems standardized tests are exceptionally good at measuring is socioeconomic status. In Class and Schools, Rothstein argues that this is because wealthier students have parents who can spend more time with them and more money on enrichment programs for them. He also writes that wealthy students also generally have better health and more housing stability than their lower-income peers, both of which also lead to higher achievement.” (Quinn Mulholland).

Even though women score relatively the same as their male classmates in high school and college math, women tend to score 50 points less in SAT math when compared to men. Nevertheless, they have tried to combat this by letting people not lose points for guessing, which affects test scores, because women are less likely to guess on a question they have a hunch but are unsure of. Theoretically, every cohort has the same average intelligence, but the SAT gives out wildly different scores, giving out up to a hundred point average difference between white and African American SAT reading scores. By this measure of its intelligence, it is an unreliable gauge of

56) which becomes a problem for tests like the SAT and many IQ exams because they test things that aren’t specifically taught in a classroom (things that every student that takes them learns in a controlled setting). In choosing what items should be placed on a test from an innumerable number of sources that every student may not have equal access to in their everyday environments, test makers are making the likelihood of bias within their tests extremely high. Methodological bias comes about when “a test assesses mastery of some skill or body of information using a technique or method that underestimates the competence of one group relative to another.” (1998. 56). Some argue that an example of this is when African-American students perform worse when the tester is White but, beyond the Stanford sampling, there is not enough real substantial data for sociologists and educational researchers to put any stock in this theory. Lastly, prediction bias is when a test is meant to predict a student’s future performance. In the case of the SAT, White students tend to outperform African-American students (in regards to cumulative college grades) with the same SAT score. Jencks says that this doesn’t mean that the test is biased against whites but, rather, that they have other advantages besides test scores. Jencks also makes a strong case for the removal of the SAT. Jencks believes that using a test that covers the material learned in secondary school rather than a test like the SAT where all you have to do is go through a manual would be a much better indicator of a student’s performance in college. Testing secondary school material also ensures that the students will have a solid foundation as they must actually gain a deep understanding of the material they

I agree with this study that males and females learn languages differently when set up with their own sex. The fact that boys then do better in the classroom setting makes sense because this relates to them and their background. The ability to do better begs the question of a definition of doing better. The girls might be quietly doing their work even though they fail to stand out in class participation. The boys on the other hand take center stage, but might struggle with the course material. However, their behavior draws more attention, which provides the teacher a greater opportunity to

One can safely assume that not every child can perform at superior levels from the same method of teaching. When a child does not perform highly due to this reason, it is called a “mismatch”. This often happens in situations where students cannot identify with the course material presented. Most children, especially children of color, in one form or another, experience such adversity in their education. These “mismatches” cause low test scores and low educational drive in the student. This causes an “achievement gap” from the disconnect between the way lessons are structured, the content itself, and the way it is presented (Jabari, 2013, pg. 36).

Standardized tests have also come under fire for further socioeconomic inequality by having questions geared towards the upper-middle class. (Rooney and Schaeffner 102). However, this conclusion is heavily contested as research sponsored by The College Board (the creators of the SAT) has shown that when controlling for socioeconomic status SAT-grade correlation only goes down slightly.(Sackett et al. 5). While standardized testing may not be specifically geared away from students of lower socioeconomic backgrounds, the results clearly show the poorer students are performing worse on the test. This shows, that in some way economically disadvantaged students are disadvantaged in "college preparedness".

The study was done in one school in Canada and it would be difficult to generalise the findings as schools differ in terms of children to teacher ratio and there may also be cultural

How does gender affect the student’s performance at my school? To figure out this question I am going to observe which gender out of boys and girls socialize the most and cause more disturbances during instructional hours of the day, interview four teachers on which gender do they believe cause more disruptions in the class, and ask boys how often do they spend time playing their game, or playing basketball outside, ask girls how much time do they spend time on Instagram, Facetime, or Snapchat, and ask how often will they study for a content assessment on a daily basis and track their performance in the

Woodfield, R., Earl‐Novell, S. and Solomon, L. (2005). Gender and mode of assessment at university: should we assume female students are better suited to coursework and males to unseen examinations?1. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 30(1), pp.35-50.

On the pretest a boy scored the highest with an eighty-three, and followed closely by a girl at eighty-one. However on the posttest, that same boy saw a ten point decrease to a seventy-one and the same girl only saw a one point increase to a eighty-two. She scored exactly the same on every question, only gaining a point on the last question where she had to sort by color. On the pretest, the girls generally either outscored or tied with the boys when it came to individual question average scores and were pretty much split fifty/fifty when it came to the target questions and DOK questions. However, on the posttest, the girls either had the highest individual question average or tied with the boys. The boys did not outscore the girls on average on a single question. The girls also carried the highest average score on all of the target and DOK groups. This has made me curious as to why the girls saw the biggest gains and were able to outscore the boys across the board on the posttest. Did my teaching style and the lessons I prepared cater more toward a female learning style than a male? Was the material presented in a way that was more female