Name: Anna Kutschke

Student Learner Analysis

Education 202 focuses on getting to know learners well in order to better teach all learners. We take
a look at context, socio-cultural variables (including special education labels), and neurodevelopment
for gaining a more holistic sense of a person. Our student learning analysis creates a way for us to
reflect on our student’s development. Neurodevelopment, or the mind aspects of a learner, helps us
understand the relationship between a student’s “sense-making” and the tasks required in school
and in life. This analysis allows you to reflect on student learning and become clearer about a
student’s own neurodevelopmental strengths and weaknesses. In order to do these activities here
are a few reminders about neurodevelopmental variables, called constructs.

Neurodevelopmental Constructs (Ch. 3, Schools for All Kinds of Minds)

Attention Memory Higher-Order Cognition Language Neuromotor

Spatial Ordering Temporal-Sequential Ordering Social Cognition

Neurodevelopmental Functions (Ch. 3)

Each construct is broken down into different functions. Use your book, the All Kinds of Minds
website, and handouts to pay explore the specific functions within a construct. Here is one example:

Example for the Construct of Language

Functions
Ways to Process - Receptive (listening, reading silently, thinking) or Expressive (writing, reading
aloud, speaking)
Levels of Language – Word sounds, word parts, words, sentences, multiple sentences, receptive
language, expressive language

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Basic Principles on the Neurodevelopmental Relationships:
▪ We all have strength and weakness across all constructs.
▪ We try to look at the fine-tuned details within the functions of each construct (“splitters”
approach). For example, we don’t have a weak or strong memory, rather, we would say, that
our long term memory for words is weak.
▪ Most tasks we undertake involve many different functions within more than one construct.
We call these “task demands”. It is important to look for the interaction of those functions
and constructs, to examine the “junction of the functions.” For example, writing requires
different kinds of memory (short term, active working, and long term), motor (grapho or fine),
and various aspects of receptive and expressive language.
▪ We can analyze strengths and weaknesses by looking at task demands and seeing what
aspects of tasks a person does more easily and aspects that are more difficult.
▪ The more we see patterns of behaviors across multiple times, tasks, and kinds of activity, the
better we trust our judgments about strength and weakness. When we see something once or
twice, we encourage caution and suggest that people keep asking questions to search out
possible patterns of strength and/or weakness.
▪ Sometimes a significant weakness can overshadow other strengths and weaknesses. For
example, if a student struggles with attention, that student may not be focus enough to show
you vocabulary strengths. This is why it is important to consider many kinds of tasks across
time and during different kinds of activities and contexts (this is why it is called learning
phenomena).

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Directions: Use neurodevelopment to analyze the interaction of a learner with a learning task. For
Part A, select an artifact/work sample or event such as a paper, text, class notes, or worksheet OR
instead, write a detailed description of a learning activity such as a small group discussion or learning
game. Choose to either 1) attach the artifact/work sample and write a brief description of the activity
to accompany the artifact OR 2) write a detailed description of how your learner engaged in a specific
learning event. For Part B, analyze the constructs and functions related to the learning activity.

Part A:
❏ Attach or bring in your work artifact AND write a brief description of the activity (minimum 3
sentence description)
OR
❏ provide a rich, detailed written description of a learning event (minimum ½ typed single space
page).

The teacher apparently had the kids do this worksheet earlier. They spent about 20 minutes
going over it. She called on kids to discuss their answers, and then she went over the process of
finding the answer with the entire class.

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Part B:
1.) What are the task demands of the learning event? First, check which neurodevelopmental constructs are
involved in the learning activity for any student. Second, in the space below the table, describe 4-6 of the most
significant task demands that any student would encounter for this particular event or activity. Make sure you
specify particular functions of constructs. As you describe what is required neurodevelopmentally to engage in
the learning, consider how different construct functions might be influencing one another. This will help you
later in your student story draft as you explore the integration both within AND ACROSS variables. Third, in at
least 2 of the 4 items below, you must strengthen your responses by making strong, explicit text
connections. See SAKM, Ch. 3, the modules, and other resources for a review of ND constructs and functions.
Attention Memory Spatial Language Higher Temporal- Neuromotor Social
Ordering Order Sequential (Muscle and Cognition
(Understanding what motor skill) (Making and
Thinking Ordering
I see. (keeping track of keeping friends)
Organizing materials) time/order)

The five significant constructs that I have chosen that I thought I used during my task are attention
(functions: mental energy controls, production controls, processing controls), memory (long term,
working, short term), language (expressive, receptive language), spatial ordering, and neuromotor
(fine motor functions, graphomotor functions). I found that a lot of the construct’s and their functions
directly correlated to one another, just like in self-reflection 3. Attention has the functions or mental
energy controls, production controls, and processing controls, and for the most part, the attention
functions correlate with quite a few other functions in different constructions. If the mental energy
controls are off, then they can affect language (expressive and receptive), spatial ordering
(understanding what they see and hear), and memory (working mainly). All of the constructs and their
functions go hand in hand. If the attention is off, then the memory can also be hampered. The
language can be forgotten as well if the memory is off, making it even harder for the student to figure
out what is going on with the lesson. Even though all of the constructs represent different aspects of
the brain and the way that Oliver thinks, they still are connected with each other. A lot of both the
Higher Order Thinking and Memory rely on the Attention construct, specifically the mental energy
controls. If this is working at about a 20 out of 100, there is a good chance that the other two
constructs won’t be function at the highest level either. The same goes with it if it’s the other way
around. If the mental energy is operating at 90 out of 100, then there’s a very good chance the
memory and higher order thinking will follow.

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2.) Now that you have completed analyzing the task demands for any student, consider the implications for
your student. What might the analysis of the work sample or learning event tentatively suggest about your
student’s strengths and weaknesses in the construct functions? (Include a minimum of 4 functions)

Strengths:

-Higher Order thinking: Oliver appears to have strength with his higher order thinking. He’s
very good at problem solving and brainstorming. He likes to work through things once I give him a
little bit of a hand. About 75% of the time his problem solving is one of his strongest assets. I’ve
attached a writing sample of his below that shows one of his short writings titled, “How to Take Care
of a Pet”. His writing remains legible and even throughout the entire piece, showing that he
comprehends rule use from the classroom, along with critical thinking and concept formation. This is a
strength of his because he perseveres through the rough stuff even if it’s hard for him to do (Student
Learning Analysis). He does, however, get frustrated at times if he can’t understand instructions
immediately. One instance that comes to mind is when the class was building pentagons out of
straws. When he couldn’t fit one straw into the other, he began to sigh and then put his head down. I
went over and showed him how to do it, and when he was able to get them to stick together himself,
he was able to keep his attention on the task.

Weaknesses:

-Attention: One of the neruodevelopmental areas of the mind is called attention. When we did
the attention module in class, attention was described as the dashboard of a car, but for the brain.
There’s the fuel for the brain (“Brain Fuel”) that consists of:
-Consistent ability to maintain work & effort, follow through on tasks, and could indicate
strengths in these controls
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 -These controls maintain mental energy for work and learning
Then theres the Directing Input, that consists of:
-Controls direct incoming information
-Difficulty identifying important details may be a result of a weakness in these controls
Finally, there’s Overseeing Output:
-These controls oversee academic and behavior outputs
-Impulsivity and inconsistency in work product may be a result of weakness in these controls.
The actual definitions for the functions of attention are:
-Mental energy controls: This includes alertness, mental effort, sleep/arousal balance and
performance consistency.
-Processing controls: Attention also involves processing, and includes saliency determination,
depth and detail processing, cognitive activation, focal maintenance, and satisfaction level.
-Production controls: Include previewing, facilitation and inhibition, pacing, self- monitoring and
reinforcability.
My student (Oliver) has certain weaknesses in some of the attention areas of his functions.
When given an assignment, he may work on it for a couple of minutes, then begin talking to his
neighbor or start to wander the classroom. This may not only happen with his assignments, but even
when the teacher is giving a lesson to the class. He may either look like he’s not paying attention or
even start side conversations with some of the kids sitting around him (Attention Module). His mental
energy controls, such as his performance consistency as well as his alertness seems to fluctuate
during his assessments. That being said, part of his mental energy controls involves sleep/arousal
balance, which I have no way of knowing about. That is part of the struggle with this study. There are
just some things that I don’t know about him that make it harder to judge what should be done for him.
His processing and production controls seem to be dependent on whatever level his mental energy is
at at the time.

-Memory: (memory module)- The memory construct of the brain is divided into three types of
memory: Short term memory, long-term memory, and active working memory. The short term memory
is being able to briefly registering new information. An example is recalling details on a diagram just
seen a moment ago. Long term memory is the ability to recall information from the past. The goal of
having a good long term memory is remembering things with ease and accuracy.
This weakness in the memory function sort of relates to Oliver’s attention weakness. When his
attention is not functioning at a high level, Oliver has a hard time putting pieces together and retrieving
past and present information to work out the problems at hand. This can look anything like his short
term memory not working (“gets confused with instructions”), the active working memory not working
well (“struggles with mental math calculations”), the long term memory isn’t working well (“struggles to
recall information”), and his long term memory access not working well (“uses incorrect procedure for
a problem or situation”). (Memory module). If he has a refresher about how to solve the problem, he
begins to get it, and will usually say something along the lines of “Ahh” or “I get it!”. For the most part,
if the attention is improved, the chances are so will the memory (Memory Module).

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3.) What questions do you have about your student’s strengths and weaknesses in selected
neurodevelopmental constructs and functions for this particular learning event?

Attention: I want to know what can be done to help my student keep his attention on the assignment. I
wonder if it could be presented in a different way than on the worksheet to keep his interest, and therefore
keep his attention so that he can finish the assignment. He is a bright student, but he has a hard time keeping
his attention on his work and is easily distracted.

Language: For the most part, my student understands the math language pretty well. However, there are a
couple of things that I’m wondering how they could become better engrained in his mind. He has some issues
with remembering what the words adding and subtracting mean. Sometimes even the signs confuse him. I
remind him when I’m working with him, but I’m hoping that there’s a way to help him remember those easier.

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4.) Neurodevelopment does not exist in a vacuum. What contextual and sociocultural variables may have
affected your learner’s response to the demands for the activity? Make sure you describe how two contextual
or socio-cultural variables may have influenced neurodevelopmental functions (e.g. classroom, school,
race/ethnicity, language, etc.).

-Language: My learner has an accent, and speaks Spanish with some of his other classmates. This makes me
believe that at home, he may not always get the chance to speak English with his family. That being said, the
homework assignment that was given to him may not have been so easy for him. The math paper was all in
English, and it probably was harder for him to grasp because of what I previously said about his home life and
Spanish speaking. A connection I can make is between my learner and Jesus. Especially from the part II reading
guide. His parents also didn’t speak English. The school had to work together with the parents to make sure
that they could communicate with each other and end up helping Jesus. This may not be the case for my
learner, but it could definitely be a possibility when it comes to how he understands the worksheet and what
it’s asking of him (Title: Jesus Part II Reading Guide)

-Classroom: The classroom may not help my learner with some of his neurodevelopmental constructs,
especially Memory. With this worksheet, the function in the memory construct that seems to suffer the most
is his working memory. There is so much going on in the classroom that my learner gets distracted very easily.
That being said, the working memory requires taking both old and new knowledge, and combining them to
solve a problem. When my learner is so engrossed with what of the rest of the class is doing, he can’t properly
think about what he learned in the past or in the present, so the working memory is much more difficult for
him.

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Self-check: Did you make explicit text connections in at least 2 of the items in Part B? (Make sure you cite
the source).