Living Situation

Further consideration of the student as a whole being includes their living situation, the impact of which cannot be overlooked.  The degree of parental involvement, socio-economic status, and community engagement all impact children’s academic achievement (Lehrl et al., n.d.). Similar to considerations regarding culturally diverse learners (CDL), any student’s family dynamics, cultural expectations, and involvement need to be taken into account when fully personalizing the classroom. Students of lower income or at-risk communities may not have access to the same technological resources at home as students from other socioeconomic backgrounds, requiring additional safe locations for internet and technology access, as well as potentially printed material for at-home work. Students without family members at home to help them with executive functioning skills or content support should have access to school resources for additional support, such as tutoring and learning resource centers. Additionally, students whose families have less emphasis on continuing education beyond the high-school level should be supported in their goals regardless. As this recent Gallup poll states, many students are looking ahead to college less and less, but are finding the school environment lacking in support for potential alternative pathways such as trade school, community college, entrepreneurship, or internships (Hrynowski, 2024). Through that always imperative relationship with the student, the educator can identify specific ways to further support the individual students in their long-term goals, address their immediate needs through additional resources or spaces, enroll the community in providing alternative learning environments, and engage the students’ specific interest through continued real-world applicable lessons and options for learning. 

 

The resources here are intended to provide additional ideas and suggestions for the educator to address the needs of their students regardless of their living situation. Facilitating learning beyond the classroom is an additional challenge, but through the inclusion of other aspects of personalized learning such as social-emotional learning, inclusion of student specific interests, community involvement, and development of metacognition, students should be able to expand their learning to other environments and social groups.