Learners & Context Analysis
4. Learner Analysis
4.1. Entry Skills
For the target population, general education high school students in the business entrepreneurship course, to be successful in answering the essential question, "Should I become an entrepreneur?" they must exhibit and identify the following entry skills:
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Communication and listening
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Reading comprehension
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Writing and editing documents electronically
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Researching using the internet
For the target audience, high school students in the business entrepreneurship course, students will complete a pre-assessment that addresses each skill to show their competencies in these entry skills. Next, students will read a passage about entrepreneurship and write a thoughtful response to the article's main ideas. Students will then be asked to research a famous entrepreneur from a list I will provide them and answer the following questions about their entrepreneur: What time period did your entrepreneur live in? What obstacles did they have to overcome to succeed in that era? What product or service is your entrepreneur most known for?
4.2. Prior Knowledge of the Topic Area
To evaluate the prior knowledge of the business students, I will give them a multiple-choice pre-assessment on the following terminology, types, and characteristics of a successful entrepreneur. After reviewing the data from the pre-assessment, I will then conduct interviews with the students in a group setting to discuss key findings on students' knowledge or lack of knowledge according to the pre-assessment results.
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Terminology of Entrepreneurship
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Define Entrepreneurship
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Define Entrepreneur
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Define employee
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Define employer
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Define What it means to be an employee vs. an entrepreneur
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Types of Entrepreneurial Businesses
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Green, Social, Agricultural, Mining, Manufacturing, Wholesaling, Retailing, and Services
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Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur
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Independent
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Self-Confident
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Determination
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Goal-Oriented
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Creative
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Master Networkers
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Keep up to date with technology
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4.3. Attitudes Toward Content and Protentional Delivery Systems
Learning attitudes toward instructional content and delivery systems are essential to the design of this project. This design aims to increase students' understanding of what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur, which will contribute to them being able to answer the essential question with purpose and authority. "Should I become an Entrepreneur?" To achieve this goal, understanding each learner's attitude must be understood before beginning the design process. I will have students complete self-assessments addressing their entrepreneurial traits, concerns, motivations, aptitudes, and attitudes. This will give me a better understanding of my student's attitudes toward entrepreneurship and the technology environment they will be learning in the business classroom. I will be observing students to see if they can complete this self-assessment with ease in technology. I will attend to students who seem to be having problems turning on their computers, logging in to their computers, pulling up Canvas, and selecting the appropriate class and assessment.
4.4. Academic Motivation
I believe that having a positive attitude and being motivated go hand in hand. Therefore, interviews with the students will be used to assess the student's motivation to learn entrepreneurship. The type of questions that I will ask the students are:
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Do you have the desire to be your own boss?
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Do you like working on things you enjoy or are enthusiastic about?
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Do you want to make an impact on society?
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Do you have an idea of how to improve an existing product?
For those students who are not giving me much feedback, I will conduct interviews with their previous year's teacher and access motivation factors.
4.5. Educational and Ability Levels
According to our textbook, the educational and ability levels determine the learners' achievement and general ability levels. Therefore, using a pre-assessment will not only evaluate the learner's technical skills but will also test their knowledge of entrepreneurship. Based on this information, it may be possible to understand the types of instruction they have had and perhaps their ability to adjust to new and different approaches to teaching.
4.6. Learning Preferences
This section of the design process is used to evaluate students' experiences and disposition with various teaching techniques, methods, and strategies used in the business classroom. I will do this with student interviews, questionnaires, and observations. The type of questions that will be asked are:
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Do you like working by yourself or collaborating with a team?
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Do you want to read out loud in a group or quietly by yourself?
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Do you like to create multimedia presentations or outline bullet points of the main points of the lesson?
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Do you like using flashcards that are digital or on paper?
4.7. Attitude Toward Training Organization
Entrepreneurship students will be given a questionnaire that addresses their attitude toward the training organization, the high school, and their instructor. The types of questions that will be asked will be rated on a scale of 1-10, with one being the lowest possible score and 10 being a perfect score. The questions are as follows:
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Do you think your teacher provides adequate instruction in the entrepreneurship class?
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Do you think your teacher is supportive of your learning style?
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Do you think your classmates are encouraging?
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Do you think your classmates take collaboration seriously?
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Do you think your guidance counselors take time to listen to you earnestly?
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Do you think your principal and school administration do everything they can to ensure your success?
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Do you think an entrepreneurship classroom is a safe place for learning?
4.8. Group Characteristics
Group characteristics are the final category in the learner analysis phase. The target population is general education high school students, lacking heterogeneity, as they are from a rural agricultural community comprising primarily white middle-class citizens who speak the native language of English. The tryout learners are members of the target population. Using tryout learners will help to plan instruction and evaluate the effectiveness of instruction after it has been developed. The tryout learners serve as representatives of that group. The tryout learners are a group of ten, six male and five female students, ages fourteen to sixteen.
5. Performance Context Analysis
5.1. Managerial or Supervision Support
In the performance context analysis phase, educators must ensure the skills they are teaching prove to be successful in the classroom and the Workplace. When designing instruction for higher-order learning, a thorough context analysis is crucial to allowing the designer to reestablish authentic elements of the performance context and enable the student to create the best learning support. For students to achieve the goal of answering the essential question, I will call on support from local entrepreneurs in the community. I will ask local entrepreneurs to come into the classroom and give information on what it means to be an entrepreneur. Having a subject-matter expert will guide me to ensure students are on track to learn the ways of entrepreneurship and be able to apply it at work.
5.2. Physical Aspect of the Site
Addressing the physical aspect of the future site where business students will use their entrepreneurship skills will be difficult. Not every student will want to be their own boss, and not every student who wants to be their own boss will enjoy the same entrepreneurial business. I will try to satisfy my target group using their demographics to select an entrepreneurial business we could visit to see day-to-day operations. Living in a rural agricultural community, I will ask a local farmer, a local restaurant owner, and a local lawyer, who are all entrepreneurs, if I can come to speak to them at their worksites. I want to brainstorm ideas with them on how students will apply the skills they have learned in the classroom to the work/worksite itself.
5.3. Social Aspect of the Site
I will use the interview and observation method on the three local entrepreneurs from the last step. I will ask questions about how they prefer to work at their business, alone or with team members. I will ask permission to take pictures or record a video of the worksite and the employees working on the job. I want to get feedback from the entrepreneurs asking what they are looking for when hiring new employees. What social skills and roles must an entrepreneur demonstrate to enable them to become successful?
5.4. Relevance of Skills to Workplace
This step is a check and balance, if you will. It will help me determine if the skills that I say are relevant for my students to master the concept of what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur if they are realistic or outdated. I will use interviews and observations to evaluate on-site the skills that are being used in the Workplace versus the skills that I am teaching in the classroom. I will be observing and asking entrepreneurs what characteristics they must possess to be successful at being an entrepreneur. I will then cross-reference the list I am implementing into my curriculum to ensure the business students are learning the skills needed to be successful as an entrepreneur.
6. Learning Context Analysis
6.1. Compatibility of Site with Instructional Requirements
The classroom setting utilizes the technology and tools needed to ensure that the extensive scope of standards and benchmarks in learning is achieved in the classroom and will also be relevant to the students at their future work site. For example, in the business lab, high school entrepreneurial business students learn the skills to become successful entrepreneurs. The business lab is equipped with technology such as computers, printers, and smartboards to enhance student learning with technology. Students will also use the same types of technology in their future careers as entrepreneurs.
6.2. Adaptability of the site to Simulate Workplace
It is imperative that the skills that are expected of students in the Workplace be simulated in the learning environment. To do this, the entrepreneurial students will practice soft skills, interviews, weekly timesheet activities, complete a W2, establish a team to work on a project, and finally pass the Entrepreneurship Small Business Industry Certification. The certification is a benchmark set by professionals in the industry. Therefore, students who meet the criterion standard will demonstrate they successfully have accomplished the industry standard.
6.3. Adaptability of Delivery Approaches
The business classroom where instruction and learning will take place is a hybrid setting. Students can access their coursework from home utilizing the internet and Canvas, the school learning management system. All student work is posted in Canvas by modules. Each module has readings, assignments, assessments, and prompts for questions that students must answer. Ideally, students should meet face-to-face, but when they cannot attend in person, all of their work is accessible if the internet is available to them outside the classroom. Office hours for students to reach out to the teacher are also posted in Canvas. The business program uses tools like Microsoft teams, enabling online meetings where students can directly access teachers.
6.4. Learning Site Constraints
A constraint that the students might have in the entrepreneurship class is while they are researching Enterpernuship, the technology department might block their searches. The district has strict policies that can hinder students when looking up specific keywords. The student must submit a "help ticket" to the IT department and wait for the site to be unblocked or receive an email explaining why they will not unblock the site. The student might have to conduct research outside of the typical school day.