Kathryn Michal

EDU 460: Student Teaching

Farmington: Contextual Factor Analysis

Community Environment Contextual Elements:

Farmington, Maine is in Franklin County which is located in the Western-Central

part of Maine. This town is approximately 45 minutes away from Augusta, which is the

state capital. Farmington is most known for the University of Maine at Farmington,

Nordica Auditorium, and the Farmington Fair. According to the 2020 census the

population of Farmington was 7,592. The total school population of Farmington is

approximately 2,221. The lowest school population was in G.D. Cushing School and the

largest population was Mt. Blue High School. Looking at the demographics we can see

that there is a median household income of $45,789. However, when we look at the cost

of living in Farmington there is an obvious monetary change. When looking at the

median household value it is approximately $164,800 and the median rent value is $774.

The Franklin Savings Bank is the largest employer in Farmington as well as other towns

around Farmington. The last reported per capita income for Farmington shows that 23.5%

of the population are below the poverty line. There is a drastic difference of earnings

between men and women in Farmington, based on the 2020 median earnings. The men

made a median income of $22,569 while the women made approximately $14,863, that is

a $7706 difference between those incomes.

Aerial Map of Farmington, Maine:

The Farmington community is home to many different landmarks, one well-known

landmark is the University of Maine at Farmington. This town was founded on February

1, 1794. This town is home to many hiking trails, historical societies/museums, and

Titcomb Mountain where they offer many different seasonal activities. In the past, there

has been one well-known flood which was called “The April Fools Flood”. The Sandy

River is a vital part of the community because it offers a recreational aspect to the town

and provides many vacationers opportunities to go swimming in the summer.

News Clipping of “April Fools Flood”:

Farmington also has access to a lot of the University of Maine at Farmington

campus resources. Some of the buildings that are open to the public are the Fitness and
Recreational Center, Mantor Library, the Olsen Student Center, and the Emery Arts

Center. The fitness center has a full gym, three basketball courts, a track for people to run

on, and a full swimming pool. Mantor Library allows for the community to come in and

check out books, the Olsen Student Center gives the public a way to meet with necessary

staff and the dining hall is open to the public as well. The Emery Arts Center puts on

many art shows, performances, etc. that the Farmington community can view.

Right in town the University of Maine at Farmington offers two- and four-year

programs as well as a Masters program. The most popular undergraduate majors at the

college are Education, Psychology, Business, Health Professions and Related Programs,

Biological and Biomedical Sciences. A few other colleges in a 50 mile radius of

Farmington are Thomas College, University of Maine at Augusta, Colby College,

Kennebec Valley Community College, Bates College, and Unity College. All of these

colleges (sans Kennebec Valley Community College) offer two- and four-year programs

and a Masters program as well. Kennebec Valley Community College offers a two-year

associate's degree program.

School District Environment Contextual Elements:

Looking now at the district information, there are seven different schools in RSU

#9 along with a technical education program and an adult education program which are

located in Mt. Blue High School. The names of these schools are Academy Hill School,

Cape Cod Hill School, Cascade Brook School, G.D. Cushing School, Mt. Blue High

School, Mt. Blue Middle School, and W.G. Mallett School. The name of the technical

education program is Foster Career and Technical Education Center and the adult
education program is called Franklin County Adult Education. The staff to student ratio

in most of the district is 11:1. The average proficiency levels for reading and math are,

30% of students are at least proficient in math and 51% in reading. The average SAT

scores shown is 1150 and the average ACT scores were 29. The accreditation is a high

school diploma/GED with a 82% graduation rate.

Some socioeconomic factors can be shown through reduced meals, the population

of the district, and how many students are English Language Learners. In RSU #9

approximately 48.4% of students are eligible to participate in the free and reduced lunch

program. There is an extremely small percentage of students who are English Language

Learners in the whole district which is 1.8% of the district population. Of the district

population there is 48% of the female population and a 52% male population. Of this

group, approximately 94.9% of students are white while only 3.8% are part of the

minority enrollment.
School Building Environmental Contextual Elements:

The school I am currently placed at is Mt. Blue Middle School. The school is

located at 269 Middle St, Farmington, ME 04938 and you can call the office at (207)

778-3511. The school also has a website that gives staff information, the school calendar,

COVID information, etc. and the website is https://www.mtbluersd.org/ms. You can also

access this website through the school district website which is https://www.mtbluersd.org/.

According to the US News, the proficiency levels for middle school are 51% for reading

and 26% for math.

Mt. Blue Middle School has only one floor. When you walk into the building the

office is right next to the entrance but there are two different offices. In the first office

there are two secretaries and it is where the principal's office is located. In the second

office is where the counselor is located along with another secretary desk. There are

different wings for the grades. Where the offices are located is along with the 6th grade

classrooms and where the location of the special education room is. If you continue

straight from the entrance the first half of the hallway is the 7th grade classrooms. The

library is located right at the next wing where the gymnasium and cafeteria are in the

school building. There are a few conference rooms that are put throughout the school for

different meetings but they are mainly used for IEP meetings.

The average population of the students at Mt. Blue Middle School has 532

students where 49% are female and 51% are male. The minority enrollment at the school

is approximately 4%. The school enrolls 53% of students who are at an economic

disadvantage. There are approximately 40 full-time teachers and only one full-time
counselor. The student to teacher ratio is 13:1, which is the most of the whole district. Of

the 40 teachers, 97% of them are certified and approximately 89% of teachers have

worked for more than three years.

Classroom Environmental Contextual Elements:

Now we are going to look at the classroom I am located in which is Ms. Brann’s

classroom. When you first walk into the classroom you notice how the desks are set up

with two groups of four desks, one group of six, and one group of five. The students are

given assigned seats but most of the time Ms. Brann stated that if they behave then they

can sit at another desk but they have to stay in their clump. With the desks she used

different desk heights for students and they all have the same blue seats that you usually

see in classroom settings. The classroom has an accent wall which many classrooms use

in order to draw the students attention towards the front of the room.

She has many different posters put up that either have to do with history itself or

geography. She has a cupboard that has her classes computers along with file cabinets

that she puts paperwork in. She puts her book in a shelving unit that is located on the

right side of the classroom when you are standing up front. She uses her whiteboard and

projector when it comes to teaching her lessons. Ms. Brann uses her desk when she is

planning, grading, or doing any type of prep work.

Now looking at the classroom resources, the available technology they use is a

projector for classes that are made to connect to the staff MacBook’s for the school

computers. Both the students and faculty get MacBooks. The major units of study are
Geography, Government, and Economics. So far I have been able to see the Geography

aspect of her lessons.

Some of Ms. Brann’s participation in the school is working with different

committees whether it is with families or different teachers. She is also a part of the

Katahdin team of 7th grade teachers which also consists of Mrs. Mochamer who teaches

Language Arts, Mr. Toribio who is in charge of teaching Mathematics, and finally Mr.

Mayo who teaches Science. This team works with Mrs. Greenlaw who is the Special

Education teacher at Mt. Blue Middle School. Brann’s classroom schedule is as follows:

Learning Lab from 7:45 to 8:35, Core #1 which occurs from 8:38 to 9:23, Core #2 from

9:26 to 10:11, she then has a class called Learning Across the Curriculum (LAC) at 10:14

and that goes until 10:54, recess and lunch go from 10:56 to 11:38, she then has a prep

block until 12:20, after her prep there is Core #3 which goes from 12:23 to 1:08, and her

last class is Core #4 which goes until 1:56. Another form of schedule she has to follow is

Late Arrival Wednesday. The only major differences with this schedule is that the

students come in an hour later and that LAC and Core #3 are switched.

Student Characteristics:

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences states that people are not born with all

the types of intelligences. He also proposed that there is one type of intelligence basically

known as a general intelligence and this only looms at the person's cognitive ability rather

than seeing their ability with others. Gardner also stated in his book “Frame of Mind” that

the type of intelligence that a person gets is mostly based on personal experiences and

what their genetic makeup is. For the student survey I decided to do a Multiple
Intelligence Survey for the students to see how many different types of learners there are

in the Katahdin team. My hypothesis was that there were more students who were

bodily-kinesthetic learners than anything else. I also believed that a lot of the students

were Intrapersonal rather than Interpersonal because they like working with others rather

than doing things by themselves.

Of the 76 students in the Katahdin group, approximately 54% followed my

hypothesis of being bodily kinesthetic learners. Being in the classroom and seeing the

students first hand made it easier for me to make the hypothesis because a lot of the

students like activity lessons rather than sitting down and taking notes. We also have a lot

of students who are in different forms of athletics like basketball, wrestling, etc.

About 32% of the students showed me that they were more Visual-Spatial learners,

this percentage was a lot more than I was expecting. I was predicting that more of this

percentage would have been Naturalistic based on what I know about them. I am not

surprised that this was different than what I predicted, however, because we have a lot of

students who like to read graphic novels, draw, and like to use graphics on the computer.

Finally, the last 14% of the class showed that they liked nature-based learning (i.e.

Naturalist intelligence). I have a lot of students who like to work based on understanding

the patterns of living things. They love to explain what they learned in science and we

often talk about how it can apply to social science classes. Since we are on geography for

our current unit, we see these students thriving in class because they can look more into

how different landforms, climate, movement, etc can show different patterns of human

and animal civilization.

 Now looking at the differences between interpersonal and intrapersonal skills

based on these students, approximately 65% of the students had more interpersonal skills

rather than intrapersonal. This statistic follows my hypothesis because one thing the

students love to do is talk and work together. That is why in my lessons I try to let them

do fun activities with partners, if they can be focusing on the task, and I will do more

independent work on more serious projects. With the last 35% of students, I can see why

the percentage is how it is. Many of these students like to keep to themselves or only

have a small close-knit friend group.

Multiple Intelligence Wheel:

Strength/Needs Analysis (at least 1 page)

Another task I had for the students for the strengths and needs analysis was a

learning style survey. I know that most scientists have shown that learning styles aren’t

viable anymore but I still wanted to see how the students liked to learn. I told the students

to write their names on an index card and tell me how they like to learn. I mostly did this

so I can tailor my lessons to fit all students and make sure they are successful. I am not

surprised to see that most of the students are hands-on learners and like activity based
learning rather than taking notes all the time. As a student, I was also hands-on learning

and that was how I was able to be successful in school.

Learning Styles Chart

After learning this I started tailoring my lessons so that they had more of a choice

of activity or taking notes. One example of this is when we did our Zombie Apocalypse

activity and they were able to not only have a writing portion but they also were able to

look at a website which was used like a webquest. They looked at maps and graphs and

had to interpret them and then at the end I had them make a presentation. With the

presentation I let them have creative freedom on how and what they wanted to present on

their location. Some students wanted to present the temperature, climate, etc. while others

focused more on movement and different ways they could travel from the starting

location to their new location. I could see that when the students are given creative

freedom, they made the presentations more tailored to their interests or funny things that

had to do with zombies itself.

 Bibliography

Alum. (2019, March 10). Explore Regional School Unit No. 09. Niche. Retrieved January
11, 2023, from https://www.niche.com/k12/d/regional-school-unit-no-09-me/#students

CollegeSimply. (n.d.). Colleges in Farmington, Maine and colleges near Farmington.

CollegeSimply. Retrieved January 11, 2023, from
https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges-near/maine/farmington/

Farmington, ME. Data USA. (n.d.). Retrieved January 11, 2023, from
https://datausa.io/profile/geo/farmington-me

Katahdin - grade 7. Katahdin | Mt. Blue Middle School. (n.d.). Retrieved January 11, 2023,
from https://www.mtbluersd.org/ms/academics/7th-grade/katahdin
Living in Farmington. Niche. (2021, June 24). Retrieved January 11, 2023, from
https://www.niche.com/places-to-live/farmington-franklin-me/#real-estate

Mt Blue Middle School in Maine - U.S. news education. U.S. News. (n.d.). Retrieved
January 11, 2023, from
https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/maine/mt-blue-middle-school-266219

RSU 9: Mt. Blue Regional School District. RSU 9 | Mt. Blue Regional School District.
(n.d.). Retrieved January 11, 2023, from https://www.mtbluersd.org/

Things to do in the area. Town of Farmington, Maine - Things to do. (n.d.). Retrieved
January 11, 2023, from https://www.farmington-maine.org/about-farmington/things-to-do

University of Maine at Farmington Academics & Majors - US News Best ... U.S. News.
(n.d.). Retrieved January 11, 2023, from
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-maine-at-farmington-2040/academics

Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, January 9). Farmington, Maine. Wikipedia. Retrieved

January 11, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmington,_Maine