HOW TO TEACH CHILDREN WITH DIFFERENT ABILITIES?

Teachers and I mean all teachers have to face this problem. My teachers faced it, I faced it and now I mentor teachers as to how to deal with it.

We never have a homogeneous class, it is always heterogeneous. Believe me, teaching a class where there are children with the same knowledge, same skills and same learning abilities (though an impossible situation unless we have a group Matched on various variables after detailed Psychological Testing and Factorial Analysis) would not be a challenge to a good teacher. It would be routine and monotony.

We ought to find after testing as to what are the Learning Styles of our students, check their Entering Behaviour and where we find that it does not suit the minimum expectations at entry level, organise a bridge course and improve upon their Entering Behaviour. If majority of students show poor learning abilities then we need to change our objectives, our expectations and choose curricular areas that will help in improving upon their Entering Behaviour.

Most important is our Instructional Procedures or Strategies. We should adopt a Multi sensory Approach; choose from a range of Activities on a topic, those that are obligatory and those that are optional. Give students the freedom to choose projects and activities from a Grid that allows them the freedom of choice at two levels; Taxonomic and Multiple Intelligence. In the process we will find that while all children perform activities at Lower Levels of Remembering, Understanding and Application; only a few will choose activities on Analysis, Evaluation and Creating. Similarly different children will choose activities as per their Intelligence.

We have to teach keeping the average 68% in view most of the time and the remaining 32% who are evenly distributed at the two ends of the continuum: 16% Above average need to be challenged with activities, projects and assignments as a programme of Enrichment and Acceleration and the other16%-Below average need immediate Remediation but after Diagnostic Evaluation and they need our time, attention, patience, reinforcement and care. This is the challenge to a teacher.
We have to follow practices that have been tested and found useful; like Peer work, Group work, Use of colour and Music, Movement Breaks, enough opportunities for Review and Practice.
We have to individualise our teaching in a classroom setting. This is not difficult at all provided we have all the background information about each child and we have learnt to transact curriculum at various levels.

Cheer up. We all did it. I am sure you can do it better than us.