Question

1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities    Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of strategies for differentiating teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities.

Answer 1

One of the most important challenges for a teacher in the classrooms today is managing a heterogeneous population of students. These students belong to different social, economic and family backgrounds. They are also different in their abilities in terms of understanding, applying and learning. So, setting the stage to motivate the slow learners and average learners and the fast learners becomes one of the most important tasks of a teacher in the 21^st century.

Firstly, the teacher can identify students with different skill levels and group them together. This would help the teacher have different materials for different skill levels that would be challenging to that level. Secondly, making the fast learners mentors of the slow learners will help the slow learners by getting a reinforcement from their peers and at the same time provide an opportunity to learn the concepts well by teaching others. Thirdly, preparing the slow learners before they come for the sessions by conducting preparation sessions would make them on par with the fast learners when they come to the classrooms. Finally, providing extra learning opportunities and accounting them in the regular scorecard will motivate them to stay on track and at the same time build their capability through external certificate programmes.