I have found that students get together for study groups before or after class helps all students. The students ask questions of each other that they may not in class.
Entry assessment can be used as a diagnostic tool. It provides an instrument to determine the course level performance capability of a certain students. This can provide the start point for follow-on education and allow for testing out of sections or entire course if the student can demonstrate required performance.
One strategy that has worked for me is in regard
to vocabulary. Rather than giving a whole list
of words to learn I have a handout I used when
teaching reading at a school for students with
special learning disabilities. It is a list of
14 words that are keys to 14,000 words. The words (you could choose just 5-7 words) have a
different prefix, root and suffix and the student
is encouraged to see how many words he or she
could make by mixing and matching the different
affixes. Another "contest" was to choose just
one root or prefix and see how many words they
can come up with. They need to come up with a
definition of the word without using a dictionary
Another "contest" is to have creative or "art"
students illustrate a word and have the class
guess.
I am a new teaher and am not sure if I am effective in my assessing a students learning needs.I give frequent quizes and offer repetition as much as possible.
rebecca
I am a new teacher, so I try to listen to what they are saying as well as what they are not saying. Sometimes a student will smile and nod in class but do poorly on the quiz. I engage these students as often as I can. One on one is the best way to find out what they need.
rebecca
Lucky, our office of ability services addresses student needs and then communicates those needs and accomodations to the instructor. At times, we may need to allow the student a little extra time on a project or exam and provide additional support or tutoring to the student.
I use a combination of repetition and visual aids and examples during a presentation. This way I increase my probability of reaching more students.
Rocco, excellent points! I have also found that students are often open about their learning challenges (particularly Math - I used to teach Developmental Math in college)! They also can benefit greatly by seeing how another student tackled a problem - students providing examples to other students (under instructor guidance of course) is an extremely effective learning technique.
Jay
ED106 Facilitator
I bring this subject up on the first day by urging students with a learning disability to email me after class so i can direct them for tutoring or help them.
Focus on thier culture first to help determine thier possible mind set, after which you can create the proper baseline to refer to when planing lessons.
Before you can use any strategies, I believe it is important to determine what specific learning challenges a student has. Most often, students are very open about what challenges they have. For example, in math related coures students who have been unsuccessful in math in prior experiences will let you know about it. At that point, you can speak with them about how you support them.
I some cases, student to student tutoring is very successful, because a student who easily grasps the concepts can break it down to digestable bites for the other student. Another example is to have students share with the class their responses on how they calculated the answer to a math problem. This may make it easier for those challenges with math to grasp the concepts.
Letting the student know you care and are available for them to ask questions or maybe extra tutoring. Really listening to the student can make you more accessible. Observing the body language of the student in the classroom can tell you a lot and whether they are struggling.
What has worked for me is if i have a 4-5 minute talk with the students who seem to be having a difficult time. I explain to them their grades, what could be done to improve their grade and then a few words of encouragement at the end. I've seen students make a huge improvement in their grades in such a short time after we have talked.
I try to keep the student involved in the course by questioning the students. If a student displays a special need. I will pull the student to the side and ask if they are getting all the information. Based on there responses I will try to assist them.
One method I have used to assist the ELL students is to have them review all edit marks I make on composition papers for understanding. Next, the student rewrites the paper making the corrections. This practice helps them improve in their English writing skills.
I use all areas of student work including daily work, quizzes, discussions in class of reading assignments, and other assignments to assess a learning need. If a student obviously does not understand what he/she has read, I know there is a student learning need.
Margaret Bennett
When addressing the needs of diverse learning--one will need to make sure that he uses differienated instruction. The lesson must be present in more than the old fashion lecturing styl-therefore, the introduction of new information and home work assignments must be assigned using vattius methods. If instructors focus on student needs and not thier needs then educating diverese learners would not be very difficult.
When working with students who have unique situations, you must LISTEN CLOSELY to their speech and how words are formed when constructing a sentence. You should also ask specific questions concerning their language barrier.
One thing that i found helpful in working with students that have diverse learning needs, is to give a writing assingment with written and verbal instructions. This gave me an overall assesment of each student on writing skills, on how well they could follow directions verbally and written.
I sometimes times repeat hard to pronounce medical terminology several times to my students along with the definition.
