That is an important problem for achieving desired outcomes. There may be some solution suggestions (in my opinion) by taking my experiences into account:

1- Differences among students are too important. In order to overcome this, you may employ a self-learning approach in order to enable students having disadvantages to optimize them to other students while they are away from school. A good way to make this alive is receiving a software support.

2- If you employ more technological elements, it will be better to take students' attention. Be focused on what can take attention of students having problems in the classroom.

3- You may refer to Gardner's Theory on Multiple Intelligence. I have done may research on that and I believe that it is a good theory to employ in a classroom environment. But this will need technological support of course.

4- Psychology of Maturing and Learning is an important subject that may usable for you. Different students are in different stages of maturing and learning. So, they may need something special to apply. So, you can design a special teaching - learning programme in this way.

It is truly difficult. I have real experience in this. One method, I have adopted which has given me satisfactory result is engaging those students for a redo/rehearsal/tutorial class after the Institute regular timings. Of course, this requires little sacrifice and dedication on the part of the teacher.

Dear Debra,

Definitely, it is a tough task, but being a teacher we are responsible for handling these situations. From my own experience, i may suggest that participatory best approach is t way. I generally give tasks to the students in forming groups of identical and prefer to give tasks related to their backgrounds and even sometimes where the matter is related to the ethnicity or religion to persons do not belong to the same back ground and thereafter they present their project work before entire class. and keep them open for questions. I found positive results of this pattern.

Hi Debra,

At one level, multigame teaching is an important and appropriate to way to help nations reach their internationally-mandated Education for All targets and national Millennium Development Goals by providing good quality education to children who are often neglected by their education system because they live in small, poor, and remote communities. More importantly, it is an approach that can help schools in these communities and teachers in these schools serve their students better by providing them an education that is both good quality and relevant to the community in which they live.

Many teachers in Asia and the Pacific – teachers such as you – need to teach students from more than one grade in one classroom. An d many – in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Viet Nam and elsewhere – are already doing so. The approach being used is known as multigrade teaching – teaching classes of students not only of different ages and abilities but also at different grade levels. Multigrade teaching is not always easy, but doing it well means that you are educating children who otherwise would not be able to go to school and therefore helping them gain the knowledge and skills they need for a more promising future.

Students from different cultures, backgrounds and educational environments learn in distinctly different ways. Be aware that the way you learned best might not be the way that other students will learn -- or that all students learn in the manner(s) you did. For more information on specific differences in student learning and development, a number of fine summaries of different ways students learn and develop during their collegiate experiences are available.

Our students are diverse in their cultures and ethnicity, their experiences, their learning styles, and many other dimensions. And all of these dimensions shape who they are and how they learn. Effective teachers understand this and use a variety of teaching methods to promote student learning.

Hi Debra,

I experience this most semesters when students from different faculties major in English. I take into account their prior knowledge and integrate this aspect in their group work especially and this really works in terms of them having the capability to engage in the given task meaningfully. However, at times it doesn't work and this is when I have to group students with similar content discipline in the same group and issue is settled in this case.

Regards

Dear Debra, here at my department there is no such case as indicated in your question, so its pretty easy to deliver lecture on one topic already indicated in the semester schedule. But it is interesting to read the comments of different individuals to educate myself. thanks for the question.

Hi Debra,

What I find works best for me is to group the students according to interest.  So whenever there is need for groupwork, I would set the grading criteria, but allow students to demonstate the skills as applied to their specialist areas.

This would make it necessary for the Early Childhood Specialists to be grouped with their peers. The groups would be small (two or three) to limit room for free-loading and each group would be given a well-defined scoring rubric so that they may engage in self-assessment.

Dear Prof Saini

Teaching in this case needs to be simpler to explain and provide subject and rounded to all categories It is good to offer different models of different countries, taking into consideration not to raise sensitivities between students on the basis of race, country.

Regards

Hi!

Most of the time each student has their own purpose for learning or achieving a specific goal within a class. It is very important that you focus on the learning outcomes you want learners to achieve besides their individual background.

I believe to have a diversity of learners within a class is a wonderful opportunity to share knowledge and enrich the classroom and learning experience through different expertise. The 21st century skills aim that learners experience learning across curriculum, which means that the same topic can be analyzed from different perspectives.

I will recommend different options:

Try to flip the classroom, grouping the learners by different type of topics of interest and level of expertise, integrate some gamification elements to foster the discussion and knowledge sharing, peer-learning, include problem solving, inquiry teaching method.

And remember although different type of teaching strategies you are implementing for your class, is very important that you keep on mind the learning objectives.

I hope it was useful. 

Regards

Liliana F

I agree with Volga. The lesson planning must include some discrete teaching time for each group while the other groups work on a group task or self marking individual examples. I did this successfully for several years while teaching mixed ability 15/16 year olds.

I have the same situation in my teaching group and I constantly mix groups between lessons and within the same lesson sometimes so that social learning takes place. Students from different disciplines learn from each other and develop better learning skills. I use debates with my two groups (education and psychology with education) mixed on both sides, I get them to do presentations together, give feedback to each other and discuss and report together. Within the same lesson, I give each student a number half way through a lesson on each table from 1 to 5 and then ask all the number 1, number 2, number 3, etc to stand up and make a new table with the same number so they all learn to mix and work well together.

As for pedagogy,I target students with different needs for intervention, whichever group they belong to. They are told that this is mixed ability teaching and encouraged to ask questions. I also target them with questions to check understanding or ask them to tell me one thing they have learned half way through the lesson or at the end. My expectations of their behaviour, attitude to learning, participation and engagement are made clear to all and they know that I have the patience to wait for a student to answer, no matter what their ability is. It takes time to develop a safe and respectful learning environment where young adults feel they can ask questions without being labelled as ignorant but it is worth the effort.

Teaching a core and or a fundamental module is challenging as students come from diverse content areas/background thus are indeed operating at different levels of interest and motivation . I am teaching a fundamental English language module to all students. This requires me to test various teaching approaches, methods and strategies suitable to /accommodative of all. I have tried various grouping strategies such as grouping students according to qualifications/programmes. This helps to cater for their needs as I always draw examples (language use, grammar, and language skills) from their subjects of specialization/learning field. They understand better that way. At other instances I divide  them according to (same or mixed) ability if the learning outcome requires that. Group dynamics should be taken into consideration when grouping students.It is true that background and proficiency play a determining factor as well in grouping students. What is important is that all students in a group should be active participants, cooperating with their fellow members. This will ensure that all are effectively learning.  Balancing the group helps  prevent the Halo effect by the teacher and those who are  proficient offer support to challenged students.

It is taxing to teach students from different content subjects in one class as there is a huge discrepancy in  their language levels. One needs to deal with the group need; however, the key issue is the intended learning outcome. This diverse nature of students in one class is in a way stimulating and calls for the teacher/lecturer to be innovative and creative to synthesise the class and have a "coherent" one at the end of the day. It is a wonderful experience indeed.

Hi Debra, 

While I don't often teach divergent content areas at the same time, two things might be helpful toward answering your question. First, I have a middle-school elective class where the administrators put 2D art students and 3D art students in the class concurrently. While it is still art content, it is kind of like teaching algebra I and geometry at the same time because the problem-solving techniques are vastly different. They way I handle that class is to look for something which is common between the two concepts that I am teaching that day. It could be a learning goal or, even when the goals are different, I may be able to find a commonality between the two if they share an art element or design principle. I start the class with the common lesson, and then, I assign one group some independent work, while I work with the other group of students, and then switch. 

The other thing I do is I try to use the art curriculum as a way to create authentic real-world problem-solving scenarios that involve things from multiple content areas. I always reach out to the grade level teachers to see what they are working on at the time, and I try to incorporate the use and practice of those skills into the art lesson in a meaningful way. I am not one who believes in a separation of divergent subjects. One can almost always find commonality. By showing that a skill the students are learning from math, science, social studies, or English is relevant in the art room in a way that has real-world application, it makes the work more relevant for the students in my classes. Therefore, one could say that interdisciplinary work is a key toward making school subjects authentic for students. Teachers need to focus more on the commonality between subject areas than the differences to make it work. If you can do that, then teaching divergent content areas at one time should be able to work in a single classroom. 

this situation can be handled if the teaching activity is started with proper planning. administering a diagnostic test can help the teacher to check the level of the students for the content knowledge and then according to the test results groups can be formed in the class. the learners belong to variety of level of understanding can be best handled and taught in groups of their own level. they feel comfortable and they dont develop a sense of de-association in the class in the presence of other students who show better performance in learning. they also have their peers in group and social environment around them helps them perform better. 

Debra,

I teach a class like that. One of the most productive things I do to focus on disciplinary literacies is to have students create their own Professional Learning Networks, and use those to find out how people in their content areas use literacies in their work.

Kathryn

Hi, Debra,

I think our colleagues have offered useful ideas related to teaching in a diverse classroom. The area in which I think I can contribute is related to collaboration on group projects, specifically what you mentioned as "group work becomes very challenging as expectations for group behaviours are not the same among the different programme groups."

I use the attached rubric for peer and self-assessment of collaborative behaviors. This rubric is introduced at the beginning of the group work as a tool to each collaborative behaviors as well as to assess those behaviors at the conclusion of the group work. Each team member scores herself and her team members. The final score related to collaboration includes my observations, too.

Another piece to balancing participating in group work is requiring students to provide evidence of their contributions to the group work. This includes screen shots, forwarded email conversations, copies of drafts, dates and times of telephone calls, and anything else the students believe illustrates their level of contribution. This is done for each assignment submitted during the group project weeks/modules. These contributions are also graded.

To summarize, I scaffold the group work by teaching effective collaborative behaviors using the rubric that will later be used to assess those behaviors and requiring students to provide graded evidence of their contributions to the group work.

Best wishes,

Barb

Article Peer- and Self-Assessment of Collaboration CC BY-NC 4.0

Kathryn:

Can you elaborate some more on what software you use for the Professional Learning Networks?

many thanks,

Debra

Me parece relevante iniciar el trabajo del período con la aplicación de un test de ideas previas y uno de estilos de aprendizaje, este último (Kolb, Chaea, etc...) permite obtener información sobre la diversidad de estudiantes del grupo y así diseñar actividades pertinentes a cada estilo...   

Hi,

It is ways nice to develop groups.  In my curriculum and instruction class, I called the groups content experts.  This allowed groups with common areas to collaborate.  I would give a general example and then apply it to one specific content area.  Groups would be asked to share to the entire class after each activity.

Dear Dr  Ferdinand 

Teaching students from variable cultures an countries is a true challenge. The teacher must have a high knowledge in these cultures and countries to avoid discussing hot topics and to concentrate on what it is acceptable for all and united them. If you look in life there are many things acceptable to all and do not cause enmity and hatred. If the teacher could do so, I think he will succeed with his students.

Regards 

One of the ways I addressed students in a class who represented math, several of the sciences, and English language teaching was to first identify and present information about those areas that are common to teaching and learning. For example, students in every discipline need to learn how to use graphic organizers for writing and reading comprehension, strategies for learning key vocabulary terms, general study techniques to prepare for classroom tests. Then I provided a variety of examples of how to teach these in specific content areas. Students were then asked to work together in same-discipline groups to create lessons that reflected what I had presented. These groups provided practice, review, and feedback for each participant. Each student was then responsible for presenting a final project where reading and writing content-areas strategies were demonstrated. The final projects were then presented to the entire group who then gave them feedback. Many of my former students have reported to me that this process worked very well.

I am in agreement with Shirley Briggs.  Also, I would challenge the early childhood students to identify important building blocks needed for elementary school success and try to align activities which build a bridge between disciplines.  Another idea is to incorporate the importance of relationship building with students and the critical work of identifying not only cognitively delayed but emotionally delayed students and what to do with them.  Just some ideas.  Helping pre-service teachers understand all level of educators depend upon each other and the more collaborative they can be now, the better results will be in the future.

Differentiated instruction (DI) can be a better approach in this situation . it's an effective teaching approach that provides differents students with different avenue to learning in the same classroom . it will help all students to engage in the classroom activities  ,the teacher just has to be more creative in applying differentiating learning approach in the classroom  . examples : "Helpdesk" in the classroom . "Scaffold learning approach' 1,2,3 stages students take the challenge by attempting questions based on their level of understanding of the lesson .You have to spend time getting to know your children and know exactly where they are, this is how the teacher will know if learning is taking place /if the students understand the lesson ,if they are being challenged or if they are developing any skill .There are lots of teaching methods in differentiating for learning . 

The strategies to apply in managing the challenges in teaching students from different content areas in one class; for instance, General Studies [GS] course include:

Theoretical framework model: Use a theory to explain your point, applying it in a way that students from different disciplines or departments will understand it better. For instance, system theory can be used to explain how motor vehicle functions for mechanical engineering student, how human body functions for medical student, how family or society or government functions for social science student, etc;

Methodological framework model: Use an approach or process that all students will have a common understanding of the lesson. For instance, use of role play [drama sketch] to summarise your lecture. From experience, when I was training selected community members on advocacy process during the ‘’Improving Community Response Against Malaria’’ [ICRAM]project in Anambra state, Nigeria in 2014; in the training class, I had literate, semi-literate and illiterate community members. I observed that it was difficult to have all of them on the same page in the process of delivering the lecture. After the lecture, I applied role play of what I taught them, using them as actors. Then we revised what I taught them earlier with questions, amazingly, all of them including the illiterate, semi-literate and literate understood the process better and at almost equal knowledge. From that experience, I made strong recommendation for the use of role model in such situation. Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies including some religious groups are applying it in public sensitization and informal training.

Simulation model: use of teaching aid- computer and projector to programme your lecture materials for teaching students from diverse departments.

Teaching by analogy model: Use natural or social features familiar to the environment of the students in their course area, using things they see or observe or study with.

Participatory learning model: Give room for students to share their perspective which you can learn from and explain it better to benefit students from that course area.

Making learning fun: Make the class to enjoy your teaching; using humour, and create space for students to make comments/ contribute to the topic.

I wish you good luck!

Depends on the intake of the students from different countries. May be diploma engineering contents from one continent is not equivalent to another continent. This created problem in T&L at degree and masters level. TQ

Hi Debra,

It seems this is a topic that never goes out of style. Well, having a multi-level classes poses many challenges for students and teachers and also many risks. On of the risks is that high performers could stop performing well and get bored if we focus more on the low performers (with out the intention of offending the student) and vice versa. What I like to do is preparing a class that goes accordingly to the syllabus and planned content, but then I challenge the high performers to go for more and let the low performers get used to the content that is actually what they required to learn. In that way the standards of the class remain and everyone has the chance to improve. The final outcome are high performers becoming better and low performers improving positively. I hope you find it useful. Thanks.

It is a big challenge for the teacher. I think that experience is very important. Additionally, well prepared exercises and group work are expected to have positive impact on students' performance.