After so many excellent points of view and advices it may be difficult to come up with something new. Surely the feasibility of each recommendation depends upon the size of the class: currently I have classes between 3 and 30 members. I know of colleagues who have had more than 300 students in their lecture hall. Some of the recommendations are no longer feasible then.

In case of a small class of say 3 students it is easy to simulate one-to-one teaching. In case of 20-30 students per class and having 3 parallel classes one-to-one teaching will be the exception: if you find out who the low achievers are (not always quite so easy!) you should concentrate on them, but don't forget to give high achievers due attention, otherwise they may not be motivated to give their best and will stay midway on the route to mastery.

For the rest you have to find a way to balance workload between full class lecturing (in a practical interactive way, cf. Hemanta Baruah above) and small group hands-on work (e.g. in the style of PBL). In the future this may partly be accommodated by some form of e-learning (caution: this is not a magic bullit for all didactic problems, and causes a lot of its own, not all resolved yet).

In a full-class lecturing style (max. 30 students), pay attention to each individual student (cyclically), in order to find out who is following you and who doesn't. Why? How? Well, ask pertinent questions to find out. Like any good speaker for a larger (but not too large) audience. Build your own landscape of student positions on a couple of crucial learnability coordinates. Only then you will be able to effectively attend to each student in plenum or in the small groups during project group work.

Most often groups will be built by students choosing each other in and out. That may help in establishing cohesive groups of students who develop good communication and cooperating habits. But it doesn't help so much in balancing out differences in learning styles, soft skills and subject competences between all students. In our modern culture with its emphasis on effective and efficient team work this means: missing an important chance of learning beyond the immediate subject matter (so-called meta-cognitive skills).

One way to accommodate this is frequently mixing up the groups. Once I happened to have exactly 27 students in a class for which groups of 3 students were foreseen. So I thought about an appropriate design to mix groups optimally or maximally. I had a look at the theory of experimental designs with Latin Squares and Graeco-Latin Squares etc. Then I found out about the Kirkman Schoolgirl Problem and its solutions (see Triple Systems, a thick book full of mathematics!), and tried it out. Finally, because 27 = 3 x 3 x 3 I was able to set up a Sudoku-Scheme covering all the possible combinations in 3-teams, so that each student would meet each other student in at least 3 roles. Or so (see attachment) This was fun, but a lot of administrative and logistic work. So don't do it too often, and only with the corresponding group assignment structure ;-)

Dear Tolga,

Surrounding diversity in classrooms is but natural. It just stems naturally from student questions or comments. It is our concern as a teacher and moreover, in our best interest to prepare ourselves by becoming more familiar with historical and current diversity concerns, identities, and movements.

I think you are going to love this article: Eight Aspects of Good Teaching

http://plpnetwork.com/2013/12/04/aspects-good-teaching/

The article was suggested by Mind Shift - http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/

It seems like that in your narrative you have largely answered your own question. It is highly likely that the Art teacher was aware of your love of mathematics - and was able to link the artistic creation to something you already had an interest in. Whilst it is not always possible (and perhaps not always desirable ) where possible, good teachers link new knowledge and experiences to existing knowledge and interests. I bet your art teacher would have found ways to link macrame to music or to science if these were your intersts.

In a comparable situation for a course on ICT architecture we had introduced considerable project work in which team work could leverage the diversity in skill sets.

We all have different intelligences, or talents . You may want to read about Gardner's Multiple intelligences Theory.

I believe that group work might be a good approach for your classroom. Good luck!

Thank you for all of your responses ...

@Hristina, I am not worried about "how to teach," but rather, "what should a teacher expect when teaching a very diverse skillset" ...

@Kevin, I don't believe that, I answered my own question. My specific question is this : What goal should a teacher have, when the skillset is so diverse that, it is very hard to determine a "bar" ?

===============

More on this: Say, I have 50 students.

*** GROUP 1 : 20 of them will be able to complete the course and be able to write very sophisticated programs ... They will possibly find a job that requires heavy duty programming. They will adapt to any level you raise the "bar" to ...

*** GROUP 2 : 20 of them will be able to learn programming, to a point, where they can use programming as a useful tool for the rest of their lives.

*** GROUP 3 : 10 of them are likely to struggle ... even in writing a very simple program.

================

What does a teacher do in this case ? If you use the same "bar" for all 50 students:

*** say, at a difficulty level of 10, GROUP1 will love it and will learn a lot. They'll be challenged. GR2 will struggle majorly, and will barely keep up. Possibly a lot in this category will learn NOTHING. GR3 will all FAIL.

*** at a difficulty level of 6 or 7 ... GR1 wll be demotivated, they will find it ridicilously easy. GR2 will love it and will learn a lot. GR3 will struggle a lot, and possibly won't learn anything, but will all PASS.

*** At a difficulty level of 3: GR1 won't even come to the classes. They will think, this class is a joke. They will all get A's. GR2 will be demotivated by how easy the class is, will pass without a problem. They will barely learn anything. GR3 will love the class and will think it is perfect, and will learn a lot. However, what they will learn is barely writing a few lines of code ...

Since the goal of a class is TO TEACH EVERYONE, what is the right answer ?

@Tolga, the only rule is that there are no rules in such situations. The algorithms of teacher actions varies from group to group. Teacher shares experience and makes conclusions out of his own experience in order to be better with each new group/class!

Tolga, congratulations to the brave incursion into the "pure" pedagogy, didactics, education... As adopted at technical universities to say, "engineers can do anything":)

As for my opinion, this problem has occurred a long time ago (maybe even BC) when individual learning was starting to become collective...

How could you possibly use the same bar if they are so different? Not that there is a perfect equality in any single course but if you have noticed differences of a significant degree, why wouldn't some enroll in a preparatory course? Otherwise, stick to the level of 6 or 7 or maybe you should test the progress they made in class since the day they enrolled until the end, e.g. somehow evaluate their relative progress. Is there a perfect evaluation system anyway? Maybe the Swedish pass/fail system works best, no matter how vague and broad it may seem at first sight.

@Hristina, good point about "preparatory course" ... The problem is that, this specific class I am talking about is a FRESHMEN class. And, it is a REQUIRED class. It is "C Programming." So, the "skills diversity" comes from a) students from different engineering disciplines, b) even from the same discipline, the students are coming from different high schools, with very different educational levels, c) also, some of the students might be in a discipline, but, they might realize later, they don't like this, and switch majors ...

The worst thing for a teacher is to have a bunch of "bodies" , but, not "hearts" in the class ! Teacher is the one that wins the students' hearts. But, how can you do that, if you have to "choose" whose hearts you will win !!! If you make it too easy, its not fair to this group. If you make it too difficult, its not fair to that group ! Then what ?

This makes it super challenging for the instructor ... From what I am hearing, this is very common in FRESHMEN classes, since at that age, you are dealing with all sorts of issues (we all went through this). I was looking for ideas from anyone that faced such a challenge.

I found a solution that, I think, worked the best way possible last year. I am teaching the class again this year. However, before I post my solution, I was waiting to hear from others that experienced such a situation. May be the best thing for me to do is to post my solution, and let others critique and/or improve if possible.

@Roxana, I just got around to reading Gardner's multiple intelligences:

http://www.tecweb.org/styles/gardner.html

Here is what I think. Reading this should be REQUIRED for every educator !!! This completely confirmed why I, myself, have huge trouble learning things without ANALOGIES. I am now going through, and figuring out my "intelligences :)". After all, I wasn't as dumb as I was thinking :) :) :)

This should also be required for every STUDENT !!! Understanding your personal strengths / weaknesses is as important as somebody else understanding YOUR strengths / weaknesses.

Everybody, please read it, if you have more than one student in your class :)

Thanks a billion Roxana.

#Tolga, @Tolga You're welcome!

Dear Tolga Soyata, dear professors!

I once heard from a colleague of discipline the following question: every year the classes are close similar, so:

-30% are weak in their abilities;

-40% are medium in their abilities;

-Finally, 30% were excellent or very good and interested in learning students. So I dedicate myself to the 30% "top", because it's worth my dedication to them.

It made me very upset, because I always heard from my dear mother, an elementary school teacher, just the opposite:

Following her, My formula is:

-I teach the 30% with more difficulties, more dedication, to which belay to 40% with average performance;

-I teach to the 40% average performance with great dedication, to which the best belay;

Finally, for the top 30%, often if I did not mess up, they already follow the natural flow of life. This is to teach. This is to educate.

Of course I try to do everything the same as I learned from my first and most beloved Master.

Vinicius, bravo ! bravo ! This is precisely what I am talking about.

If you were a captain of the ship, you wouldn't choose 30% of the passengers and jump ship when they are rescued ! You would stay in the ship until ALL are rescued !!! The formula I found is this : I will open it up to discussion, and , see if it makes sense to everyone:

*** Yes, this G1:30%, G2: 40%, G3: 30% thing happened to me precisely ... G1 is Group1 etc. *** Instead of raising the bar to "10" and choking G3 and G2, I raise the bar to something like "6" which is very difficult for G3. However, with great effort, they can do it. *** G2 will handle the bar of "6" comfortably. *** But, what do we do, so that, G1 learns as much as 10 ??? My answer is BONUS points.

*** I define the required homework at about a bar of "6" and put many BONUS options in there. These bonus points raise the bar to "12" !!! The idea is that, anybody that does the absolute minimum will only get a B+ max. So, amazingly, almost everybody in G1 jumped in and did the bonus stuff last year. *** A lot of G2 members attempted, successfully or not, to do the bonus problems. I awarded them generously, if they made good strides in the bonus problems. *** The idea is that, even G3 will pass with the nice feeling that, they accomplished what the class required. Nobody in my class failed last year, though, a few got a D. *** Some of the students took the bonus questions so seriously that, they solved EVERYTHING. Out of the 20 additional bonus points, they got 119 or 120 !!!

In this class, my message was clear: If you can program SOMETHING, you will pass. However, there are many degrees of PASSING. Very good students are ultra-competitive. If 30% of the class got an A, they will strive to get an A+ or A++ , or A+++ , i.e., beat each other to the 1 extra point !!! although our school doesn't have the A+ or A++ degrees. I invited top three students to a research internship last summer, and gave them a glorified recommendation letter.

My system (I think) works: Set the expectations to a bare-minimum acceptable (~6), where G2 will pass comfortably, and G3 will pass with great effort. G1 will always look for the EXTRAs. Load them up with EXTRAs ! They WILL DO IT ! You just have to give them the strong feeling that, SKY IS THE LIMIT. G3 will pass, G1 will unleash their maximum power and turn into power houses !!! G1 wants CHALLENGE !!! Give it to them ! That's my method of madness :)

Dear friend, brother in the art of teaching, to stimulate the search for knowledge. I like too much the ship captain example you give - it is very didactic. And what gift is more precious than knowledge? What parents often say (I think it's worldwide) about the best gift for their children? This gift would not be education?

I enjoyed your formula, and more than a formula, is a metric stimulus to students. You see, in my thesis for teaching (associate professor), that time I was bothered by some colleagues who insist on not sharing knowledge with their students, I think the reason was for "fear of losing the job market" - as dentists we are practitioners in our profession. I wrote at the end of the thesis: "A quem pertence o conhecimento?"- I will try to translate straigth from Portuguese, sorry, it is a free translation:

KNOWLEDGE BELONGS TO WHOM ?

"Since our parents generated us, they have taught us, and we live learning with them. And they learning from us, even with our mistakes.

At school, our teachers taught us and we learn from Them. And they learned from us. Even with our mistakes.

Today we teach our students, and they learn from us. And we learn from them. Even from our mistakes.

The lifetime is so, as well as knowledge. Both are cyclical, and cyclic beying, if in an hour we teach, we learn in another... even with our own mistakes.

There is a key role of communication in maintaining this cycle, dominant within the triad: learning / life / knowledge. And this interdependence leads us inevitably to reflect: knowledge withheld is lost information, it is life that is gone, with no owner, with no reason to be!"

Best Regards, and believe me I will try your formula!

Vinicius Pedrazzi

i do not know if that is working for youre 50 freshmens but I always liked the teamworking projects a lot.I mean you have to have a certain degree of normal "lectures" to provide the basics to youre students. but I think a certain degree of semi-self organized teamwork is great for the students. my math teacher would do it as follows: make mixed groups in terms of skills AND friendships, distribute topics to work on and then let the groups teach their topic to the rest of the class in form of a presentation.

this teaches a lot more than just the actual topic...

@Philipp, here is my five year experience summary on "teamwork" :

*** If you base the entire class on teamwork, it is very hard to separate the skill groups

*** I do five individual projects, which is about 2/3 of the total grade, and do one pretty heavy-duty group project, which is 1/3 of the grade.

*** By the time the five individual projects are completed, I have a pretty good idea about the skill groups. I pair them up based on "similar" skills, otherwise, one student might overwork, and the other one fall behind. It becomes unfair .

*** This not only teaches students to work individually, but, also to work on a 2x more sophisticated project in a group of 2. 1+1=2 is not easy. Sometimes, 1+1=1, since one student falls behind and cannot help !

*** Also, groups of 3 didn't work great for me. Groups of 2 worked the best. I am curious about other educators' experiences though

*** But, overall, group projects are definitely great, however, basing the entire class on group project didn't work well for me.

Do you have different experiences ? or, are these close to your experiences ?

Well i can only tell you about my experiences as a student since i did not teach so far...

And in a group of three people with different skills, i think the probability that the 3 students profit from each other is quite good compared to some of the other options. I mean if the result is that 1 student does everything or that 1 student falls behind can happen, but then both of them did something wrong...

Dear Tolga,

In laboratory classes assigning some individual experiments enhances the learning skill. So, what I do keep some experiments in group of 3 students, in group of 2 students and individual.

One method of doing grouwork in a freshman programming class is to have the students do individual tasks but then have them test each other's programs and explain their programs to one another. In this way the poorer student sees what good code is about and gets help while the better student gets to experience some "real life" debugging.

I strongly agree ... I found that peer eval. Extra-Classes by the student in study groups made positive change regarding KSA, Knowledge Skills and Attitude ....

I like my experience when I taught a Org. Devel. and Change Mgmt course in what we call LCC, Learner Created Content, I identified their learning needs as we agreed and sort of contracted on the course content, we did not limit our selves to a text, and each group was responsible for the presentation of the subject on a course web-page and in class presentation. Lots of Extra classes was conducted out side the class, as for the evaluation, I prepared an evaluation form that included all the related knowledge subject and skills. I asked my colleagues in the department to do the evaluation, I did not. I positioned myself next to my student to aid them in making appointment with my colleagues to do the evaluation.

it was loots of collaborative work. fun,

Interesting insights to a topic so vital to all classes. When we meld talents, interests, skills, and "intelligence" in a class - we begin to facilitate humans to reach higher in ways that build their own curiosity in our classes.

I do this by helping students to use my former lectures as cheat sheets, and to apply what we learn to improve some area of their lives beyond class. The vehicles I use? Multiple intelligence and brain based tasks - of which I have already developed dozens into student - centered games, guides and quizzes.

I especially like the reaches in this thread beyond lectures on the faculty's part, and beyond "use for class only" - on the student's. I literally use 100 prompts to run from lectures or telling. Bravo for classes that engage and prosper all.

Happy holiday all! Ellen

@Tolga, I admit that my experience is close to your experience! The best results are achieved in groups of two students! This semester I changed my practice and gave each student individually to work seminar, and the success was much worse! I went back to practice to make two students group!

Dear Professor Ljubomir Jacić,

Multidisplinary group, multi-cultural group, mixed GPA group, .. always enhances the learning process. However, giving atleast on task individually filters the lazy students and also puting a sense of responsibilities.

We also do a declaration by students working in a group about their % of contribution and brief the tasks.

In projects we ask students to maintain logbook.

Heterogeneous cooperative learning groups, composed by high, medium and low-skilled members, working in group projects will work well in your class. Cooperative learning is the best instructional approach in those settings.

Regardless of skillset diversity level, I would allot a 1/4 of their grade to how well (growth in knowledge) the student (through study, asking questions, and assignments) relates their own individual, respective, strongest skillset(s) (everybody has) to the subject. Reasoning is, those students whose skill level already matches the subject cannot grow at least 1/4 of their grade beyond an A+, whereas those with a greater gap between their skillset and the subject grow relatively exponentially in learning with near equal outcome in level of knowledge (skillset) attained by the end of the course for all students. At the beginning of the course, first assignment, each student's strongest skillset(s) can be ascertained and tracked by their self-report to an evaluation database.

In other words, grade on the basis of growth in learning (available to all of us) rather than existing knowledge level or skillset.

Hope this tack might help!

The experience told by Tolga about a teacher that helped him, resonates well and actually goes a long towards answering the question for this thread.

That is, the brighter students are a pleasure to teach (they absorb most of what is said and can work, for the most part, independently) and the struggling students need lots of individual attention. It is the individual attention that gets the weaker students into a position where they can begin to be semiautonomous.

Dear Tolga,

Not just in a multidisciplinary class, in all sorts of classes in general, the students would anyway have some bit of inequality as far as learning is concerned. When I was a teacher, I preferred to teach the basics with the help of numerical examples and diagrams as far as possible. For example, when I used to teach Linear Programming to students of Statistics, I always made it a point to explain the matters with a numerical example of their choice. Once the students understand the basic philosophy of linear programming, the mathematical matters can follow. That way, the students find the matters easy to understand. Further, I always wanted to see that the weakest student, weak in mathematical understanding, must understand the matters completely. In a way, I always was interested to nullify the so called diversity mentioned in your question.

After so many excellent points of view and advices it may be difficult to come up with something new. Surely the feasibility of each recommendation depends upon the size of the class: currently I have classes between 3 and 30 members. I know of colleagues who have had more than 300 students in their lecture hall. Some of the recommendations are no longer feasible then.

In case of a small class of say 3 students it is easy to simulate one-to-one teaching. In case of 20-30 students per class and having 3 parallel classes one-to-one teaching will be the exception: if you find out who the low achievers are (not always quite so easy!) you should concentrate on them, but don't forget to give high achievers due attention, otherwise they may not be motivated to give their best and will stay midway on the route to mastery.

For the rest you have to find a way to balance workload between full class lecturing (in a practical interactive way, cf. Hemanta Baruah above) and small group hands-on work (e.g. in the style of PBL). In the future this may partly be accommodated by some form of e-learning (caution: this is not a magic bullit for all didactic problems, and causes a lot of its own, not all resolved yet).

In a full-class lecturing style (max. 30 students), pay attention to each individual student (cyclically), in order to find out who is following you and who doesn't. Why? How? Well, ask pertinent questions to find out. Like any good speaker for a larger (but not too large) audience. Build your own landscape of student positions on a couple of crucial learnability coordinates. Only then you will be able to effectively attend to each student in plenum or in the small groups during project group work.

Most often groups will be built by students choosing each other in and out. That may help in establishing cohesive groups of students who develop good communication and cooperating habits. But it doesn't help so much in balancing out differences in learning styles, soft skills and subject competences between all students. In our modern culture with its emphasis on effective and efficient team work this means: missing an important chance of learning beyond the immediate subject matter (so-called meta-cognitive skills).

One way to accommodate this is frequently mixing up the groups. Once I happened to have exactly 27 students in a class for which groups of 3 students were foreseen. So I thought about an appropriate design to mix groups optimally or maximally. I had a look at the theory of experimental designs with Latin Squares and Graeco-Latin Squares etc. Then I found out about the Kirkman Schoolgirl Problem and its solutions (see Triple Systems, a thick book full of mathematics!), and tried it out. Finally, because 27 = 3 x 3 x 3 I was able to set up a Sudoku-Scheme covering all the possible combinations in 3-teams, so that each student would meet each other student in at least 3 roles. Or so (see attachment) This was fun, but a lot of administrative and logistic work. So don't do it too often, and only with the corresponding group assignment structure ;-)

@Paul, thanks for nice presentation!

Dear Paul,

For the first time have I come across such an application of the Graeco-Latin Square Design! Fantastic!

@Paul: It´s obvious who learned a maximum of all persons involved. I think you had a lot of fun!

Hi Tolga, I am really shocked by the size of the class, 50 !. Great ideas given by colleagues above, but to give individual care or to run cooperative and group learning the typical size of the class should be 20-30. I think you are a devoted teacher nevertheless. Group assignments and work can help but managing such large number of groups is a full time job for a devoted instructor. I think you need to resort to some sort of technology help. Have your lectures recorded so that less competitive groups can resort to recorded lectures again and again. You may also need to encourage students interchange of ideas and assistance through a web discussion group on. There is also the Peer teaching strategy in which some students (good ones usually) be responsible to teach the others on a one to one or one to many basis. Finally, I pray to God to be with you. Thanks. @AlDmour.

Ismat, Yes, 50 is a large class , but, for REQUIRED courses for every engineering discipline, there are 200 students that need to take it in a year ! So, 50 is expected ... For more specialized classes, the size is typically ~20. What makes the class challenging to teach is not the size ... It is the heterogeneity of the class make-up. I have Economics, Engineering, Math students (first year) that might even change their discipline next year ! Aside from being challenging, there is an incredible responsibility for the teacher : If I don't do a good job teaching, the student might think (s)he is not made for this programming thing. May be, (s)he changes his/her discipline because of me !

=============

The best thing a teacher can have is a student coming in 10 years later and saying "you changed my life, I decided to pursue computer engineering because of how wonderful your class was".

Can you imagine the opposite ?? scaring a student away from engineering, because I didn't do my best in teaching programming ??? A teacher's nightmare !

Some teachers do scare away students, Tolga, and this is not necessarily true for the engineering discipline only; it is true for all disciplines! Such teachers exist. I have come across such teachers.

Skillful teaching requires two basic qualities. Teaching styles and evaluation methodologies which enhance learning skills. The another is quality and updated knowledge contents delivery and adaption of processes sedimentation towards learning skills.

This is a great topic. A quote comes to mind, "education is not the filling of the pail, but the lighting of a fire." --William butler yeates.

Teachers should help students find their skill set via assignments that can utilize a variety of talents. The best way to accomplish this is via creative projects; essays, presentations, science projects.

Hi Tolga, you are just the right person to take on this diverse ability class. You have experienced in yourself this great ability in Math and lesser ability in Art. Each one of us has some weakness, so that we can empathize; and NEVER give up on our weak students.

When I was younger, I struggled to improve at art. I was poor at estimating proportions; so you can see, I kept on drawing adult figures using baby proportion; a large head, short neck, body, and limbs. When I was 13 and had to draw sketch maps, then only it dawned on me. From then I learned to observe carefully the larger picture before moving to the details; observe well then only draw.

All the advice that our friends have given are great. Here I just add 2 paragraphs from my paper on Facilitating Cooperative Learning Among Biology Students. Recently I sent it to an online journal. It's GIANTS like Vygotsky and Bruner who advocate cooperative learning CL, not just small flies like me :)

'Vygotsky in 1978 had already stated that students are capable of performing at a much higher intellectual level when they work together in collaborative/cooperative situations than when they are required to work individually. The diverse backgrounds, diverse existing knowledge and experiences of the members in a group are the resources to which the group has access. This contributes positively to the learning process. CL allows its members to apply, synthesize and evaluate their knowledge beyond mere knowing and understanding. All these are not available to the individualistic learner.

According to Bruner (1985), CL methods improve problem solving strategies because the students in the group will come up with different interpretations of the given situation. When confronted with these differences that must be resolved, the thinking processes that are used, the group resources and peer support enable each member to internalize the external knowledge and the critical thinking skills that are then used for the learner’s intellectual exercise and functioning, increasing intellectual capacity.'

(Last 2 days, I had to work with 7 inch tab, couldn't send this to you, sorry.)

Hello Tolga,

I think the best teacher is the one that discover what are you good at and develops that part of you...

For me history class was the worst, but then I had a teacher that tell it like a big adventure story, his class was like going to a play and I loved history class that year... A few years later, I had a teacher for trigonometry (which I'm good at now) and got a D, when I have always been good at math.... when I was studying for my engineering degree I became a sort of teacher for kids who had trouble with different classes at school, and learn that all they needed was the right motivation; which may be a different way to explain things, a little bit more attention or a new algorithm (in their minds) to solve problems.... So my conclusion is....

I think that the way a teacher explains a topic is very important but it's impossible to reach every student in the same way... but if there's a way you can assess the level of your students and kind of divide the class in groups, maybe by discipline or skills, and give each group work that they can understand and develop best... that will be a great way to give each student the proper level of learning according to their skills...

I hope it makes sense...

Cinthya, I am with you on the history :) I barely made it in my freshmen year :)

And, yes, the "theory of multiple intelligences " (Howard Gardner) was brought up earlier during this discussion thread. Everybody has a different set of skills. Typically, a homogeneous class is composed of students with very similar skills. This happens when they are all, say, art students, or, all Electrical Engineers, etc. It is less challenging to put together a teaching strategy for a population of students like this, no matter what the student count is ...

The big question is "what do you do, when the class is composed of six or seven different types of skills (intelligences ?) ? not even all engineers ," which is the scenario I have.

===============

This year, I will have 3 sessions of 50 minutes, and a 1:15 lab session. I will use one of the 50 minute lab sessions to teach in a completely different way. That way, if the "theory of multiple intelligences" is right, at least, I will have appealed to "two" different ones !!! Better than ONE !!! There will be no teaching in these sessions, strictly the QUIZZES. See below.

================

Currently, I have three types of assessments:

1) PROJECTS: which are long program developments over three, four weeks ...These are very difficult programs, but, there is practically zero time pressure ... TEAMWORK is allowed on some of the later projects.

2) EXAMS: These are very simple programs, but, must be developed in the class within two hours ! Extreme time pressure. This type of assessment is necessary to develop SPEED, which is what is needed in the industry.

3) QUIZZES: Multiple-choice tests, asking the students to trace a program and calculate its output. No time pressure, no development, just heavy thinking. I call this THEORETICAL assessments.

=================

Wouldn't you think that, if the theory of multiple intelligences is correct, these three assessments would test three completely different types of intelligences ? I thought so, I was gravely wrong. Whoever does well on one type of test does well on the other type ! This is when I asked my dear RG colleagues to see if there are any other ideas !

Dear Tolga,

I agree with you but here I want to mentions that all evaluation schemes (exam, test, quiz, homework, seminar, project, lab, training, ...) are related with some overlapping but different learning skills. Further, these evaluations measure short memorization, long memorization, ... .

It's really interesting what you're exposing here. But shocking too, I would have thought the same thing about different assessments. Anyway, I think what I would do is try to start as basic as possible and give overachievers the opportunity to get further ahead with extra work maybe... I think, if so, they will separate by themselves and you'll give them the opportunity to grow... And the others can start with basics and boost from there... who knows, maybe they'll catch up the other guys...

Just saying...

Your problem is far more complicated than I can think of... This is my best solution.. Although I don't think is the best to solve your problem, honestly...

The best solution is one that takes place in the minds of the students. THEY need to believe that learning is the main aim, not performing. If students believe that their learning is valued then different learning styles and skillsets become largely irrelelevant as the learners find ways around them themselves, hopefully with the teacher's help. Changing tjis paradigm is a multivariate problem requiring changes in teaching beliefs, changes in currivulum, assessment and reporting structures, changes in measurables etc. Is it doable? Yes but will take time, good will, persistence and drive on the part of educators and acceptance of change by politicians and bureaucrats. What to do now? Exactly what we are doing: keeping ideas alive, and doing what we can to develop desirabke mindsets in students by living up to our ideals. Find ways to explicitly value student improvement over or at least in concert with absolute performance. Find ways to give students a wide range of ways for THEM to test their knowledges and ideas and use these to assess them. Be creative in designing processes for learning and assessing and keep discussing issues like tjis. Keep a focus on bildung, not just education or even worse training.

@Gloria, I totally agree with you. I beat myself up over this and blamed myself, and concluded, when the diversity is so high, there is no perfect solution ! You just have to pick the BEST imperfect solution !

@Cinthya, you read my mind :) Please look at one of my earlier posts. I was suggesting that there is nothing wrong with letting the overachievers go ahead of the others (I termed is Group 1 - G1). If the ultimate "bar" should be at 10, they will strive (and possibly achieve) 12. However, if you make the "10" bar the norm, Group 3 - G3, underachievers using your terminology, will crash ! So, the optimum "bar" , I determined, should be at 6.

However, if you set the bar at "6", G1 will be DEMOTIVATED. This is where I suggested loading the G1 up with BONUS points, which allows them to learn 2, 3, 5 times as much if they wanted to. Although, most of G1 guarantees a grader of "A" after 3/4 of the semester, shockingly, they strive to get EVERY bonus point done and they don't stop !!! The trick is to get G1 into a group-wide competition and motivate the heck out of them ... At that point, it is far beyond GRADES, but, rather, PRIDE !!! I found PRIDE to be a significantly better motivator, human nature I guess :) :) :) . So, in my "weird" system, although 100 is the perfect point, students can get 119, or 120 points when they do all of the bonus work.

So, what about G2, and G3 ? normal-achievers, and under-achievers. Well, G2 comfortably passes with the bar set at "6" and learns a lot, and, they do some of the bonus points, and G3 "survives" and passes ! So, G2 feels like, they did great, G3 not only feels that "it was an extremely difficult class", but, in the end, most importantly, LEARNS something !

@Mark, Yes ... The aim is "learning" ... This is a very important concept. The goal of the teacher should be to make sure everybody LEARNS maximum possible for THEM. If you expect the same from every student, G3 (may be, even G2) might learn NOTHING during the struggle to catch up. This is why my expectations are : *** G1 can write near-professional programs, *** G2 can write nice and functional programs, *** G3 can write any program, even if it is small ...

---- But, clearly, it is not fair to grade everybody according to THEIR skills. Assessment should be made relative to the CLASS. This makes assessment and teaching totally different stories ...

Good teachers are born, not made, while usually good researchers are made, not born. A good scholar may not be a good teacher, and a good teacher need not actually be a good scholar. Teaching skills are not really dependent on high class researches. To be a good teacher, one must know the basics well enough. I have come across some very well known researchers who actually lack certain basics in the concerned fields. When such a researcher becomes a teacher, he might fail to make his students teach properly.

Teaching.

Altohough teaching can be one of the options for livelihood,at the outset it requires passion and commitment .Not all teachers are good teachers.A teacher should express even the most complex scientific information in extremely simple and comprehensible terms.Great people always descend to the level of last stratum. Follow Dr.James.D.Watson. Go through his MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF GENES.He simplifies even the most complex information blended with figures,data,photographs and other allied tools that allow the reader to continue with interest.There are certain unwritten codes in teaching.The listening attitude of a student is like a bell shaped curve.It gradually increases with minutes and decreses after a period of time.After that he simply listens through his eyes but not with his mind.One Dr.Nagarajan,professor of microbiology at Madras university,remind the teachers that teaching should be only for 30 or 40 mts in an hour and the first ten mts for routines and the last ten mts for interaction. Guidance,counselling,intervention at the appropriate time,financial help to the talented needy,carreer guidance services to the final year students both at the U.G and P.G level ,alert services for the jobs etc,etc are some of the prerequisites of teaching.You will be remembered for all these. [ Career guidance center during my tenure , was started mainly, to enlighten the students about the existing avenues to enter, after the completion of their studies.This was carried out by providing information through booklets ,contact programmes by employment officers of the employment exchange,and alerting the students through information dissiminated by various agencies such as newspaper advertisements. In addition to the above,counselling was offered, about the various competitive exams conducted by state govt,central govt and various universities.Attempts were made then and there, to link perspective employers and students , although this offered only meager number of jobs. Since most of the students hail from a rural background, to whom access to information is very limited ,correct information at the appropriate time is of great help to them, in this highly competitive world. Career guidance services is a service in this regard. From

http;//neobotanists.blogspot.in

I keep forgetting that I am discussing with people who are primarily tertiary. Just to clarify my ideas about assessing, at young ages assessment should be primarily FOR learning and should focus on improvement. As students mature, assessment OF learning can start to take precedence. My observations are that by about 15 to 17 student's attitudes to assessment and learning are well formed. By that time aassessment against cohort standards is appropriate as Tolga says.

I am aware that at certain times and in certain conditions what I suggest here will not work or will not work as well as in a small, relatively intimate group setting. If there are large numbers of students arrayed before you in an auditorium - small or large - the dynamics are such as to render the development of a Vygotskian -style learning community difficult. Thankfully I have not been required to teach large groups of students save on very rare occasions when I was graduate assistant. For the most part as a post secondary educator I have been allowed to follow my passions in terms of teaching style. And ... again for the most part - it has worked. First, I do not presume to know all there is to know.

Second, I am part of the learning community and therefore can learn from my students as much as they may learn from me. Of course, this is not to say my knowledge, understanding and experience is not important - it is - but if I can in any way help my students relate and share their knowledge, understanding and experience, not only with me but with the community, then we all benefit.

Third, to initiate the development of a dynamic that allows/faciliates the wholesale engagement and deep learning (i.e., learning that goes beyond memorization of facts ) of my class, I encourage story-telling. I believe story-telling is basic to human growth and development in terms of intellect and imagination. It is also fun. I would not any to think my classes turn out to be 45 hours of fun stories. Not all. This leads to my fourth consideration.

Fourth, as an educator I must be listening. In particular I must listen for the smallest measure of knowledge, understanding and experience that I can pick-up and link to the subject/topic of the day. By doing so I am better able to encourage the reticient, introverted back-seaters to add their thoughts to the mix. I become the facilitator of learning not the sole provider of knowledge. Einstein said (paraphrased) that it is more important to establish the proper learning environment ... and I agree with that.

Fifth, less is more. We cannot begin to hope to provide all there is to know with respect to our particular realm of interest. What we can begin to hope for is a class full of students who are so encouraged, inspired, motivated that they go beyond what they have learned from me, the text, each other, determined to learn more as autonomous learners.

@Tolga I think you've solved it. I like what you're proposing for grades and teaching. And you are SO right, pride makes you try harder just to say you're the best and got all the points, even if you didn't need them. I'll check your previous post. I think it's really interesting to discuss about these topics, where something as subjective as learning needs to be assessed. :) Best of luck with your new class!!

Hi Cinthya, I think you and I might be forgetting something. We possibly forgot "the other side of the story." Although, I felt like, I succeeded by doing a great job with G1 and G2, I felt like I didn't come up with a good system that can effectively teach G3 (i.e., the under-achievers) ... How is this different than one of my students getting a 100, and guaranteeing an "A," but, striving for 119 or 120, where anything higher than 100 has nothing to do with grade, but, rather, PRIDE ?

=========

Does this mean that, PRIDE is not something that is strictly attributable to students ? Teachers have PRIDE too ? :)

Hi Tolga,

mmhhhmmmm..... I think it'd depend on how many G3 students you got, but maybe some extracurricular tutoring may help.. if they were too many maybe extra (basic exercises or teamwork) work for extra points that will help them master the basics and grade better. Although, I know, extra homework never sounds good to a student.

Also, I think teamwork is tricky... If you put all G1 in a group they've fight each other to do the work, cause they naturally want to strive, maybe they'll even come up with different versions to solve the problem. Putting all G3 in a group may not help them learn that much. But the second you put together G1 with any other group, G1's will probably take over work, instead of teaching the others (which actually would be a good experience for students, though hard to implement). But maybe this is some kind of solution, where G1's and G2's help G3's to learn by teamwork.

Does this makes any sense to you? (Just re-read it and sound complicated haha)

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

About PRIDE... YES, we all have pride, it's not reserved for any specific group. And I get it, you're saying "I want all my students to learn and all my students to get straight A's", and Im not sure that's possible, maybe it's pride from the teacher to feel like the best teacher! But also is your teacher soul saying "I want them all to learn, because I know they can"... :D

Cinthya, your formula differs from mine ... If I am reading you correctly, you want to pair up G1-G2 , G2-G3 , G1-G3, never G1-G1 or G2-G2 ... Hmmm. Interesting. You are almost hand-selecting who will lead the group, vs. who will follow ... I never tried this. In a G2-G2 pairing, the concept of "leader vs. follower" disappears, and they both collectively work towards a common goal ... This is my observation ...

My formula is always to pair up G1-G1 , G2-G2 , G3-G3 ... This is to avoid anybody getting a free ride ... I observed that, G1-G2 pairings end up with G1 doing 80% of the work, and G2 doing 20% of the work, and both of them getting the same grade from the project. (May be, 70%-30%, still not fair). I was a G3 in the art class I mentioned above, and, if I was, say, paired up with Picasso :) and got an A+, I really wouldn't feel like I fairly got an A+. I would feel like, I simply got a free ride ! , i.e., I didn't deserve it ... I certainly wouldn't learn anything, since Picasso would do all of the drawing :) Of course, this is the extreme case G1-G3 pairing.

Should this pairing target FAIRNESS, or, LEARNING ? Is G1-G2 pairing TEACHING more to the G2 ? as compared to a G2-G2 pairing ? In my view, G1-G2 pairing always ends up with G1 "setting the bar" and G2 trying to "catch up" ... and, as we well know, "catch up" never TEACHES you anything ... Anybody else has any theories on how the pairing should be ? I might be wrong, or , missing something ...

I agree with the free ride situation, I've actually been in both sides, but I think learning depends on how much the student wants to learn. And that, sadly, is not in our control!

:::::::::::::::::

About pairings, I think neither work if your aim is to get G2 an G3 to learn more that they would do working by themselves. In one case, G1-G1, G2-G2, G3-G3, they'll work as much as they would. On the other hand, if pairing G1-G2, G1-G3, G2-G3 they'll get a free ride... so maybe pairing them won't work when you have that much of a difference between them.

If you were talking about a different group, say, PhD students leading Master students maybe the leader-follower theory will work.. I've seen it, but it's because the master student is eager to learn and the PhD student wants to teach (Pride again maybe...).

I think the leader-follower theory is good, though, I stick to it.

I feel like we're complicating the problem more and more with each answer haha...

P.S. By the way, I think G1-G2 pairing goes for learning, or free rides... and G2-G2 just goes for fairness, but, in this case, I still don't think they'll learn more than they'd if working alone..

It is quite impressive to note that as educators we are quite surprised at the large class size for skills training. I know the size could be larger in some settings where there is gross shortage of educators in scarce skills areas. In view of the fact that the students are from different engineering disciplines, they could be taught together but grouped for practical sessions along their disciplines, such that they are encouraged to transfer the basic skills to their disciplines while promoting ingenuity and team work.

@Bridget, I am analyzing your suggestion "taught together, assessed differently." I know this is not you said precisely, but, I am somehow synthesizing to get some ideas ...

*** Hmm. This is very interesting. You immediately got me thinking if, for example, if "taught SEPARATELY and assessed TOGETHER" would work ?? I am only talking about TWO separate sessions to teach ... One geared towards G1's, and one OPTIONAL lecture geared towards EVERYONE, with the understanding that, G2. G3's are the ones that would be most interested. I actually tried this only for LAB sessions, not for lecturing. The idea is to have a PRACTICE LAB session (mostly for programming) which is a lot easier than the regular schedule, however, if somebody is at the border of G1 and G2, (s)he could still benefit ... G2 and G3's clearly benefit a lot. In fact, G3's needed major one-on-one time with myself and T.A.'s. But, there was a separate "TOGETHER" session that was clearly announced to be a lot easier.

*** Of course, assessments should always be together, to be fair.

@Gloria, @Cinthya, you both seem to be agreeing with the "free ride" issue, but, not necessarily on the grouping so much. This is possibly, because, there is no perfect answer :)

Happy 2014 to all !!!

Dear Tolga dear folks. I wish a happy ano healthy new year to all.

Regarding all tasks and great ideas and responses I humbly could suggest: brainstorm sessions to all groups off students and seminars after it with groups randomly mixed to encourage creativity among all roups in all levels. Of course at the begining of the first class a diagnotic evaluation will helps a lot.

Thanks Tolga and all -- what a vital thread for those of us who love to teach with diverse approaches. I have developed many tasks to get large groups on-board - and these tasks get good results because students love them.

Pair share is a given - but I like the questions to be two-footed (so that they relate to both content and student interests). I also do gender circles -- a great task for getting deeper into topics.

Or I do a rope toss down the center of the room - have students take a side on one key aspect of the topic and hammer out why they chose that side. Often I then switch the sides and have them defend opposing views.

There are many additional tasks such as jigsaws - that address multiple intelligences and multiple interest levels. Once the students run with you -- they love to help develop tasks too -- as long as they have a rubric to follow (or guidelines) for what is expected.

Terrific tips in this thread because diversity rocks any subject when harmony fuels the process. Ellen

Thanks to everybody for this thought provoking discussion. I worked for many years in a 'traditional' university with large and small classes. I ran classes in child/adolescent mental health with students from differing educational backgrounds and also different professional backgrounds. I found that critical incident analysis in small mixed groups was really helpful in developing a shared language and also in opening up different perspectives and for analysing arrange of solutions. Ground rules had to be well developed so that all questions and perspectives were respected. This allowed some of the students with less academic experience to shine as they were able ( and were encouraged) to approach scenarios/problems from a novel angle, which was often intuitive and provoked larger group discussion on the extent to which the ideas/experienced resonated with or were challenged by current theory; they were also able to ask the more 'novice' questions, which helped others articulate their taken for granted assumptions. Over the semester, it seemed to help develop a more collegiate approach and to develop confidence across the group. I'm not sure if this is applicable in any way to engineering , although I guess generic classes will have engineering students from different disciplines , who may share an alternative focus, emphasis or perspective and where being more of a 'novice' can become really useful in interrogating a range of problems. As everybody seems to be communicating, l find teaching is an on going learning process. For the last 4 years, I've worked with the Open University , which is a distance learning institute. I've learned and continue to learn how to engage students in e-technology. An on line tutor group forum can work really well ( and is indeed used by the MOOCS) and provided it is moderated can be a way of maximising both student and tutor capacity. I'd be really interested in any further comments.

Very enlightening discussions. I taught groups of 40 or more students in class. I follow a mix of techniques to teach and to assess including grouping students to discuss and critically analyze vignette cases related to real life management applications. The groups I form consist from 4 to 5 students with different categories as labeled by Tolga. I make sure to assign three or four questions during the session where at the end of each session a person reports an outcome and is subject for debate by other students. I move students from one group to another repeating the same approach, so that at the end of the session all students present their ideas which reflect a consensus of the small teams and during the process I made sure to encourage people to talk and participate. Very interactive exercise and sure very informative and motivational in nature. Many low performers were encouraged even by the high performers to do well.

Dear Tolga

The teacher and the student must learn to live with differences , with unpredictability , adopting attitudes of collective confrontation in constant intercommunication. Highlights the need for the student is willing to play its part and reveal what you know, what you think and you think you know ( prior knowledge ) , in the words he knows, with the language you know - human being who deserves be respected .

 Make room for diversity goes much further : it recognizes the different existing skills and knowledge in each subject once joining , can allow each to collaborate in their own way , with each other , there may be growth for everyone involved in the process .

 Teamwork facilitates the learning of all dimensions of knowledge : concept , procedure or attitude. The classroom can be this Community , interactive, experimental space , provided that meets the objectives to be attained and provided that a professional , seeking to give voice to students and instead , accept off the main scene and take the place of those who organize their learning.

How to reconcile the diversity ? One of the answers is in the area of ​​classroom dialogue. Dialogue does not mean simply that speaks , but a frank exchange of attitude , listening

A well-prepared teacher who knows his subject of education, as well as new technologies and teaching strategies , but can not establish a relationship of understanding , communication, create a human bond with your students , you can get lower results another , though less prepared , but can make the student feel comfortable , encouraged and willing to learn .

Well said and put, Nelson. However, the instructor has a homework that he/she must attain to, including continuous improvement.

Teachers and educators was facing the diversity of students. Nowadays difference is students even more diverse than any time in our history. But overall speaking, they become more capable and independent to learn.

I would like to share an implementation of self-directed learning in our department. Our colleagues found out that students are expected to be someone in the field from their selected academic programme. When graduate, they will expected an expert with specific skill, knowledge and attitude. This learning outcomes are highly defined in programme level. There are two reasons we could manage less diversity. 1) the admission in more similar applicants, 2) the assessment align to their graduation. This two gate actually fixed in the system. Modules teachers cannot solve.

In our department, we are implemented a progress mapping practice. All years of one programme students have to create a learning progress website to address their personal goal in career specific to align their motivation with all modules. Students will write a blog in weekly bases to address their activities in evidence to support their achievement. We have implemented this online progress mapping for two years. At the beginning stage, students and colleagues all complain this is an extra workload and no motivation for students if the practice is not calculating the modules score. The second year, we invited most of the colleagues in the department put 10-15% in their modules to encourage students. We found out that once students started they can learn from peers can review what they did. Teachers have to understand their different goals and the gaps (skill, knowledge and attitude) to help them achieve the different level. Then, we understand that the diversity of students supporting them bridge a higher goals effectively.

The different of students cannot choose, but we can align their personal goal in long term. Learning is not the end when graduate is the beginning to be a professional.

Thank you for sharing, I think it is up to the instructor to recognize individual talent and learning styles and incorporate teaching strategies such as cooperative learning to maximize students potential.

I think the best way to handle various specialties and capabilities in a class, is based on a joint project, treating a community problem. The complexity analysis of the various social actors, the role of institutions, legal frameworks, and finally, a comprehensive solution for a group of future professionals in engineering, able to channel the passions of each specific area of ​​training.

Maybe it's strategic choice of the problem, so they can intervene balanced all disciplines.

Best of luck!

Nice idea Frederico, but is this applied at a junior-senior level or less than that? To be an effective team player dealing with a social problem needs students involved in extra-curricular activities with NGOs and having the basic skills in problem solving.

My answer is clear : demand homework BEFORE your lectures, and handle your lecture depending on that. The type of homework requested may be the beginnig of a chapter, or even the complete chapter. Then your lecture consists in comments on the main points (so a more qualitative lecture), which interests the students since you are talking of notions they have recently seen (and discovered). The level differences are lower since "weak" students may (and generally have) work more time for doing the homework. You may ask for quiz (see Mazur for example) at the beginning of the lecture to see what is understood and what is not.

Last, having the students working in teams (ideally teams of four students) is also a must for students understand and memorise the main points, whatever their previous level maybe.

Just try, you will be surprised of the resukt !

All the best,

Christophe Rabut

Course design is fixed but there is freedom of choice for current topics while teaching Issues and Ethics to a hetrogeneous class of thirtyfive students.Students with law background differ from science students who differ from psychology students in their approach.I allow them to make their own groups and then steer the discussion towards ethical solutions.we do get struck many a time,I think it is healthy.

@ Mona Alsheikh : What do you mean with "L.D.Fink method"? Can you please give a reference?

What you describe here ("following the L.D.Fink method where Peer Assessment is involved and multiplied by the Group Score to achieve individual scores for each student") is an instance of a solution of the so-called "Team-Mate-Dilemma" (cf. the link below).

Just multiplying isn't a sound solution, as it is possible to end up with an individual score out of the allowed range of score (example: 1,2 * 90% > 100% if 100% is the upper limit) or you loose any opportunity to compare scores (e.g. if you don't define an uppper score).

Thus you have to define a specific bonus-malus-factor (cf. my recent contribution on RG) which is such that you never will fall outside the valid range of scores (most often a percentage-like scale) AND depending on this factor, the group score will be decreased (malus) or increased (bonus). If the bonus-malus-factor equals 1, this means (by definition), that the group score equals the individual score.

Fair assessment, I agree, is most important. However, it takes more than ad hoc solutions (no "free lunch"). Unfortunately, I have found too many ad hoc solutions in the literature. The solution that I suggest is such, that you may define any number of bonus-malus-factors which will be iteratively applied to the group score to get a highly individual score. And always correctly lying in the interval you have specified before. No cheating!

Data PASS Team-Mate-Dilemma Solution

Thanx, Mona. Sounds interesting. I've ordered it from the library immediately. However, just "adjusting" a score is a typical example of what I call "ad hoc". It is not necessary, if you adopt the sound approach I propose, which handles criteria like variation in contribution to the team project, support for other members, respect for other ideas, flexibility and a host of other criteria from peer reviews or teacher judgement. The more criteria you take into account, the higher students' acceptance of your measure(s).

The question is no different than asking: How to teach best? Why? Because no class or group is uniform in any form or shape. So really, what is the best way to teach?

Dear Ania, what is the best way to teach? I always respond when asked such a question, it depends. It depends on so many variables including class size, students, dynamics used, experience, and so on so forth. So, I prefer what is the most appropriate way to teach?

I agree with Paul with his advise. I did use Mona's approach based on Fink's recommendations, but with time I moved back to Paul's recommendations. I guess we have to cater for cultural differences and students' preparedness to assimilate team based work.

- Know Yourself

- Know Your Student

- Know Your Common Environment

- Update Your Knowledge Constantly

- Start Today

- - Think What You Will Do

- - Tell What You Will Do

- - Do It

- - Observe What You have Done

- - Report What You have Done

- - Reflect What You have Done

- Repeat Forever

- Anticipate Errors

- Observe Errors

- Accept Errors

- Admit Errors

- Correct Errors

- Learn From Errors

- After All, Be Human in All What You Think, Tell and Do or Don't Do

Nicely put Paul. I am impressed. The last statement " Be Human in what you think" carries tons of "Empathy" an ingredient that is fundamental to nurture diversity and consequently creativity.

Dear Ania Lian , It looks like a slogan but I like it, " Plan, act and reflect!" We should make the subject, activity, material, etc, first attractive for our students, hoping that they will be interested in it, then, if they find it meaningful, they may attempt to use it in their daily, academic or social life depending on the context they live in. Hence, we will trigger their learning and hopefully, they will digest what they come across and use it practically. In this process, Our role as a teacher for our learners is to create awareness, provide comprehensible input, help them when needed when they attempt to apply the new input, and help them go through this process at their own pace.

Hi Gloria, would you add more on your statement: "I feel fundamental dismantling needs to be happening and reconstructing, rethinking the role of schools (beyond a place where children are cared for while their parents go to work)". Because I recall you were strong on the issue of assessment versus learning, and assessment needs lots of creativity to go out of the classical methods. So, I like to know from you your point on "dismantling" and what schooling environment you have in mind.

For skills there is one way which I often use. Actually we all use it to teach very complex motor tasks to groups of 20 students at the same time. We call it a "split technique" or smallest common denominator technique. If you are supposed to teach the same skill to all students cut it in to small bits. Often as tiny as single finger flexion. Repeat those untill small bits in a designed order. You move to the next one when all students know the one you teach. If they cant grasp it in 1-2 mins you made that bit to large or to complex. Make it smaller. To give an example: dont teach how to make an engine model. Teach how to hold screwdriver, then how to take first part and then second..... keep going untill you get them to do a group of single moves that can be put together to assemble some part of the engine. Stop teaching now - let them practice. Only difficulty with this method is that some skilled ppl get bored easly. Find something difficult for them to do :) like ask them to do it exactly as you do (I hope you are better at doing what you teach then your students).

We use this at med school to teach suturing, laparoscopy, anything manual basicaly. Makes wonders. But it works only for manual things at fairly basic level. Does not teach how to apply it and so on. But it si very good to bring level of people in a group to almost even. Then you can do advanced things....

From my experience mapping and investigating students learning styles and prior knowledge is very important at the begining of the class. After that we can group it by their learning styles and differentiated instruction. E.g group into visual verbal and kinestetic style that contain weak and smart student in each group. After that modified the material that fit into the style that can achieved course objective using their group style.

It might help in some classes but may not depends on prior assesment that i've explained before.

Your case is because of teacher know what is your learning styles and interest so she or he can adapt the lesson to you.

I must admit that I usually stick to a level which i feel is necessary and then help out the weak ones out. My class size is usually between 10 and 35. Still get variety of performance. I usually let students form their own groups of 3-5 students. This semester I formed the groups after an examination of their previous semester's results. I put a good performer in each group and the performance is simply wonderful. I have asked them for a status report on a fortnightly basis and I check also their groupchat logs. I find that the top performers are pulling the team hard (up to the level of work they expect) and also help the others. I have set the work hard enough such that one person cannot do all the work and I have also said that I will give marks for good teamwork. So they are motivated.

Great question, some of my applications used to serve students were as follows:

Understanding how student learn , also, analyze after an assessment using a rubric, also, apply different teaching strategies in which student read, write and speak and lecture less in stead check for understanding. Checking for understanding does not always include paper pencil.

After Paul Hubert advice ,just ensure are you sufficiently prepared.Matching the skill set of students is not an easy wayout, the teacher has to enhance it.The challanges come more often when you take up more diversified students at professional courses.

But teacher have to prove that teacher is a teacher in every class.That only keeps the teacxher young.Paul has said a lot and that can be taken as a starting point for any challange loving teacher in school, in college, in a university or in an address to professionals to update or collapse or to politicians to get precipited or get on to the filterate. CHOOSE your path.

A fundamental key to my teaching is that I never forget that, regardless of learning styles, in a class of 30 students, there are 30 different individuals, most likely with quite divergent world views, skills and experiences. Get to know your students first (sounds fairly obvious, but not always the case). You've got some great advice above and maybe my approach is too 'casual', but I become a learner as well and throw the ball in my students' court, asking them what and how they would like to learn. Goodness, I think I do something different every time......keeps me enthusiastic which I hope stimulates fun learning. Groups are wonderful (if they're not too big). Another approach is to come up with a problem that is out of the field in question.....or even a debate. In other words, ignore their major skills sets and place them in groups addressing something controversial. When I worked with groups that included the 'full academic spectrum', I encouraged those that finished first with tasks/activities to seek out those that needed assistance; they ended up making new friends, and gained rewards via participation (the last time I did this, even without the rewards, it was 'rewarding' for me to see that those that finished first, walked around helping others). As we all know, as teachers, we should model the behaviours we want to see. Encouraging students to get out of their seats and 'see how others are doing' is a good way to foster interaction.

Agree absolutely Phillip. Just to add to your opening sentence, in my adult classes at least, I find that the students also come with very different learning intentions - ranging from 'just for fun,' better understanding myself/ how I learn/ why I have learning problems,' to 'advancing my career.' This means providing a range of options for them to follow -up after the classes.

Well put Colin!

In one of my teaching classes at a university, I found that when I give PPP supported lecture only, students relax as if watching a movie or on a passive note. But when I added multigrade question sheets concerned with each slide (separately) the students became very active and felt challanged. Every student answered some questions but not more than 20% could answer all correctly unless given additional time on applied questions.Multigrade (Varying difficulty level) questions on the same topic /concepts side by side added to participation by all students.It helped .Many students expressed desire to see slides after the class/in additional time to answer more questions.

Dear Dr. Tolga Soyata,

Diversity in a classroom brings many challenges as well as many opportunities to teachers. To create classrooms that are responsive to the diverse needs of all children we must need support from the knowledge and database of effective practices, administrators, colleagues, families, and the local and global community.

Afaq great answer we have to see teaching as a way to demonstrate talent in leadership and teaching for learning

Some basic courses can be taught during orientation. This is to decided on the macro level. After the foundation courses, case study approach can also help.

Prior to the start of class I ask students to complete a self assessment. Using a likert scale I ask students to rate their knowledge base for every topic & including common terms that I cover in class (55 questions). Students rate their knowledge base for each: totally unfamiliar, familiar, very familiar. This is part of a pre-mandated assignement due two weeks prior to the start of class. This helps me assess the knoweldge base and I can plan the course accordingly.