Individual Instruction

Students learn differently.  We see this every day, in every subject, in every classrooom.  But  the challenge to teachrs is how to have differet ways of helping every kind of student (with every kind of learning style and approach) learn the subject best.  In general, the eay to achieve this is to build into the classroom a variety of methods, and then making those methods available to students to choose from according to what works best.  This is known as "differentiated instruction."

The need to differentiate instruction can mean taking into account all manner of student factors: language skills, pre-existing knowledge of the subject, home support, motivation, basic learning abilities, and more.  Even further, it means accounting for a variety of these factors co-existing within a classroom.

The logic and value of differentiated instruction may seem obvious, but it does require that teachers be attentive to the variety of needs of the students in the classroom.  Teachers must be able to shift between approaches, and be ready to shift again as circumstances change.  This can be a challenge, because teachers probabl spend a good deal of time carefully preparing a curriculum, with steps, methods, tests, and assessments that the teacher feels are necessary for matery of his or her subject.  But differentiated instruction requires teachers to be ready to adjust their curriculums to what they are seeing in the classroom. The curriculum changes shape according to the classroom, as opposed to making students change shape to follow the curriculum.

An educational consultant can help assess the need for differentiated instruction and what particular methods to use in each classroom.  The consultant can also assist teachers in recognizing the variety of needs and in adapting their curriculums to the class.