5 Ways to Solve the Differences in Academic Achievement between Students

Instruction should aim at the development of knowledge and capabilities of all children. The major strategies to cope up with the differences in academic achievement are as follows:

1. Provide appropriate:

Requisites to organize and learn new information: You have seen that new information is learned by linking it to pre-requisite knowledge. So, first ascertain whether the student possesses the appropriate pre-requisites for learning new information and if not, provide the pre-requisites.

Advance organizer is a suitable strategy for providing the appropriate pre-requisites. Advance organizer is a general overview of new information presented in advance of processing new information. The student is told in advance what the main point or the main concepts to be covered will be.

For instance, prior to learning a lesson on mammals (new information) students can be asked to describe the characteristics of domesticated animals link a cow or sheep. Knowledge of the characteristics of a cow or sheep activates the appropriate pre-requisites to learn about mammals.

Advance organizer is effective to focus a student’s attention on the key points. Careful application of advance organizers can improve the impact on student learning. An advance organizer may be a statement, a descriptive paragraph, a demonstration or even a video programme. Application of advance organizer is more effective for low-ability learners. More skilled students can invent their own model.

2. Use visual aids:

A visual aid creates the mental image of ideas(s) and represents and facilitates students’ thinking concretely by reducing the amount of abstraction. Graphics, charts, diagrams, photographs, models and real objects are the various forms of visual aids.

For instance, a chart depicting a transport system would facilitate students to attain the conceptual clarity and the characteristics of transport system.

3. Use analogy, example and illustration:

Analogy is a productive instructional device and allows students to think and learn. Analogy encourages students to draw parallels between a familiar idea and the idea to be learned. The new idea is taught by referring to the similar features of the familiar idea.

For instance, you can introduce the structure of animal cell (idea to the learned) using the analogy of egg (familiar idea). Using a raw egg and a drawing or a mode! of an animal cell, you can provide a situation to show that the animal cell in some ways resembles the egg. The cell membrane is like the outer skin and shell of an egg. The cytoplasm is like the egg white. The cell nucleus is link the egg yolk and so on. Likewise, use examples and illustrations to explain concepts and principles.

4. Ensure learner’s active involvement in learning:

Only listening to the teacher’s talk will not ensure effective learning. Besides talking, you can provide tasks (manipulatable conditions) for student’s active involvement. For instance, you can deal with a lesson on ‘environmental protection by formulating a series of tasks for student’s performance.

Tasks consisted of analysing textbook lesson, identifying effect of environment, designing a poster campaign, writing a story, drawing cartoons and formulating strategies for environmental protection. Students are first exposed to the idea in the textbook and subsequently small group can be formed where each group consists of high of the cognitive process are involved in each task and by performing the task students are expected to attain understanding as well as to shape their cognitive processes.

If the teacher is dealing with a story mapping technique (how elements of a story are organized) is appropriate to ensure students’ involvement. In this situation, activities should be provided for identifying/setting (time place of story), characters, problems or goals (what the characters are trying to attain or to resolve), episode (events that occur), theme (underlying message) and resolution (characters’ effort to resolve the problem).

5. Periodic assessment:

It provides an opportunity to students to rehearse and remember information. It helps teachers to identify the students’ level of attainment and get an insight into their weaknesses. The results would help in identifying those who need remedial instruction or those who can proceed further.