MANAGEMENT OF LEARNING AND DIFFERENTIATION

The management of learning for a range of individual differences involves three main features:-

SPACE

How the learning setting is organised affects how and what learning takes place.
Some setting arrangements are more likely to promote activity and variety than others,

With this in mind, it is a useful exercise to :-

Some pupils with SEN may require help in adjusting to some of the more independent learner-centred styles of working. They may have had a long experience of being dependent on adults to make decisions, direct activities and sort out problems.

As a result, all kinds of difficulties can arise such as:-

Pupils with SEN can be helped in this respect if you establish a well worked routine which can be followed (but not slavishly) which can help the pupils.

Here are some examples of areas where such routines can be followed:-

TIME

Pupils with LD (learning difficulties) benefit from engaging in a variety of activities within a single session to help them sustain concentration.

However two problems arise in relation to the timing of the lesson:-

How long should each part of the lesson last?
How can the variation in speed of work by individual pupils be catered for?

Length:

The length of each part of the lesson will depend on factors such as:-

(Concentration may be better in the morning than in the afternoon. Some pupils may find it difficult to settle down on Monday mornings after the week-end or following certain lessons which the pupils have attended immediately prior to your lesson Hot, stuffy classrooms can be soporific while rainy days may mean that the pupils have been bunched up in cloakrooms all through the lunch hour instead of running off their excess energy in the open air)

Variety:

It is important to ensure that there are opportunities for learners to change activities e.g. from listening to speaking, reading or writing.

It is also important to allow time for pupils to sit and discuss what they have achieved

Progress and content:

As each lesson progresses, pupils will complete their work at different points because not all learners work at the same rate.

Coping with the pupil who always finishes first and the pupil who never seems to finish anything can be equally difficult.

Techniques such as drawing up individual work programmes, which allow pupils to work through a series of activities and assignments at his/her own pace can help overcome this problem.

However, in certain instances, this may be neither appropriate nor possible, and in such cases the following suggestions may prove helpful:-

Examples include:

There are some pupils who progress through the work relatively slowly but who are relatively able.
Others, on the contrary, always appear to complete tasks relatively quickly but whose standard of achievement is poor.

Needless to say that the two categories of learner require different strategies:-

Do not be depressed if individual pupils never seem to get through the work you have planned. It is better to have too much rather than too little, and there is always the next time.

PEOPLE

Often pupils with LD also demonstrate behavioural and social difficulties (BS). Indeed, these two forms of difficulties are often interconnected. In such instances, it is often difficult to ascertain which form of difficulty is the cause and which are the effects.

In many cases the problems that pupils demonstrate in their patterns of behaviour are generated by difficulties experienced in learning. The following may help identify BS problems and may suggest strategies for coping with or avoiding difficulties.

General classroom management strategies: