Key Strategies to Support Your Struggling and Advanced Students

Now that October is here, you are probably getting a good idea of which of your students are beginning to struggle with their coursework, and which students are starting to pull so far ahead that they are in danger of becoming bored.

Here are some NJCTL tips and tricks to help those students in your classroom:

For Struggling Students;

          *  Seat your students in heterogeneous collaborative groups (where everyone can learn from each other’s strengths)

          *  Position struggling students in a central location of the classroom so that you will be available for support

          *  Create guided note-taking sheets for all students to fill in during class

          *  Provide additional support in solving problems, by using many examples and multiple methods for solving a problem

          *  Help students develop mnemonics and other tricks for information that needs to be memorized

          *  Provide a learning map in student-friendly language for students to track their own learning and progress

          *  Offer opportunities for movement

          *  Ask struggling students guided questions in class

          *  Encourage students and highlight their strengths, no one wants to feel like they’re struggling all the time!

For Advanced Students:

          *  Ask advanced students challenging real-time questions in class

          *  Create challenge questions that include concepts from all of the units covered and:

                    -  require students to demarcate labor to solve  

                    -  take 20-40 minutes to solve

          *  Designate strong students as official Tutors/Teaching Assistants (giving them motivation). Students like learning from one another.