Chapter 4A: A Case For Individual Progress In Mathematics

We recognize the fact that every student in every classroom is not always ready at every time that every teacher wants to teach every topic. After each lesson some students understand thoroughly, some have a general understanding, and others have tuned right out, or do not understand the topic at all. Thus, the next day, the teacher has to meet his students in various degrees of understanding. Now what does he do?

As teachers, we attempt to keep the better students happy by giving them enriched material, or we let them become bored while we attempt to bring the average students up to par. Similarly the weaker students will need a great deal of attention. How do we as teachers treat all of these problems (and there are many degrees of these problems)? How do we preserve some sanity as well as keep the attention of the majority of our students?