Gaps In The Classroom

Students often find lessons difficult to understand or keep up with. I'm sure a lot of my readers can look back on their time in grade 9 or 10 math and remember feeling totally and completely lost. That feeling when the teacher is talking about something and you have literally no clue what they mean. That feeling, if your like myself, leaves you stressed, anxious and incredibly uncomfortable. It is almost as though you are missing that one piece of the puzzle to complete it.

At this point of your read I encourage you to go to the following google drawings page and attempt to get get all the blue shapes inside the black square. Attempt to do so without manipulating the shapes orientation or size or using the red square to complete. (EDIT: Please when you're are done return the shapes to their initial positions at the top, not necessarily in the order they are right now)

You will quickly find that without the red square it is impossible to fully complete this challenge.

You can think that each of your teachers are giving you one piece of the puzzle that will let you create a final product. However, imagine one of your teachers fails to successfully give you the piece. No matter how much you try you can't complete the puzzle.

One of the biggest struggles as a teacher is to determine where students gaps in their knowledge and understanding is and how to combat this. This struggle with putting the puzzle together gives a small insight into how students struggle when they have gaps in their education. With this in mind it is entirely reasonable for these students to not be able to meet the standards in classrooms.

So how do we determine which students have gaps and what those gaps are? 

This is defiantly the big question for teachers with regards to students who are underachieving. There are a number of techniques that teachers can use to help identify these gaps:

1. Diagnostic Assessments: before diving into new material taking the time to establish a baseline and make sure students understand all prior material that is necessary to move forward. 
2. Observing Conversations: a carefully trained ear can allow a teacher to pick up on subtleties in vocabulary and other communication skills that suggest gaps. 
3. Analyzing Answers: working through a students thought process can tell the teacher a lot about how they approach problems and what their gaps or strong suits may be. 
4. Ministry Support: the MOE provides resources to help address gaps students face. These can be found through the website Edugains. 

To conclude; it is imperative that teachers take the time to identify students who have gaps in their knowledge and furthermore, take the initiative to close these gaps. Through this process our teachers will be able to provide tools to certain underachieving students that will help them succeed.

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Are you a teacher that has a strategy they use to close gaps? Feel free to share in the comments.
Are you a student who has faced a similar struggle? Feel free to share our story or insights in the comments.
Do you have any questions? I strongly encourage you to ask!