When creating a math task one must be very aware of the needs of the students and the levels at which they are performing. Taking into consideration the great diversity of learning styles and levels in every classroom can pose to be a huge task in itself.
Making lessons hands on and relevant to your students is a great first step toward teaching to all of the students in the room. While you don't want to make the lesson too easy for students, it is important to provide support or tools for dealing with problems that will inevitably arise in every lesson. Giving students a strong base of knowledge to work form is an important step in bridging learning gaps.
A lesson that seems straight-forward and easy to comprehend may prove to be very challenging for many students. As a teacher you must be prepared to re-evaluate how the content was presented and try to present it in a way that is perhaps more easy to understand and if that doesn't work then yet another way must be investigated.
This may also be an opportunity for students to extend their learning by posing questions as to what they understand the content to be and how they feel it would be easier to understand. Perhaps in group discussions students will discover that they actually do understand but where just a little off track in the direction they were headed. As a teacher you may also discover alternate ways to reach the same goal by letting students work on the content "in their own way". That is when meaningful learning occurs!
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