Explain the Educational Implications of Individual Differences B.Ed Notes
Back to: Childhood and Growing Up – Unit 2
Introduction
Individual Difference in Education is the information that provides a deeper understanding of what each child needs to be successful in school. It refers to any significant difference or variation between a student and his/her peers, which can be a result of a variety of factors.
Meaning of Individual Differences
Individual Differences are the variations and deviations in an individual’s characteristics and traits based on many factors and attributes. These may include:
- Age
- Gender
- Race
- Ethnicity
- Socioeconomic status
- Academic ability
- Attitude towards learning
- Intellectual orientation
- Personality traits
- Motivation
- Family background
- Financial Background
- Relation with Family
- Friendship etc.
Educational Implications of Individual Differences
Understanding of Cognitive Ability Variations
First of all, while teaching a class full of students belonging to different mental levels, it has a partial probability to have mentally slow learners as compared with the highly intelligent students. Therefore, individual differences provide the chance to understand these variations.
Utilization of Different Capacities
With the comprehension of individual differences, the teacher can have knowledge about a student’s different capacities, capabilities, interests, knowledge, attitude, and reasoning skills. These variations can be utilized by the teacher to guide them on the right path.
Mitigation of Intelligence Uniformity
With the understanding of individual differences, a student would be saved from the intelligence uniformity available in every student as each student would have a different level of understanding. The reason behind this is that every student has different background knowledge, experience, self-motivation to learn, and interests in a particular field. These students would not get judged with the understanding of individual differences.
Appropriate Usage of Instructional Plan
Due to the knowledge about individual differences, the teacher and the academic institutions would implement the appropriate usage of instructional plans for reducing the gap for the achievement of the learning process.
Decision upon Teaching Tasks and Activities
After understanding individual differences, it becomes easy for the teacher to opt for the appropriate teaching tasks and learning activities as per the understanding level of the students.
Suggestion for Academic Improvement
The knowledge of individual differences would provide an opportunity for assessing the academic performance of every student which can inform about the right usage of teaching plans. Therefore, the performance of students along with the efforts of teachers can get acknowledged which can revolutionize further academic improvement to reduce the gap of individual differences.
Conclusion
To sum up, it is manifest that the Individual Difference in Education is the only way to know what kind of support is needed for each student. It gives us a clear idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the child and it helps us understand how we can best help him/her. If the child is found to have significant weaknesses, the school can provide the necessary support.
