Partial Participation
In the area of method of student practice, partial participation is an
important concept. Students with very limited academic ability can still
be involved in activities in the class, based on their specific objectives.
A student may be placed in a group in order to meet objectives in his or her personal program. Objectives might focus on social skills or communication skills. The teacher would be aware of the reasons for the student being in the group and would concentrate on the development of the targeted skills, rather than on the attainment of academic knowledge about a particular subject. Examples of inclusion of students with special needs are found in sample lessons .
Specific Strategies
Cooperative learning is an excellent strategy to consider when choosing
a method of student performance (Johnson, Johnson and Holubec, 1984). It
accommodates partial participation by students who cannot do all the
required work. It allows for social skill development and cooperation
among all students, as well as providing a choise of activities that will
utilize the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Cooperative learning, as
a strategy, cute across two steps in the multi-level instruction process — the method of teacher presentation and the method of student performance.
The discovery approach is another strategy which covers both teacher presentation and student performance. If the students, for example, are expected to discover the rules for punctuation by completing an activity initiated by the teacher, the method of teacher presentation is student discovery and the method of student practice is also discovery.
