Different periods are totally different ball games

Goal of the week: increasing student participation in the classroom. I've decided that my next goal should be making sure that I can get as many students as possible working during each class period. It's a difficult goal, as the students have 1,001 excuses as to why they should be let out of work. However, that's what I get paid for. I need to be the adult.

Topic of the day: Treating classes differently.
When I first started teaching, I decided that I wouldn't treat my classes differently if I was teaching the same subject. They would all get the same treatment and the same material. I've decided that what works for one class doesn't always work for another class.

In example... my first period is always about 10 student shy from them being late. That, and the ones that are there are always dozing off. I need to wake them up. Second period is very small and has a couple of extremely noisy students in the class that cause all sorts of disruption. Third period is filled with a bunch of high achievers. Fourth period is overfilled and has a lot of lower functioning students with special needs. Fifth period is small with the majority of the students being lower functioning with special needs. Last period is wild. For last period, there are only about 10 students in there and only 2 ever do work. The rest need to be restrained to hold still.

The needs of my classes are multifaceted as are the needs of my students. I can't expect to treat them all the same way and gain similar results. That's just not sane. I'm going to have to come up with some ideas for the different needs of my classes.