The researchers started by studying, summarizing, and sorting the information available from interviews and the expert meeting with teachers independently from each other. The cognitive task analysis we performed resulted in a unique overview of constituent skills required for providing differentiated instruction. Capturing the complexity of differentiat .... : Teaching quality from a conceptual and a methodological perspective, Differentiation as part of teaching quality, https://doi.org/10.1080/09243453.2018.1539013, https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files/14812458/bosker.pdf, https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/binaries/rijksoverheid/documenten/rapporten/2015/04/15/de-staat-van-het-onderwijs-onderwijsverslag-2013-2014/de-staat-van-het-onderwijs-onderwijsverslag-2013-2014.pdf, https://www.ou.nl/Docs/ICO/Oratie_Van_Merrienboer.pdf, Flexible grouping is used (e.g., heterogeneous, homogeneous, cross-age, between-class, within-class), Varied student groupings: individuals, pairs, small groups, How difficult is: using different materials for struggling learners. The classroom observations and individual interviews at this step are the same as those in Step 1. All experts (both teachers and subject-matter experts) stressed the importance of “knowing your students”. (2006) stated that “it seems to be impossible to assess a competency using only one assessment method” (p. 154). In order to design professional development activities, a thorough description of DI is required. The representations refer to (a) a skill hierarchy in which all constituent skills and their mutual relationships are described, (b) an overview of the associated knowledge enabling teachers to execute these skills (cognitive strategies, mental models, and cognitive rules), and (c) factors related to complexity that are used to sequence differentiation tasks based on their complexity. The evaluation of the relationship between the instruction provided and student characteristics (what they need) is lacking in existing instruments. This article is about differentiation. In this hierarchy, the relationship between the preparation of a lesson period, a lesson, the enactment of a lesson, and the lesson evaluation is essential for differentiating instruction during a lesson. For example, document analysis of teachers’ lesson period plans and lesson preparations could be used in combination with classroom observations and student perceptions in order to gain insight into the relation between the chronological phases of lessons (from lesson period preparation to lesson preparation and enacting the lesson-to-lesson evaluation) and the match between the teachers’ choices and their students’ needs. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Differentiated Instruction on the academic achievement of Senior Secondary One biology students. The outcomes of the CTA can be used to design such a training or inform curriculum adjustments. We argue that this statement holds for all aspects in which teachers can adapt instruction; the match between students’ needs and the adaptation is crucial to the real quality of the adaptation. Differentiated instruction: theses database, expanded education academic of differentiated instruction. (2015) and Corno (2008), we can conclude that the operationalizations of differentiation in previous studies, although informative, do not provide much insight into the acting and reasoning of teachers who differentiate instruction well. Theory suggests the practice of inclusion is congruent with social justice, but evidence suggests mixed results regarding academic … Characteristics of expert teachers at the time of the classroom observation. In Step 2, identifying knowledge representations, the format in which knowledge (as collected in Steps 3 and 4) will be represented is determined. To identify the factors influencing the complexity of differentiation, the list of complexity factors developed during the first expert meeting was used as the starting point. During this meeting, other constituent skills were also discussed. O{ It is therefore uncertain whether existing instruments fully capture the complexity of differentiated instruction and whether these instruments are suitable for determining a teacher’s quality in terms of providing DI. 0000000787 00000 n Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 2017 Differentiated Mathematics Instruction: An Action Research Study Melinda A. Cannon University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. articles,, characteristics for learning (tomlinson, 2005b) and provide them with a method for academic improvement or written articles on differentiated instruction)?. However, it remains uncertain what “high-quality” adaptations are, how this is enacted in classrooms, and what is required from teachers (Deunk et al., 2015; Park & Datnow, 2017). 0000003817 00000 n H�b```�U��� ce`a਀��dc���! (3) Which factors contribute to the complexity of differentiated instruction? Providing differentiated instruction (DI) is considered an important but complex teaching skill which many teachers have not mastered and feel unprepared for. 0000001286 00000 n With this set of instruments, the various constituent skills of differentiation may be assessed in different ways, and when a teacher appears to master a specific skill at a specific complexity level, this aspect might not need to be assessed again. Each of these definitions stresses the adaptation of aspects of instruction to differences between students. Differentiated instruction (DI) is a system that provides students with different avenues for acquiring course content so that all the students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in … Research by the Dutch Inspectorate of Education (Inspectie van het Onderwijs, 2014, 2015a, 2015b) showed that teachers insufficiently adapt their instruction to student differences. This list of complexity factors provides a basis for developing a professionalization trajectory (which will be done at a later stage in our project). Utilizing Differentiated Instruction for English Language Learners with Disabilities. Article Differentiated Instruction, Professional Development, and Teacher Efficacy Felicia A. Dixon 1, Nina Yssel , John M. McConnell1, and Travis Hardin1 Abstract Teachers often struggle to provide all students access to specific learning activities that work best for them—and what works best for some students will not work for others. Basic information about students is often represented in an overview that teachers compose at the start of a lesson period. 3099067 A subject-matter expert can indicate whether the selected instruction, content, materials, and strategies are accurate given the teacher’s goal in light of the identified student’s achievement, progress, and needs. Tomlison (2001 cited in Hall, Strangman, & Meyer, 2003) states, differentiated instruction (DI) is a teaching theory based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse learners in classrooms. CTAs are conducted in many other fields, for example, to collect input for designing computer systems, developing training programs, or developing assessment instruments (Schraagen, Chipman, & Shalin, 2000). The second goal of the expert meeting was to identify teachers’ activities and decision-making processes during a differentiated mathematics lesson. The subject-matter knowledge base is developed first during formal teacher training and is later developed on the basis of in-service experience. Differentiated Instruction is an effective way for educators to provide learning opportunities to their students regardless of their diverse needs. These instruments cannot be used to assess the actual quality of the applied differentiation strategies. In order to obtain a clear picture of the concepts researchers focus on when measuring differentiation, we first studied the scales and factors (either predetermined subscales or factors based on factor analysis) as presented in the different studies. To enable the design of such an intervention, a clear definition of “quality” differentiated instruction is required. The first questionnaire was designed by Nelson, Ysseldyke, and Christ (2015), which included five items on differentiated instruction and the second by Chamberlin and Powers (2010), containing 14 items that were used to measure perceived differentiation in college mathematics. Next, the subject-matter experts were consulted with the goal of verifying and expanding the data collected from teachers (Step 4 according to Clark et al., 2008). In accordance with Deunk et al. However, the teacher also uses the acquired insights about students’ prior knowledge (e.g., during the introduction of the lesson) and the information (s)he continuously acquires by monitoring student progress (e.g., by asking questions and observing student behavior) in order to specifically match instruction with students’ estimated levels of achievement, prior knowledge, and/or level of understanding. We therefore suggest the programmatic assessment approach (Van der Vleuten et al., 2012), which implies that expert judgement plays an important role and that multiple (low-stake) assessments can be aggregated to come to an overall decision. 3–5, 6–8, 9–12. 0000002263 00000 n Step 5, finally, did not play a role yet. The resulting codes were grouping, materials, assignments and tasks, pace and provided learning time, questions, classroom activities, and instruction. by Robi Kronberg. The factors in this list were rather specific, and for this reason were coded axially (Mortelmans, 2007). To obtain more insight into the factors contributing to this complexity, we asked expert teachers and subject-matter experts to rank situations requiring some form of differentiation ranging from relatively easy to relatively complex. Lower level skills facilitate the learning and performance of the skills higher up in the hierarchy. Basic pedagogical skills such as classroom management skills and ensuring a safe climate can be regarded as prerequisites for differentiation. Based on the sequence, an overview was made of the factors that make differentiation easier or more complex during a plenary discussion. In order to gain more insight into how these instruments aim to measure adapting instruction, we manually coded each item according to the content that it suggests should be adapted. This work was supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek [405-15-733]. 57 0 obj << /Linearized 1 /O 59 /H [ 938 369 ] /L 160458 /E 114478 /N 13 /T 159200 >> endobj xref 57 22 0000000016 00000 n 0000007594 00000 n trailer << /Size 79 /Info 56 0 R /Root 58 0 R /Prev 159190 /ID[<841149977944dafd311ecec982fca109><841149977944dafd311ecec982fca109>] >> startxref 0 %%EOF 58 0 obj << /Type /Catalog /Pages 44 0 R /OpenAction [ 59 0 R /XYZ null null null ] /PageMode /UseNone /JT 55 0 R /PageLabels 42 0 R >> endobj 77 0 obj << /S 284 /L 355 /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 78 0 R >> stream Although items such as “Attended appropriately to students who struggle with learning” in Tomlinson et al.’s (2008) observation scheme or “I adapt the level of abstraction of instruction to the needs of the students” from the self-assessment instrument by Prast et al. A paradigm that is gaining ground in many educational circles is differentiated instruction. As is shown in Table 2, the first step involved collecting preliminary knowledge required for conducting the CTA and making an inventory of real-life tasks and classroom situations that require differentiation skills. The reviewed instruments focus on “adapting instruction and activities”, and within this category we distinguished the adaptation of the following specific aspects: grouping, materials, assignments and tasks, pace and provided learning time, questions, classroom activities, and instruction. Knowledge about the subject (mathematics, in our study) was regarded as important during all phases of differentiation: for setting proper goals, for connecting to students’ prior knowledge, and for identifying students’ zones of proximal development (ZPD) and adjusting instruction to fit this ZPD. 0000073854 00000 n Data collection and analyses were carried out systematically, by means of member checking, that is, verifying the findings by presenting them to the participants in the study (Creswell & Miller, 2003; Stalmeijer, McNaughton, & Van Mook, 2014). The sixth category consists mainly of general teaching dimensions. The indicators in the reviewed instruments for measuring DI mainly consist of descriptions of differentiation strategies that may be applied, such as grouping, adapting the pace of instruction, or varying assignments. Register to receive personalised research and resources by email, An International Journal of Research, Policy and Practice, Capturing the complexity of differentiated instruction, Department of Teacher Development, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands, School of Health Professions Education, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, The wheel of competency assessment: Presenting quality criteria for competency assessment programs, The promise of differentiated instruction for enhancing the mathematical understandings of college students, Cognitive task analysis for expert-based instruction in healthcare, Measuring teachers’ perceptions about differentiated instruction: The DI-Quest instrument and model, Determining validity in qualitative inquiry, Teacher perceived difficulty in implementing differentiated instructional strategies in primary school, A rationale for differentiating instruction in the regular classroom, Student perceptions of the classroom environment: Actionable feedback to guide core instruction, Ability grouping and differentiated instruction in an era of data-driven decision making, Teachers’ instructional adaptations: A research synthesis, Readiness-based differentiation in primary school mathematics: Expert recommendations and teacher self-assessment, REACH: A framework for differentiating classroom instruction, Teaching to address diverse learning needs: Development and validation of a Differentiated Instruction Scale, Using focus groups in medical education research: AMEE Guide No. Differentiated instruction is not a single strategy, but rather an approach to instruction that incorporates a variety of strategies. The relatively more specific constituent skills at lower levels enable the learning and performing of skills higher up in the hierarchy. Step 1, collecting preliminary knowledge required for conducting the CTA, encompassed a literature study on differentiation, and focused on inventorying real-life situations and tasks requiring teacher differentiation skills through classroom observation and interviews. Differentiated instruction can be an essential component to the success of each student through the consistent application of its principles in the classroom by teachers. For each skill, so-called “performance objectives” were formulated in consultation with external experts. 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