Differentiating Instruction for the Secondary School Learners: Factors Teachers Need to Consider

Differentiated instruction in the classroom gives the community of learners a range of different avenues for understanding new information, allowing all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in ability.

Carol Tomlinson defines differentiated instruction as:
In differentiated classrooms, teachers begin where students are, not the front of a curriculum guide. They accept and build upon the premise that learners differ in important ways. Thus, they also accept and act on the premise that teachers must be ready to engage students in instruction through different learning modalities, by appealing to differing interests, and by using varied rates of instruction along with varied degrees of complexity.

Tomlinson 2001

Differentiable areas include:

• Acquiring content
• Processing, Constructing or Making Sense of ideas
• Developing Teaching Materials
• Assessment Measures

Why is Differentiated Instruction/Learning so Important?

Students vary in Culture, Socioeconomic Status, Language, Gender, Motivation, Ability/Disability and Personal Interests…

As each student is different, simply using one strategy for the entire class ‘cookie cutter method’ makes no sense, curriculum/lessons must be adapted for each unique individual in order to maximize the learning potential of the entire class.

How to incorporate differential methods?

Differential methods include:

• Learning Stations
• Interviewing Students – ask about how they like to learn
• Targeting Different Senses
• Think, Pair, Share
• Literature Circles
• Relate Math to Everyday Examples – In 2015, a study published by the Canadian Center of Science and Education ( http://www.ccsenet.org/ ) used contextual learning strategies to teach integers, and increased test scores by more than 44%

Incorporating Differential Methods in Secondary School

The incorporation of differential methods into secondary classrooms is much the same as any other, the difference being in content and strategy which much fit the situation in order for the differential method to function

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Kiley, Duane. Differentiated Instruction in the Secondary Classroom: Analysis of the Level of Implementation and Factors that Influence Practice. 2011. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1429&context=dissertations