Differentiating Instruction to Meet the Needs of Diverse Technical/Technology Education Students at the Secondary School Level.

 

Maduakolam Ireh, Ph.D

School of Education and Human Performance
Winston-Salem State University
Winston-Salem, NC, United States of America
&

Ogo. T. Ibeneme, Ph.D.

Department of Vocational Education
Nnamdi Azikiwe University
Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria
Abstract
Effective teaching requires fostering success for all students, and to help them become productive, problem-solvers, and self-directed learners. This is more so in Technical/Technology Education where learners do not all learn the same thing in the same way or on the same day. As such, technical education teachers must consider each learner based on needs, readiness, preferences, and interests. This paper gives insights on how to effectively achieve this success in the classroom, through the use of Differentiated Instruction (DI)-an approach that enables teachers to plan strategically as well as provide a variety of options to successfully reach all students.  Differentiated Instruction allows teachers to meet learners where they are and offer challenging and appropriate options for them to achieve success. The paper highlights other areas where this teaching technique could be applied toward students’ motivation, engagement, and academic growth. The authors also explain the three elements of the curriculum that can be differentiated: Content, Process, and Products. Other issues concerning the teaching-learning process are also discussed in the paper. 

Introduction

One of the primary goals of effective teaching is to foster success for all students and to help them become self-directed, productive problem-solvers, and thinkers. These attributes are necessary to be successful in life, not just at school. As such, schools are expected to provide these opportunities within the curriculum to help students practice and develop these skills. However, the balancing act is dealing with standards and classrooms containing diverse, heterogeneous groups of learners who have different socioeconomic backgrounds, different life experiences, interests, learning styles, and multiple intelligences. Learners do not all learn the “same thing in the same way on the same day.” Consequently, teachers must consider each learner within the learning community based on needs, readiness, preferences, and interests. In order to effectively do this, teachers need to adopt a philosophy that enables them to plan strategically as well as provide a variety of options to successfully reach targeted standards, goals, and objectives.  Differentiated Instruction (DI) allows teachers to do so; meets learners where they are; and offers challenging, appropriate options for them in order to achieve success.

What is Differentiated Instruction

Differentiation is not at all a new concept. The one-room schoolhouse is a prime example of teachers differentiating to meet the needs of all students. Differentiated Instruction is a teaching theory based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse needs and differing abilities of students in a classroom (Gregory, 2003; Tomlison, 1999). By its nature, differentiation implies that the purpose of schools should be to maximize the capabilities of all students. Differentiated Instruction integrates what we know about constructivist learning theory, learning styles, and brain development with empirical research on influencing factors of learner readiness, interest, and intelligence preferences toward students’ motivation, engagement, and academic growth within schools (Tomlinson & Allan, 2000). The intent of differentiating instruction is to maximize each student’s growth and individual success by meeting each student where he or she is, and assisting in the learning process. To differentiate instruction is to recognize students’ varying background knowledge, readiness, language, preferences in learning, interests, and to react responsively.

Differentiation may be made by teachers based on what they know about students’ learning preferences (i.e., intelligences, talents, learning styles), allowing students’ choices in working independently, with partners, or as a team; or providing varied work spaces that are conducive to various learning preferences (i.e., quiet work spaces, work spaces with tables instead of desks). Of the utmost importance to the teacher who differentiates is providing a learning environment and opportunities that exclude no child. Tomlinson (2001) identified three elements of the curriculum that can be differentiated: Content, Process, and Products (Figure 1).

(Adapted from Oaksford & Jones, 2001)

 
Additionally, the following guidelines are provided to help technical/technology education teachers at the secondary school level form an understanding and develop ideas around differentiating instruction.

Content: Several elements and materials are used to support instructional content. These include acts, concepts, generalizations or principles, attitudes, and skills. The variation seen in a differentiated classroom is most frequently the manner in which students gain access to important learning. Access to the content is seen as key.

Align tasks and objectives to learning goals. Designers of differentiated instruction determine as essential the alignment of tasks with instructional goals and objectives. Goals are most frequently assessed by many high-stakes tests and frequently administered standardized measures. Objectives are frequently written in incremental steps resulting in a continuum of skills-building tasks. An objectives-driven menu makes it easier to find the next instructional step for learners entering at varying levels.

Instruction is concept-focused and principle-driven. The instructional concepts should be broad based and not focused on minute details or unlimited facts. Teachers must focus on the concepts, principles and skills that students should learn. The content of instruction should address the same concepts with all students but be adjusted by degree of complexity for the diversity of learners in the classroom.

Process: Flexible grouping is consistently used. Strategies for flexible grouping are essential. Learners are expected to interact and work together as they develop knowledge of new content. Teachers may conduct whole-class introductory discussions of content big ideas followed by small group or pair work. Student groups may be coached from within or by the teacher to complete assigned tasks. Grouping of students is not fixed. Based on the content, project, and on-going evaluations, grouping and regrouping must be a dynamic process as one of the foundations of Differentiated Instruction.

Classroom management benefits students and teachers. Teachers must consider organization and instructional delivery strategies to effectively operate a classroom using differentiated instruction.

Products: Initial and on-going assessment of student readiness and growth are essential. Meaningful pre-assessment naturally leads to functional and successful differentiation. Assessments may be formal or informal, including interviews, surveys, performance assessments, and more formal evaluation procedures. Incorporating pre and on-going assessment informs teachers to better provide a menu of approaches, choices, and scaffolds for the varying needs, interests and abilities that exist in classrooms of diverse students.

Students are active and responsible explorers. Teacher’s respect that each task put before the learner will be interesting, engaging, and accessible to essential understanding and skills. Each child should feel challenged most of the time.

Vary expectations and requirements for student responses. Items to which students respond may be differentiated for students to demonstrate or express their knowledge and understanding. A well-designed student product allows varied means of expression, alternative procedures, and provides varying degrees of difficulty, types of evaluation, and scoring.

Critical Elements of Differentiated Instruction

 
Most important to differentiated instruction are the elements of choice, flexibility, on-going assessment, and creativity resulting in differentiating the content being taught, how students are processing and developing understanding of concepts and skills, or the ways in which students demonstrate what they have learned and their level of knowledge through varied products. Teachers determine at the onset of their planning what their students should know and what each child should be able to do at the conclusion of the lesson or unit.

When differentiating the content aspect of a lesson, teachers may adapt what they plan for the students to learn or how the students’ will gain access to the desired knowledge, understanding, and skills (Tomlinson & Allan, 2000). Instead of varying the learner objectives and lowering performance expectations for some students, teachers may differentiate the content by using texts, novels, projects, demonstrations, simulations, or individual assignments at varying readiness levels. Teachers may choose to differentiate the content by using flexible grouping, affording students to work in groups using books or other resources as a means for developing understanding and knowledge of the topic or concept. Some students may choose to work in pairs, small groups, or independently, but all are working toward proficiency on the same performance standards or curriculum objectives.

Differentiating the performance measure or product component of a lesson means affording students various ways of demonstrating what they have learned from the lesson or unit of study. Differentiation of assessments or products may be constructed in various ways by the teacher such as using choice boards (with predetermined options), or the use of open-ended lists of potential product options from which students’ select or contract for their final product. The purpose of the product (regardless of its format) is for students to demonstrate or exhibit what they have learned in the lesson or unit. Differentiated products challenge students at all levels to make decisions, be responsible for their own learning, as well as afford them opportunities to demonstrate what they know through products that are representative of their unique learning preferences, interests, and strengths. All students can work toward demonstrating what they have learned through varying representations on the basis of their unique interests. Each individual is assessed using established criteria (typically, a rubric) by the teacher assessing students’ mastery of the knowledge and skills outlined within the lesson or unit. This approach to assessing students’ knowledge not only yields reliable assessment of their knowledge and skills but also provides evidence of each individual’s value to the learning process within the classroom.

Guidelines that Make Differentiation Possible
 
Clarify key concepts and generalizations to ensure that all learners gain powerful understandings that serve as the foundation for future learning. Teachers are encouraged to identify essential concepts and instructional foci to ensure all learners comprehend.

Use assessment as a teaching tool to extend versus merely measure instruction. Assessment should occur before, during, and following the instructional episode, and help to pose questions regarding student needs and optimal learning.

Emphasize critical and creative thinking as a goal in lesson design. The tasks, activities, and procedures for students should require that students understand and apply meaning. Instruction may require supports, additional motivation, varied tasks, materials, or equipment for different students in the classroom.


Engaging all learners is essential. Teachers are encouraged to strive for development of lessons that are engaging and motivating for a diverse class of students. Vary tasks within instruction as well as across students. In other words, entire session for students should not consist of all drill and practice, or any single structure or activity.

Provide a balance between teacher-assigned and student-selected tasks. A balanced working structure is optimal in a differentiated classroom. Based on pre-assessment information, the balance will vary from class-to-class as well as lesson-to-lesson. Teachers should assure that students have choices in their learning.
 
Getting Started
 
Starting differentiation may begin with the creation of learning profiles; simple profiles of each student containing pertinent information specific to learning preferences, family structure, favorite hobbies and interests, and other aspects of interest. Each profile may also contain specific grade-level information for each child such as assessment scores. These individual student profiles are central to a teacher’s inspiration in planning engaging, student-centered differentiated lessons and instructional activities. The teacher uses these individual student profiles to plan flexible groupings and build tiered lessons that address the unique talents and abilities of each student without sacrificing rigorous curriculum standards and performance expectations. Figure 2 represents a model (Gregory & Chapman, 2007) that can be used to help teachers make decisions about differentiated instruction and assessment in technical/technology education classrooms at the secondary school level.

The model has six phases: standards (statements of outcomes or expectations clearly specifying what students should know, be able to do, or be like after the learning experience), content (identification of facts, skills, concepts, behaviors, etc students will learn), activate (design of opportunities to activate prior knowledge and pre-assess so that the teacher is more knowledgeable to begin planning the learning—may be done 2 to 3 weeks in advance), acquire (make decisions about what new information and skills students need to learn and how they will acquire the knowledge and retain it), apply/adjust (opportunity for students to practice and become actively engaged with the new learning in order to understand and retain it), and assess (decide how students will demonstrate knowledge and competencies).


PLANNING FOR DIFFERENTIATED LEARNING

1. STANDARD: What should students know and be able to do?

Assessment tools for data collection: (logs, checklists, journals, agendas, observations, portfolios, rubrics, contracts, etc.

 

Essential Questions:

2. CONTENT: (concepts, vocabulary, facts)

SKILLS:

 

3. ACTIVATE:  Focus Activity                         Pre-assessment Strategy

Pre-assessment

Prior knowledge

& engaging the

learners

·  Quiz, test

·  Surveys

·  K. W. L.

·  Journals

·  Arm gauge

·  Give me 5

·  Brainstorm

·  Concept formation

·  Thumb it

 

4. Acquire:  Total group or small groups

·  Lecturette

·  Presentation

·  Demonstration

·  Jigsaw

·  Video

·  Field trip

·  Guest speaker

·  Text

Grouping Decision: (T.A.P.S.  random, heterogeneous, homogeneous, interest, task, constructed)

 

5. APPLY

ADJUST

 

 

 

·  Learning centers

·  Projects

·  Contracts

·  Compact/enrichment

·  Problem based

·  Inquiry

·  Research

·  Independent study

 

6. ASSESS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diversity Honored (Learning Styles, Multiple Intelligences, Personal Interests, Etc)

·  Quiz, test,

·  Performance

·  Products

·  Presentation

·  Demonstration

·  Log, journal

·  Checklist

·  Portfolio

·  Rubric

·  Metacognition







Figure 2:  The Six Step Planning Model for Differentiated Learning.
(Adapted from Gregory & Chapman, 2007)
 
The success of efforts to differentiate instruction will lie with teachers. However, some teachers will lack either the necessary knowledge or skills. Just as each student has a level of readiness, each teacher has a personal knowledge base and comfort level that will either help or retard a move toward differentiated instruction. To help teachers prepare to make the change, schools should provide resources on differentiated instruction and time for teachers to discuss them. Teachers may need training in strategies--such as curriculum compacting and learning centers--that can be used to support differentiation. Typically, such training should focus on concrete details about how to differentiate instruction because their concerns often focus on the time and amount of organization needed to implement the approach. For example, Gregory and Chapman (2007) stress the importance of teacher use of pre-assessments as a planning tool for differentiated instruction. Some teachers may need support in how to develop on-target assessments in a time-efficient manner and also in use of the information generated to determine what will be taught--and how--to individual students.
 
Obstacles to Differentiating Instruction
There is no doubt that most first-year teachers experience many problems during the transition from student to teacher. Pedagogical issues, lack of administrative support, and the need for both materials and appropriate planning times are common concerns of most first-year teachers, whether they have been trained as regular or technical/technology education teachers. Unique to technical/technology education teachers’ first-year experiences, however, is the pedagogical demand for differentiated instruction for special learners. In addition, they are faced with many obstacles, including difficulty in planning lessons and in adapting their teaching methods to allow for differentiation. Once in their own classrooms, the undertow for new teachers to "teach to the middle" is profound, both because of the complexity of teaching and because of peer pressure to conform to the "the way we do it here."
 
Implication for Technical/Technology Education in Nigeria
 
Differentiated instruction is characterized by a variety of classroom characteristics: teachers begin where the students are; teachers engage students in instruction through different learning modalities; a student competes more against himself or herself than others; teachers provide specific ways for each individual to learn; teachers use classroom time flexibly; and teachers are “diagnosticians,” prescribing the best possible instruction for each student. Although these characteristics may seem ordinary or familiar, the real question is why are many teachers unable to include these characteristics in their repertoire of instructional strategies? And how can teachers be helped to acquire these skills and implement them in their classrooms?

To successfully implement differentiated instruction in our schools, two events must occur. First, universities must develop pre-service programs that provide prospective teachers a meaningful understanding of the elements of differentiated instruction. Second, school leaders must provide all teachers encouragement, support, and nurturing--all delivered through effective professional development that is founded on competent training and effective mentoring that is conducted by experienced, skilled professionals. Technical and technology education teacher-preparation programs and schools in Nigeria should set clear expectations for teachers’ growth in student-centered, responsive instruction; provide clear models for differentiated curriculum and differentiated instruction in action; provide mentoring that helps teachers reflect on student needs and appropriate responses; ensure teachers' comfort in implementing a growing range of instructional strategies that invite differentiation and facilitate its management; and provide early partnerships with teachers who practice differentiation.

The support principals provide teachers as they begin to differentiate instruction is critical. It is not enough to declare that differentiated instruction is going to be the order of the day. Principals are responsible for creating and supporting the overall school environment that support differentiated instruction. As the school's instructional leader, they have a critical role to play in arming teaching staff with both the will and knowledge needed for effective implementation of DI.

Moving toward a differentiated approach, as with any significant change in practice, requires teachers to work harder and take risks. Thus, the principal’s support and encouragement will be especially important during this process. Teachers will need more than moral support from the principals. Because an understanding of what approaches and activities are developmentally appropriate for the students, subject area expertise; an understanding of cognitive theory (i.e., how students' minds work) along with instructional strategies that align with these; and knowledge of the processes involved in differentiating instruction affect a teacher's readiness to effectively implement a differentiated approach to instruction, it is important that technical school/college principals assess the competence of teachers both as a whole and as individuals regarding each of the areas.
 
Conclusion
Can differentiated instruction be the answer to meeting accountability and performance standards for at-risk and marginal students within our technical schools/colleges? Alone, probably not, but combined with continuous assessment, responsive educational programs that provide necessary interventions and remediation for our most struggling students, as well as positive school, home, and community supports for students, it may indeed be the closest alternative we have in our secondary/technical schools that will enable professionals to truly be attentive and effectively responsive to all learners.
 
 
REFERENCES
 
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