Διαφοροποιημένη διδασκαλία στο νηπιαγωγείο: Αναδεικνύοντας τη σημασία της προαξιολόγησης και τη σύνδεσή της με διαδικασίες ανίχνευσης των ιδεών των παιδιών

Abstract

Differentiated Instruction (DI) is a teaching approach and a process which takes under consideration the existing variations among children in every classroom. It is not a singular and linear process instead it is responsive to the students, their needs, and the context within which they learn, as well as the ways of expression and communication preferred. Therefore, including DI strategies in every day kindergarten practices can be extremely effective for young children’s learning. DI is based on assessment of students’ knowledge, interests, and learning habits in order to differentiate content, process or product. Preassessment plays a critical role in developing more options for the groups to be formed or the procedures that will take place during the activities. Preassessment is about assessing experiences or background knowledge, motivation and interests, the resources the students do and do not have, in other words the factors which define the relationship the students have to the content. This kind of assessment may share common characteristics with pretests and eliciting processes used to study students’ ideas about several science topics in kindergarten. We present indicative examples of using differentiating criteria for such eliciting processes. This perspective has interesting implications for teaching since exploring children’s ideas under differentiated conditions does not only provides the teacher with the ideas the specific group of children may hold on the issues under consideration, but also, with additional useful information which can be further exploited by the teacher when designing learning activities.