Differentiated teaching and learning: Connecting research and teaching practice.


Αγγελική Μάρκογλου
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4589-4410
Abstract

Differentiation in teaching and learning is considered a basic dimension of effective teaching. It is a teaching approach that responds to learners’ needs, interests and skills through the instruction and implementation of multiple and qualitatively different learning environments. Rather than prioritising teacher-centred, knowledge transmission to perceived homogeneous classrooms, differentiated teaching strives to adopt alternative teaching practices that seeks to address heterogeneous classes, creating a positive learning environment for the active participation of students. The cultivation of learning motivations, the encouragement of substantial commitment to learning process, the promotion of autonomous action and the improvement of interaction between students, all are characteristics of differentiated teaching, which, we argue that can be reinforced by adopting the principles of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and instructional scaffolding. The purpose of this paper is to identify the importance of differentiation in teaching and learning, the conditions for their successful provision, the stages of differentiated instruction and implementation, as well as the articulation of a series of differentiated teaching practices, which teachers can choose from in order to meet the heterogeneous needs of students.

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