JAASEP WINTER 2008 Part 7 of 7
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- The Practical Teacher
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To differentiate instruction is to recognize students‘ varying background knowledge, readiness, language, preferences in learning and interests, and to react responsively. Differentiated instruction is a process to teaching and learning for students of differing abilities in the same class. 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 the learning process. Not all students are alike.
Differentiated instruction is a teaching theory based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse students in classrooms. According to Vygotsky‘s theory and notion of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), there is a gap between a learner‘s current or actual development level, which is determined by independent problem-solving and the learner‘s emerging or potential level of development. A classroom that include this theory and makes the best use of its students‘ ZPD should remember the following guidelines.
The teacher should act as a scaffold, providing the minimum support necessary for a student to succeed. The teacher should, without denying the student‘s needs to build his or her own foundation.
Abstract
How literacy develops has been of interest to scholars and practitioners of literacy for at least the past century. The Vygotskian perspective of literacy emphasizes social interaction but places les emphasis on stages of behavior. Children build new concepts by interacting with others, such as teachers, who either provide feedback or help them accomplish a task. Based on this knowledge, differentiated instruction applies an approach to teaching and learning that gives students multiple options for taking in information and making sense of ideas. Vygotsky realized this over a hundred years ago and did studies on what a child can do on their own and what they can do with guidance. This is the same model of differentiated instruction. In a differentiated classroom teachers are guiding their students as they work in groups or on activities. Students are allowed to learn at their own pace and learn in a variety of ways. The challenge comes in when teachers are preparing activities to meet these needs. These activities include individual, small group and whole group.