Differentiated instruction: ‘to be, or not to be, that is the question’

Abstract

Education systems around the world, faces the major challenge of including all children in schools. Differentiated instruction (DI) is proposed as a pedagogical approach that support social, emotional and academic success for all students in the context of heterogeneous classrooms. Although, recent research draws the attention to the inconsistent definitions and practices of DI. In this context, this qualitative study aimed at exploring the Portuguese teachers self-reported typical DI practices in mixed-ability classrooms. The participants were thirty-six teachers from kindergarten to middle school and came from a public-school cluster of five schools. The qualitative analysis carried out indicate a variety of practices under the concept of DI, ranging from practices aimed only at a group of students, based on low ability or special education needs, to practices aimed at building communities of learners. The majority of the self-reported practices described DI as simply giving one assignment to most pupils and fewer or easier activities to students who are struggling with their learning. Implications for initial teacher training and professional development programmes are discussed.

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