No abstract

Differentiated instruction (DI) is an effective instructional strategy to maximize individual students’ abilities; in practice, however, its implementation appears to be problematic. To better understand teachers’ perspectives on DI and the effect different teaching contexts can have, we explored teachers’ interactive cognitions of DI in their regular lessons and in “talent lessons.” Four stimulated recall interviews were conducted with a sample of secondary school teachers ( n = 4) in the Netherlands. We found that teachers’ interactive cognitions varied depending on the context. More specifically, it appeared that in the “talent lessons,” teachers focused more on small groups or on individual students than they did in the regular lessons. Also, regardless of context, teachers often take student characteristics into account, but how they do this varies among teachers. This study provides a valuable starting point for professional development trajectories and aimed to develop teachers’ implementation of DI while taking individual differences among teachers into account.

To better align teacher learning with teachers' learning needs, teachers' sense-making of an innovation during which teachers experimented with differentiated instruction was studied during two school years. Using answers to a questionnaire, 15 teachers' sense-making processes were characterised by three types of search for meaning: assimilation, adaptation, and toleration. We further specified the teachers' sense-making through their experienced sources of ambiguity and uncertainty (limited resources and conflicting goals) and a detailed description of their personal frames of reference. We concluded that the teachers varied in their types of search for meaning during both school years, though most teachers were found to use assimilation in the second school year. Their experienced sources of ambiguity and uncertainty and their personal frames of reference, though becoming more similar to each other, still differed after two school years. A possible reason for the variety in teachers' sense-making is the freedom they had in the implementation of differentiated instruction: several teachers were positive about this from the start, others needed more support and guidance. This study hereby provides additional insight into the advantages of freedom in the implementation of an innovation, but also show the importance of proper support and guidance to ensure effective implementation.

Modular approach in education provides the advantages of student self-pacing, autonomy, and receiving frequent feedback from the instructor. In 2021, the project; CMODE-Up (an Upscaling of the earlier undertaken project Challenge-based Modular On-demand Digital Education) provided evidence-based design principles and an accompanying teacher guide for modular courses in engineering education. A next step towards actually implementing the design framework, is piloting it. In this pilot, we will ask teachers from our university to work with the framework to redesign their course into one or more challenge-based modules. We started off with a short workshop to get teachers motivated to work with us. Teachers were recruited based on willingness and experience with modular courses. During the workshop, the teachers engaged in course design exercises using the design framework. Transcibed audiotapes of the workshop discussions constituted the data for this study. To further improve the framework, the results from the workshop data were combined with results of a descriptive literature review. Relevant articles and conference preceedings were located that can shed light on issues such as design of a course with elective modules. Results collectively will lead to an adapted version of the design framework.