Scaffolding Understanding of Scholarly Educational Research Through Teacher/Student Conferencing and Differentiated Instruction

Abstract

This article reports the results of a qualitative study of the effectiveness of a critical reading instructional intervention based on differentiated instruction (DI) and teacher/student conferencing (TSC) in improving the participants’ understanding and evaluation of published educational research. A cohort of eleven (n = 11) novice graduate students took part in a 15-week course during which they critiqued several self-selected journal articles and reflected on their experience. Results of the thematic analysis of the participants’ reflection logs revealed that their’ initial feelings of apprehension and anxiety transformed into growth in their self-efficacy as consumers and designers of educational research. Likewise, the participants benefitted from scaffolding their challenges and the provision of feedback in becoming more proficient readers and in developing supportive relationships. The study implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Development and Evaluation of a Professional Development Program on Designing Participatory Action Research Projects for Basic Education Teachers

“…In this interview, the role of scaffolding in tasks requiring contextual support for teachers such as choosing a topic for research was highlighted and proven important, although previous studies (e.g., Ghaith & Awada, 2022;Engin, 2014;Rahman et al, 2015) already revealed the same. This means that teacher-trainees need scaffolding from trainers who are experts or can relate to their situation.…”

Strategy to Increase the Effectiveness of Differentiated Learning

“…Each student is a unique and distinctive individual who is different from one another (Ruhimat & Darmawan, 2020). They have other characteristics and learn differently (Ghaith & Awada, 2022;Palieraki & Koutrouba, 2021). Schools and teachers are responsible for designing educational processes tailored to different students' needs and developmental levels (Suprayogi et al, 2017).…”

“…Differentiated learning is a widely accepted teaching philosophy that accommodates students' learning needs and addresses differences in their characteristics that can aid their learning and learning outcomes (Ghaith & Awada, 2022;Smets et al, 2022). In this study, differentiated learning refers to the learning framework developed by Tomlinson (2001), which accommodates student differences.…”