Author: boncaross2

In this post, I found a video specifically for Differentiated Instruction called “Differentiated Instruction: Why, How, and Examples” by Teachings in Education. This video explains why differentiated instruction is important for educators to implement within their classroom to enhance learner’s engagement and productivity of the content. Additionally, the video explores different methods of teaching style and provide examples for learners to understand and self-reflect to ensure the compatibility between specific teaching styles to their learning style.

What kind of interaction would the video require from your students? Does it force them to respond in some way (inherent)?

• The video presents seven different techniques of how to differentiate instruction along with three categories, content, process, and product, that caters to different learning styles. The video inherently requires my students to use their critical thinking skills, which encourages them to interact with the video and reflect on their own learning style. As they continue to watch the short video, students may find analyzing themselves of the type of learner they are and in which category they belong, in order to implement differentiated instructions on their own.

In what way are they likely to respond to the video on their own, e.g., make notes, do an activity, or think about the topic (learner-generated)?

• In this area, students will do a short activity after each lesson to assess their learning. For example, they could be paired up into a group and the teacher will instruct them to create a concept map. This will create active collaboration, teamwork, and peer-to-peer learning. Additionally, this type of assessment can boost class engagement and motivate them to reach their learning success. 

How could the video have been designed to generate more or better activity from viewers or students?

• In my opinion the video could have an interactive quiz for every category, questions such as “What type of a learner are you?” or “What type of teaching style do you prefer?,” and more for students to be more engaged rather than self-reflecting and critically thinking for the entirety of the video. Additionally, peer group discussion could also be handy to help each other and look for opportunities to find classmates who have the same learning style as them, in which they can relate to each other and be more motivated to engage with the content.

How will you address any potential barriers for your learners in the use of this video to ensure an inclusive design?

• For any potential barriers, to students who have challenges with their vocabularies, the instructor should provide definitions for them underneath each word on video. Furthermore, a downloaded video of the live-video lesson should be posted for students who missed the class, providing access to every student. Each video also should contain closed captions for people who have difficulty hearing. Additionally, the creator of the video, Teachings in Education, could have created a checkpoint questionnaire for each subtopics or key factors for students to fully engage with the video. I believe that these are key things to consider when watching videos like these as it ensures each individual learner to relate, understand, and reflect more meaningful with themselves and the video.

References

Bates, A. W. (Tony). (2019, October 10). 9.6 interaction. Teaching in a Digital Age Second Edition. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/chapter/pedagogical-roles-for-text-audio-and-video/ 

Interaction. EDCI 335. (n.d.). https://edtechuvic.ca/edci335/interaction/

Our need to interact. EDCI 335. (n.d.-b). https://edtechuvic.ca/edci335/our-need-to-interact/  

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How will your interactive learning resource specifically ensure that the needs of all learners can be met?

Creating an interactive learning resource takes time and effort to ensure the needs of all learners can be met. A crucial part about designing a learning resource is to prioritize an easy, adaptable process where flexibility and accessibility is put into consideration. This would make the content more enjoyable for the learner as well as enhance the engagement with the content provided.

My interactive learning resource will prioritize the learners’ needs.  Utilizing text, audio, video, peer-to-peer discussions, and other interactive and engaging content will 100% contribute to their learning success. As mentioned, it is essential to consider how learners’ diverse learning styles function to ensure adaptability and flexibility in engaging with the content. A Universal Design for Learning (UDL) will also be used, offering two different choices of teaching methods, either synchronous or asynchronous teaching models. Moreover, learners have the option to customize their preferred visuals to optimize their learning capabilities (Inclusive Learning Design, ILD) such as font size and playback speeds.

To maintain an engaging material, a mandatory survey after the end of each week shall be submitted. This would allow each student to explain their understanding and for the instructors to determine if the content is engaging. Additionally, an interactive platform to communicate between learners and instructors can keep the students motivated and goal oriented. 

To focus more about adaptability and flexibility I want my learners to be stress-free. I plan to steer away from heavy graded assessments because it can be intimidating and stressful for students. Personally, I despise high-stake exams. I understand that exams like these show how much understanding the students have about the content. Instead, alternatives such as journals, weekly short quizzes, and projects that contain flexible deadlines, along with a supportive instructor are more engaging and have a better learning success rate than a high-stake exam where the students feel hated, especially if the instructor is a hard marker.

Lastly, providing a clear navigation on the course website with clear and simple instructions on each assignment will be much more enjoyable for the student especially when a support system is present to provide guidance whenever the student feels lost.

I am confident to say that my interactive learning resource will ensure students are full of enjoyment and engagement with the material, and achieve learning success.

References

Meyer, Anne, et al. Universal Design for Learning: Theory and Practice. CAST Professional Publishing, an Imprint of CAST, Inc., 2014, UDL Theory Practice, retrieved from: udltheorypractice.cast.org/

Right to Education – Inclusive Education, retrieved from: https://www.inclusiveeducation.ca/learn/right-to-education/

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Direct instruction is a simple, powerful, and effective instructional approach that increases student engagement rates. This instructional approach originated from the 1960s and is utilized to teach students who are “at-risk” at the Bereiter-Engelmann Preschool, at the University of Illinois (Heward & Twyman, 2021).  According to William L. Heward, “direct instruction (DI) is a combination of logical analysis and testing of the content students are to learn, thoughtful selection and sequencing of instructional examples, clear communication between teacher and student, reinforcement and corrective feedback, judicious review, and practice to mastery” (Heward & Twyman, 2021). These characteristics of direct instruction are important to achieve student’s success and to maximize what the students are learning by relying on these characteristics to create a thorough and structured instructional approach. 

Direct Instruction and Differentiated Instruction in Diverse Classrooms has alignments depending on how it is implemented with learners. To better understand, Differentiated Instruction in Diverse Classroom is a teacher educator’s strategy to understand learning preferences and styles of each student. This strategy may involve teaching the same material to all students using a variety of instructional methods, or it may require the teacher to teach content at varying levels of difficulty based on the readiness, interests and ability of each student (Thakur, 2014). According to the article Leaving the Traditional Classroom: A Look at Direct Instruction versus Differentiated Instruction by Robert D. Dunham researched two classes who were taught the same content for one unit, where one class was taught Direct Instruction and the other Differentiated Instruction (Dunham, 2008). This study resulted in a success where they determined that no matter which method was implemented, both classes were successful in learning, but there was still a difference between both DI’s (Dunham, 2008).

From my understanding by reading the articles and extra research from group project #1, I realized that Differentiated Instruction is reliant on the school’s full support, its resources, and the amount of training the educators receive to develop a classroom curriculum for a successful learning for the students. In addition, differentiated instruction boosts student engagement, learning outcomes, and character development that contributes to independence (Koimah et al., 2024). However, Direct Instruction can be an impactful method for some learning styles of each student which can impact their success in learning because Differentiated Instruction offers flexibility for the students to make their own choices and be independent with their learning. Whereas Direct Instruction can be a bit frustrating to some students because of specific instructions ordered by the educator.

References

Dunham, R. D. (2008b). Leaving the traditional classroom: A look at direct instruction versus differentiated instruction. Fisher Digital Publications. https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/mathcs_etd_masters/82/ 

Heward, W. L., & Twyman, J. S. (2021, August 30). Whatever the kid does is the truth: Introduction to the special section on direct instruction – perspectives on behavior science. SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40614-021-00314-x 

Koimah, S. M., Zahra, N. A., Prasitini, E., Sasmita, S. K., & Sari, N. (2024). Implementasi Pembelajaran Berdiferensiasi Untuk Memenuhi kebutuhan belajar Siswa Yang Beragam. Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Budaya Indonesia. http://kurniajurnal.com/index.php/jisbi/article/view/197 

Thakur, K. (2014). Differentiated instruction in the inclusive classroom | semantic scholar. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Differentiated-Instruction-in-the-Inclusive-Thakur/751bf4fe61dee39bda7bc162ba0f7b5af814720c

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