Differentiated Instruction for diverse learners in the Mathematics Classrooms

Department/Committee/Team: Mathematics

Leader(s): Luis Lioe, Christina Lye
Member(s): Phua Gek Hoon, Chan Huan Yang

1. What was the current need/gap that you were addressing?
To address the range of skills and needs of the students in today’s diverse classroom To be able to effectively instruct students of diverse interests and abilities

2.  How had it been experimented and enacted?

The team started by looking at the department’s current DI status and the various DI lessons, strategies and activities we had used / currently using. The list is as follows: Open questions Parallel tasks Choices (choice board - idea from master teacher) Tiered questions (fixed mindset) Flexible grouping Honouring students’ choices in questions and grouping Empowering students in their choices and self-assessment There was still the mindset that DI was not as widely used in the classrooms and thus the need for this IdEas@Work so as to better stretch the HA students in a class of diverse learners. Luis and Chris modified an existing lesson package on Differentiation of Trigonometric Functions to include an SLS component. Students were given the option to learn how to differentiate trigonometric functions via an inductive Desmos package vs a deductive SLS package (hands on with discovery and more guided), At the end of 25 min, all students will arrive at the same result and the teacher will then consolidate the lesson for the class. Using the same design principles, there is a potential for such activities for provide differentiation in concept building. However, it was noted that lesson packages of this sort take time to prepare and may not be sustainable to do it on daily basis. Such high preparation DI can be considered if we already have existing resources and we are integrating them. The team then decided to invite William Wong, a teaching fellow with the National Institute of Education, to share with us his insights on Differentiated Instruction in the local classroom context and also look into the departments’ past attempts at DI.

3.  Which group(s) had benefited?

Students (Entire Cohort), Teaching Staff (Selected Groups)

4.  What was the positive impact?

William shared that we were often too caught up with a selected aspect of differentiation and certain specific strategies of DI, eg choice boards, to fulfill our idea of the requirements of DI. In fact, we were already doing DI, but the instructional moves we were using did not fit our mental model of what DI ought to be. William reassured us that as we integrated these foreign ideas, it was important to remain clear about the specific problems we aim to address within our own system or the ideal state we aspire to achieve. He added that DI must be grounded in pedagogy and instructional principles unique to our subject discipline, acknowledging the principle that DI is built on a high-quality curriculum. A suitable DI approach in our local context then involves tweaking these established methods to better suit our students. He emphasised that DI was not about teachers doing all the work; it was about sharing responsibility with students and helping them grow along a continuum from novice learners to expert learners (executive function skills and metacognitive skills). His recommendation for the department was not to design standalone DI lessons but to plan coherent DI instructional units. This approach ensures a more holistic planning of a series of learning experiences, allowing teachers to leverage the strengths of different instructional approaches. Through William’s reassurance, teachers are more confident that they have been using DI on a day-to-day basis to a large extent. We can continue to develop DI mindset to meet the needs of diverse learners and pick up suitable strategies to provide differentiation. We learnt that it is essential to maintain a broad view and consider how different strategies integrate into overall effective instruction; differentiated or not. Ultimately, we are all deeply committed to enhancing our instructional practices to support our students’ learning. The team will close this with a recap to the department on the key messages by William and a refresher of DI strategies on 21 Nov 2024.

5.  What is a future need that this IdEas@work could meet?

We will look into planning coherent DI instructional units instead of designing standalone DI lessons. This approach will then ensure a more holistic planning of a series of learning experiences, allowing teachers to leverage the strengths of different instructional approaches.