A Phenomenological Study of Teacher Perceptions of the Applicability of Differentiated Reading Instruction Designs in Turkey

Abstract

The main purpose of the present study is determining the practicability of the "Differentiated Reading Instruction Approach" in primary school grades in Turkey, in accordance with the teachers' perceptions, by considering important roles in the practice of the approach. The work-group of the present research is in phenomenology design, which is one of the qualitative research designs, formed by 17 class teachers selected via maximum variety sampling from various geographic regions of Turkey. Findings of the present research revealed that the present implementations of the teachers are far from taking students' individual differences into consideration and therefore they don't comply with the basic principles of differentiated teaching. In addition, at the end of the seminars, which included the theoretical foundations and implementation oriented samples of this approach, it was determined that most of the teachers stated that this approach cannot be implemented in Turkey. Consequently, examination of the teachers' differentiated reading teaching designs revealed that these designs were realized in a successful way that complies with the theoretical foundations of the approach in terms of content, process and production.

A teachers’ professional development programme to implement differentiated instruction in secondary education: How far do teachers reach?

“…It cannot be expected that teachers learn to implement differentiated instruction without a well-designed and intensive teacher professional development program (Brown, 2016). Although some scholars are critical about the feasibility of the concept (De Jager, 2017;Pilten, 2016;Wan, 2017), we believe findings in this study illustrate how careful professional development may foster the implementation of differentiated instruction. Most teachers in this study thoughtfully adapted their instructional design in order to better cater for student diversity in their class.…”

“…Hence, a broad type of teachers' responsivity is needed to accommodate for this diversity. As in many others regions (e.g., Mills et al, 2014;Pilten, 2016) the practice of it remains relatively exceptional in the Flanders region. Present study draws conclusions from a systematic attempt to implement the concept of differentiated instruction at the teacher level, in order to respond to diversity at the classroom level.…”

“…They are: (1) activities and materials; (2) assessment; (3) management; (4) planning and preparation; and (5) classroom environment. Pilten (2016) referred to teachers' perception of the limited applicability of DI. In-service teacher professional development is advocated in order to foster teaching quality in urban settings (Gaikhorst et al, 2015).…”

Research and reflexivity: the discourse of female students completing teacher education

“…The phenomenological study consisted of three female student teachers who were interviewed in total 12 times during the year. The phenomenological study allowed me to focus on the female student teachers' perspectives on training to teach and revealed a deeper understanding of what participants were experiencing (Pilten, 2016(Pilten, , p.1425).…”

Aligning with complexity: system-theoretical principles for research on differentiated instruction

“…A study by Pilten (2016) comes close to what would be meant with the concept of reflexivity. It documents the experiences with the implementation of differentiated reading instruction of seventeen Turkish elementary school teachers.…”