Teachers’ professional development for differentiated instruction in mixed-ability classrooms: investigating the impact of a development program on teachers’ professional learning and on students’ achievement

Differentiated Instruction in Secondary Education: A Systematic Review of Research Evidence

“…High quality teacher-led differentiated instruction studies in secondary education are scarce, although the literature on ICT-applications for differentiated instruction seems to be on the rise. This paucity has not changed much after our search, although there are some recent interesting endeavors for teacher professionalization in differentiated instruction (Brink and Bartz, 2017; Schipper et al, 2017, 2018; Valiandes and Neophytou, 2018) and there have been some recent small-scale studies including aspects of differentiated instruction (Sezer, 2017; Adeniji et al, 2018). This paucity is remarkable given the large interest for the topic of differentiated instruction in both the literature as well as in policy and practice.…”

“…Second, future studies on the development and evaluation of differentiated instruction interventions could add to the knowledge base about how to reach differentiated instruction's potential in practice. In order to support teachers, specific coaching on the job by experienced peers or external coaches or other types of professionalization may help to develop awareness and implementation of differentiated instruction (Latz et al, 2009; Smit and Humpert, 2012; Parsons et al, 2018; Valiandes and Neophytou, 2018). Teachers should learn to reflect upon the decisions they make when adapting their teaching (Parsons et al, 2018).…”

“…Research shows that teachers themselves are quite enthusiastic about bottom-up professionalization approaches like peer-coaching or professional learning communities (Van Casteren et al, 2017). Whatever approach one chooses, there are some characteristics which may facilitate the effectiveness of professionalization including: a focus on both content and pedagogical knowledge, sufficient duration of the intervention, initial training and follow-up sessions, a facilitation of collaboration and communication with colleagues and experts, constant on-site support and help during the implementation- and the development of personal skills for reflection and self-evaluation of teachers (Valiandes and Neophytou, 2018). In addition, teacher educators should be mindful of teacher differences themselves too by providing differentiated professionalization (Stollman, 2018).…”

Enhancing Student Learning and Teacher Development: Does “Assessment for Learning” Matter?

“…The LS approach aims to facilitate teachers’ professional development as well as improvement of student learning. Teacher participants are professionally developed through learning, development, socialization, improvement, affective change and self-directed study in the reform process (Valiandes & Neophytou, 2018). Hargreaves (2018) indicates four features of participants associated with teacher professional development.…”

Forming automatic groups of learners using particle swarm optimization for applications of differentiated instruction

“…Differentiated instruction is a planning process and a teaching methodology that focuses on learners’ needs, abilities, learning styles and psychosocial characteristics . Numerous researchers claim that the use of differentiated instruction in mixed‐skill classes is a key principle for effective teaching . Practices of differentiated instruction have been associated with improved student performance .…”