DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION FOR HIGHLY PROFICIENT TEACHERS

Arcangel Q. Bañez, Jr.

Differentiated instruction refers to the approaches or tactical procedure used to reach a goal involving a wide variety of texts, tasks, processes and products suited to the various learning needs of diverse range of students (PPST-RPMS Manual, 2018).

Proficient Teachers are expected to apply differentiated instruction and developmentally-appropriate learning experiences in the classroom in order to address the learners’ gender, needs, strengths, interests, and experiences while Highly Proficient Teachers are expected to work with and share their vast knowledge and advance skills in differentiated teaching to their colleagues. Specifically, Highly Proficient Teachers need to make a shift from exclusively using differentiated teaching strategies to sharing one’s expertise on differentiated teaching strategies with colleagues, from planning and implementing lesson plans/DLL/DLP that use differentiated teaching strategies to assisting colleagues in developing theirs, from applying differentiated instruction in the class to observing and coaching colleagues in applying differentiation in their class, and from being coached and mentored to being a coach and a mentor.

A Highly Proficient Teacher recognizes that working with colleagues on matters concerning teaching-learning process is always an advantage because of the vast pool of unique and insightful teaching experiences every teacher can share with others. In terms of differentiated instruction, this practice is especially helpful because differentiation can be best designed and implemented when teachers have a strong grasp and wide range of knowledge about their learners and the effective teaching strategies that work well with a diverse classroom. Highly Proficient Teachers know a variety of differentiated teaching strategies and developmentally appropriate opportunities that address learners’ differences in gender, needs, strengths, interests, and experiences and the mentoring and coaching models through which they can work with and share this knowledge with their colleagues.

They can work with and share with their colleagues a variety of differentiated teaching strategies and developmentally appropriate opportunities that address learners’ differences in gender, needs, strengths, interests, and experiences through mentoring and coaching models. Moreover, Highly Proficient Teachers believe in the utmost importance of working with and sharing with their colleagues a variety of differentiated teaching strategies and developmentally appropriate opportunities that address learners’ differences in order to improve classroom instruction, learning outcomes, and over-all quality of education.

When done effectively, differentiated instruction is a seamless part of everyday instructional planning and practice. The very nature of differentiated instruction means that it will look different in varying learning contexts and environments. Teachers can differentiate, at least, four classroom elements based on student readiness, interest, or learning profile: Content – what the student needs to learn or how the student will get access to the information; Process – activities in which the student engages in order to make sense of or master the content; Product – culminating projects that ask the student to rehearse, apply, and extend what he or she has learned in a unit; and Learning environment – the way the classroom works and feels.

A Highly Proficient Teacher applies these principles in the classroom in a very effective differentiated instruction and shares this knowledge and these skills to his or her colleagues through different models of mentoring such as formal classroom observation visits – the learning facilitator or mentor conducts a formal observation of the colleague’s facilitation and delivery of lesson in the class that may be assessed and rated through the use of the classroom observation tool (COT); modeling behavior – the mentee observes the mentor in a demonstration teaching designed to make the mentee practice what he or she has learned from the activity; facilitated group mentoring – it allows a number of people to participate in a learning group and to benefit simultaneously from the experience and expertise of a mentor or mentors. The richness of the experience multiplies as each group participant brings personal experiences into the conversation, learning action cells (LAC) strategy falls under this model; peer group mentoring – it brings together peers with similar learning interests or needs. it takes responsibility for crafting its learning agenda and for managing the learning process so that each member's learning needs are met, professional learning community (PLC) strategy is within this model.

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The author is Teacher III at Dapdap High School