Effects of Differentiated Instruction on Students' Empowered Learning Skills

Abstract

Education policymakers and teachers’ roles are vital in providing an environment that empowers learners. In a classroom, each learner has different learning profiles and in such an environment, a one-size-fits-all teaching method is ineffective. Given this context, this randomised controlled experimental study aimed at measuring the effect of differentiated instructional strategy as a pedagogy on students' empowered learning skills. This study developed and standardised an intervention module of 16 lesson plans on English grammar and poetry integrating essential components of empowered learning into differentiated instruction. Randomly selected 100 students of standard 9, boys and girls, from an English medium ICSE school in the urban district of Bangalore comprised the samples. The researcher implemented the intervention on differentiated instruction for 3 months. This research employed control and experimental groups and pre-test and post-test designs. The quantitative data were collected through a measuring tool. Data analysis of the pre and post-test scores of the experiment group underscores a significant impact of differentiated instruction on the empowered learning skills of students. This study significantly contributes to augmenting traditional teaching methods with differentiated instruction, particularly in the Indian context. The findings of this study help teachers in a mixed-ability classroom to consider individual differences, provide a wide range of choices for students and treat both gifted students and students with poor abilities equally. Besides, teacher training institutions and special educators can integrate differentiated instructional strategies in their curricula to help potential teachers develop the rubrics of differentiation and make individualised plans for each student as per the special needs of the students and empower them.