Differentiated Instruction Essay

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What the research says- Barriers to implementation of Differentiated Instruction

Patricia Renick (1996) discovered in her research that first-year teachers experienced many problems during the transition from student to teacher. Issues in teaching methodology, lack of support from administration, and the need for both resources and appropriate planning times are common concerns of most novice teachers, whether they have been trained as regular or special-education teachers. Renick also reiterated that even though tertiary education prepared educators for implementation of differentiated instruction, their preparation was nullified by their student-teaching experiences. Consequently, little or no university preservice preparation actually reaches the classroom of the regular teacher. Similarly Brian McGarvey and others (1997) found that teachers were faced with many challenges when they were trying to implement differentiated instruction in their classes. They needed assistance in trying to use all the varied instructional strategies all at once. Challenges included difficulty in planning lessons and adapting their

Reasons for this, includes: lack of administrative support, difficulty planning lessons, and resources. The Victoria Education District of Trinidad and Tobago recently held a six hour workshop on Differentiated Instruction in an attempt to train one teacher per school who would in turn train their colleagues in a one hour workshop to implement it. However it must be underscored that “If we think there’s a "recipe" for it, if we think that a half-day workshop or two is going to solve all our problems. The answer is no, if we understand that DI is a complex set of beliefs and practices that take respectful, humane, flexible principles of learning and human growth into account. (Benjamin, 2013, p.