Differentiated Assessment Method

Scholars believed that the use of alternative assessment could assist in

developing skills needed in the 21st century which includes problem-solving abilities

and higher-order thinking (Ghani et al., 2017). Alternative assessment also

encourages learners to be autonomous in their learning in a way that they can

explore their own ideas, self-evaluate their own learning styles, and identify their

own strengths and weaknesses(Gozuyesil &Tanriseven, 2017); hence, supporting

flexibility and meaningful experience in learning. As a form of alternative

assessment, differentiated assessment is essential in order to reach the needs of

diverse learners. Through differentiated assessment, each student is given the

opportunity to choose how they would like to be assessed, and how to develop their

skills based on their own learning styles and talents (Moon et al., 2020).

Autonomous learning skills can be inculcated by making students aware of their

strengths and weakness in relative to the learning goals and self-regulate their own

learning to move forward and eventually achieve the targeted learning goals.

Moreover, differentiated assessment allows flexibility in learning progress whereby

there is no obligatory timeline for students to adhere to (Moon et al., 2020).

Both HET and DI advocate formative assessment and mastery learning

(Pozas & Schneider, 2019). In mastery learning, the focus is on developing skills

rather than competition. Students have clear learning goals, and the teacher

regularly monitors students and provides progress feedback and feedforward. This

en‐ courages students to self-monitor and re-set goals with their teacher, so the
process is dynamic. Both HET and DI advocates recognize the importance of goal

setting in accelerating student progress.

Flexible Grouping

Classrooms are very diverse in terms of academic ability and achievement

levels, and the range of abilities and achievement levels is continuously increasing,

as are the students’ specific educational needs. One frequently used way to

organize students is by ability grouping – adapting instruction to the needs of

different ability groups within a heterogeneous classroom (Prast et al., 2018).

In the Prast et al. study, teachers were provided with professional

development in order to help them implement ability-grouped lessons using a

program called GROW. Through this program, teachers differentiate mathematics

lessons using a cycle of differentiation which start with the teachers analyzing

students’ current skills and dividing them into three groups (low, average and high

achieving). In the next part of the cycle, the teacher sets goals for each set of

students; then, the teacher differentiates instruction through whole-class, small

group and individual instruction. Next, the teacher provides practice tasks that are

differentiated for each group and, last, the teacher evaluates the effectiveness of the

instruction and reassesses each student’s achievement level. To monitor the

effectiveness of the program, students were given a standardized mathematics

assessment at the middle and end of the school year, over a two-year period.

Overall, the results showed that ability grouping in these schools was mildly

successful. Students in the low group experienced more increases in success than
those in the higher groups. Teachers who were experienced, committed to the

program and focused on the specific needs of individual students were essential to

the success of the program.

Although differentiation of instruction is emphasized, teachers often shy away

from implementing flexible grouping. It is not unusual for teachers in the elementary

setting to employ grouping, but simply meeting with various homogenous groups

does not suffice (Smets, 2017). Flexible grouping allows teachers to embrace

different interests and varying levels of readiness within the same classroom (Smets,

2017). It provides scaffolding opportunities and openings to engage students who

need to be challenged.

Individualized Support

After the first ten years of experimenting with the new model, there are mixed

feelings on how successful the implementation of the model has been. However, up

to date there has been relatively little research evidence on the efficacy of support

given in schools and the practices between municipalities have been varying. The

most recent development is that similar model is being adopted also in Early

Childhood Care and Education.

Often the complaints relate to the required paper work related to increasing

support from one level to the next. These aspects are repeatedly mentioned by

comments by the Trade Union of Education in Finland. One central fear that seems

to be shadowing the effort to maintain good education services is that the ideology of

inclusion is used as a rational to save from sup‐ port services and that children with
special needs are “integrated” without ad‐ equate support into mainstream classes.

Students with challenging behaviours are often mentioned as a primary challenge

towards making inclusion work. One argument behind these kind of statements is

that classroom teachers and subject teachers do not have the necessary skills to

teach students with various needs, an argument that has been an element of

international critique of inclusion from the early years tens of years ago.

Tiered Assigment

In light of the significant growth in students’ learning needs within inclusive

classrooms, the recommended advice teachers receive to handle student hetero‐

geneity in their daily teaching practice is to provide differentiated instruction. Pozas

and Schneider (2019) proposed a comprehensive taxonomy of the differentiated

instruction practices known in literature and practice. The identified categories of

their taxonomy are: (1) tiered assignments; (2) intentional composition of student

groups; (3) tutoring systems within the learning; (4) staggered nonverbal learning

aids; (5) mastery learning; and (6) open education – i.e., granting autonomy to

students. According to Pozas and Schneider (2019), tiered assignments are the

most applied differentiated instruction practice. It needs to be stressed that the term

“assignment” does not imply that the tasks need to be assigned by teachers (Pozas

& Schneider, 2019). In foregrounding a more learner-centered approach, students

can select, for instance, between different tasks.

Most studies on effects of differentiated instruction have focused on academic

outcomes, while studies related to students’ emotional, social or motivational

outcomes are rather scarce. A study by Pozas and colleagues (2021) provided

evidence of the significant role that teachers’ use of differentiated instruction can

have on fostering students’ socio-emotional outcomes. More specifically, their

results have indicated that students’ rating of their teachers’ differentiated instruction

practice is positively related to their emotional well-being, social inclusion and

academic self-concept. Similarly, the results of a study by Alnahdi and Schwab

(2021) showed that students’ perception of their teachers’ use of differentiated

instruction strongly predicted students’ perceived emotional well-being and social

inclusion as well as their academic self-concept. According to the authors, a possible

explanation for this result might be the fact that students feel more appreciated and

included in the social emotional and academic classroom setting when they perceive

their teachers’ ambition to provide adequate teaching and learning stimuli for them..

Varied Instructional Materials

To date, we know little about what characteristics teachers pay attention to in

their curriculum materials and what they believe makes for effective materials to

anchor their instruction. Data from Kaufman et al. (2020) and Kaufman and Berglund

(2018) suggest that teachers’ use of materials might be related to their perceptions

of the extent to which the material is engaging and appropriately challenging for

students and usable for teachers.

In this report, we build on past studies by using survey data from a nationally

representative sample to examine how middle and high school ELA and

mathematics teachers use and perceive their instructional materials in terms of

engagement, challenge, and usability. In addition, we use interview data to

understand teachers’ perceptions about what makes instructional materials

engaging, appropriately challenging, and usable. By engaging, we mean the extent

to which the instructional materials pique and sustain student interest and attention.

By appropriately challenging, we mean that the materials address the academic and

learning needs of students. By usable, we mean that the materials feature

components that teachers desire and that are easy to enact or adapt to meet the

needs of their students.

TNTP’s (2018) report underscores the importance of understanding teachers’

perceptions of appropriate levels of challenge. The authors found that students

spent a large amount of time on tasks that were below grade-level, meaning that

students, particularly traditionally underserved students (e.g., students of color, with

disabilities, from low-income families, and those who were English learners [ELs])

had few opportunities to demonstrate grade-level mastery. Materials selected or

created by teachers were “generally less likely than those provided by the district to

meet academic standards” (TNTP, 2018).

Districts and schools could provide professional learning that highlights the

aspects of districtselected materials that correspond to the characteristics that

teachers value or that support teachers in modifying materials to satisfy these

characteristics. Efforts of this kind simultaneously recognize the importance of

teacher perspectives and the need to develop teachers’ understanding and use of

the adopted materials while ensuring that modifications do not undermine quality

and rigor.
 The literature and studies from the research cited above about
the differentiated instructional practices and the academic performance
in Mathematics have given the researcher valuable insights that will be
used in this study.