The Master’s thesis addresses the learning differentiation in the teaching of design and technology in elementary school. Differentiation in literature is defined as change and accommodation of teaching the content, process or product by considering students’ needs with a purpose of improving their learning capabilities. All students need to be provided with the best possible educational experience, no matter what their learning capabilities are. Persistency is key because it is the only way to achieve the learning goals of the educational plan for all the students, but in different ways. Over the last few decades, the diversity of students in class has increased. There is a significant increase of students with learning difficulties in elementary schools which indicates that implementation of a differentiated teaching is necessary. Ignoring the differences can lead to some students falling behind, losing their motivation and failing. Learning differentiation demands detailed planning of the lessons and to use a variety of different teaching methods. Both theory and research indicate the importance of using learning differentiation in lectures and this is the reason why it is used in most European countries. Within the class itself it can be found in Finland, England, Spain, Belgium and Slovenia, but hardly ever in design and technology classes. The teachers do not have the knowledge nor guides or time to prepare themselves for this kind of teaching. In fear of losing control of the class, they have very little motivation and confidence of differentiating the lesson. This Master’s thesis presents a role of design and technology learning differentiation and its overview in practice. Existing cases of this kind of teaching are assessed and overviewed by its implementation in practice. Suggestions of teaching preparations on differentiated content, teaching methods and cognitive achievements of the teaching process in design and technology lesson are based on practical examples and used literature. Examples of differentiating knowledge assessments are also given. It was also researched what affects the implementation and success rate of teaching differentiation, in which cases it was sensible to implement them in design and technology lessons and also knowledge assessment adjustments for differentiated teaching of this lessons. The purpose of this thesis is to motivate and encourage design and technology teachers to implement differentiated teaching in their practice based on these suggestions.
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