27 instruction means rea
cting responsively toward students’ varying background knowledge, readiness, language, preferences in learning and interests. Thus, when
a teacher modifies the way he presents a lesson or changes an assignment for specific students, he is differentiating the instruction Gangi, 2011. The process
of differentiating instruction is usually implemented in a class of students with differing abilities Hall, et al., 2011. All the efforts that teachers do in
differentiating the instruction is aimed to achieve the goal of having all students with differences attain “a similar level of mastery over specific content”
VanSciver, 2005, p.535, in Gangi, 2011. In line with this, Levy 2008, p.162 defines differentiated instruction as “a set of strategies that will help teachers meet
each child where they are when entering the class and move them forward as far as possible on their educational path.”
In order to differentiate the instruction, a teacher must consider three student characteristics as Tomlinson 2001 suggests. Those characteristics are
readiness, which is related to students’ background knowledge on a topic; interest, which is what students are interested to learn; and learning profiles, which is how
students learn. According to Tomlinson 2000, 2001, 2014, there are four elements of the instruction that teachers should differentiate, namely content,
process, products, and learning environment. After all, in order to differentiate instructions, a teacher should begin the strategies by considering the teaching
elements with students’ characteristic so that the implementation really meets learners’ needs.
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b. Teaching strategies
Based on the elaboration presented in the previous section, several practical strategies are proposed by experts such as Tomlinson 2001, Hall et al.
2011, Langa Yost 2007, in Logan, 2011, and Gangi 2011. They identify four elements in curriculum that can be differentiated, namely the content,
process, product, and learning environment. 1
Content Content is related to what students need to learn Gangi, 2011. To
differentiate teaching contents, teachers can vary the difficulty level of learning materials, such as reading texts or listening podcasts in order that it is suitable for
the students’ readiness level, as suggested by Tomlinson 2001. Varying the topics can also facilitate differentiating contents according to students interest. For
example, within the same big topic of ‘Nurturing the Nature’, a group of student ma
y choose to read an article on ‘planting herbs’ while the other group of students read another article on ‘breeding chicken’.
In responding to students’ different learning profiles, teachers can present learning materials in different forms that match dif
ferent students’ ways of learning. For example, for the same text titled “Floating Market”, a student may
choose whether to read an article on it, or watch a video of it. Further, in order to make sure students’ content mastery, teachers can provide mini lessons Gangi,
2011 for struggling learners where they can receive additional assistance to understand better the new content. The mini lessons can also facilitate to
challenge advanced learners’ in extending their knowledge to a deeper level. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
29 2
Process Gangi 2011 suggests that “process involves the way students use the
content that was taught and apply their understanding to a task” p. 13. Similarly, the teaching learning process should be differentiated based on students readiness,
interests, as well as learning profiles. Providing students with tiered activities, or what Langa and Yost 2007, in Logan, 2011, p. 3 address as a series of related
tasks of varying complexity, is highly recommended. Bowler and Parminter 2002 mention that in the design of tiered tasks, the result must be the same or
similar for all students regardless of the level of task that they get. Responding to different students’ interests, teachers can provide a menu of tasks that students
prefer to complete. Hall et al. 2003 recommend teachers to consistently use flexible
grouping since throughout the learning process, particularly in English speaking classes, learners are expected to interact and work together. Flexible means that
the grouping of t he students is not fixed as Hall et al. mention “grouping and
regrouping must be a dynamic process, changing with the content, project, and on- going evaluations” 2003, p. 4. By working in different groups, collaboration in
learning is promoted. According to Lin 2015, collaboration in learning is when students at various performance levels work together in groups to achieve
particular goals. Thus, in the context of mixed-competence class, flexible grouping strategy may involve putting students with different proficiency levels
into one group, so that stronger students can help weaker students. Accordingly, the stronger students can excel their knowledge by assisting the weaker students
30 as students can support each other in their learning through peer tutoring Joyce
McMillan, 2010, p.215.
3 Product
Products are the outcome measure that students produce as the evidence of their learning Gangi, 2011. In differentiated instruction, the products created
by the students must be differentiated in terms of their readiness, interest, and learning profiles. Gangi 2011 suggests that teachers vary the products in terms
of degree of difficulty of the product or vary the amount of teacher involvement. Similarly, Hall et al. 2011, p. 4
posit that teachers “vary expectations and requirements for student responses”. One of the alternatives suitable is by
providing open-ended tasks or questions Gurgenidze, 2012, which allow students to create products in the form of a various possible correct answers as
well as perform at their own level. After all, well-designed student products should allow varied means of expressions and alternative procedures and offers
varying degrees of difficulty, types of evaluation, and scoring Hall et al., 2011.
4 Learning environment
Learning environment can be added in the classroom components that need to be differentiated in response to students’ learning preferences. Tomlinson
2000 mentions modifiable elements in the classroom learning environment including rules, procedures, furniture, available materials, and mood as cited in
