INCORPORATION OF DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION INTO
82
problems, which was doing more tenses and vocabulary exercises. R FN 1.8
The classroom problems that students formulated as a result of their deliberation were all real. The students agreed that the problems exist in their
class were: 1 pronunciation problem; 2 different speed of learning that could make some students difficult to keep up with the others in understanding and
memorizing materials; 3 the feeling of diffident which brings a consequence on motivation issues that led some students to low participation. Most of those
form ulated problems were in accordance with a number of reports from experts’
studies on heterogeneous ability classes e.g. Ur, 2005, as cited in Faleiros, 2009; Joyce McMillan, 2010; Elizondo, 2013.
The solutions that students proposed were practical classroom activities namely book report, storytelling, weekly writing tasks, and frequent speaking
practice. In addition, their aspiration indicated that they wanted to learn in a fun, relaxed environment. In fact, some solutions that the students proposed might not
correspond to the course goal in some senses. This could happen due to a number of factors, which one of them probably because within such limited time, students
could not come up with further aspirations regarding studying in a mixed- competence environment. Therefore, to help students come up with the most
appropriate action, the issue of different learning ability was brought into focus on a further discussion, so that an appropriate action could be initiated.
When coming to the discussion of how to deal with more and less capable student’s issue, Desta came up with the term ‘togetherness’ translated, R FN 1.9,
which was further interpreted by Vino as “learning together among peers in the
83 condition that when one student had better understanding, he would share the
knowledge to the students with less understanding ” translated, R FN 1.9. From
this idea, all students agreed to work together in order that the course goal could be achieved. In other words, all participants had consented to undertake
collaborative learning throughout the course. As action research is an attempt to foster a democratic approach to
education Mills, 2013, as cited in Creswell, 2015, p.580, the students as the participants of this action research had to come up with suitable solutions
according to the course goal. In this effort, therefore, some knowledge related to teaching learning strategies within the principles of differentiated instruction
Tomlinson, 2001, 2014 was explained to the students in the hope that students could see how their proposed ideas corresponded with the respective principles.
The following field note portrays the aforementioned process R FN 1.10.
Further, Ms. Nora as the teacher collaborator started to explain some alternatives to solve problems in mixed-competence classes according to the
expert, while comparing to the result of students’ brainstorming. Ms. Nora explained that their collaboration in learning would be undertaken through
working together in different groups composed of different students, so that they could enrich themselves from broader sources. Ms. Nora also
emphasized the fact that the uniqueness of each student made them have different learning needs in particular. Therefore, both the lessons and the
tasks need to be adjusted according to each
students’ needs in terms of difficulty level and topic preferences. R FN 1.10
Based on the field note above, the students were given new insights on the importance of differentiated instruction implementation in their particular
classroom. It was explained how the concept of differentiated instruction was highly relevant to the practical solutions that students had proposed.
84 As students had been assisted to understand the relevance of differentiated
instruction principles to their desired solutions, they were then asked if they agreed to adopt the learning strategies of differentiated instruction. The moment
was captured in the following field note R FN 1.11.
Ms. Rina concluded what Ms. Nora had explained and closed the discussion by asking the students one by one whether they agree to adopt the elaborated
strategies in their learning. Then, students from Amin to Dony take turn to state their agreement.
It turned out that all of them said “agree” to try the offered strategies of differentiated instruction. R FN 1.11
Based on the information in the field note, the students had understood the
concept of differentiated instruction and how it was suitable to solve their classroom problems while still maintaining the practical learning strategies they
proposed previously. Accordingly, the participants agreed to incorporate differentiated instruction strategies in the action they would committedly take
throughout the course period. It was important that all students voluntarily participated throughout the whole action research process and make efforts to
implement the agreed solutions in the aim of solving their group’s problems. Therefore, at the end of the session the participants signed a consent letter see
Appendix D as a remark of their voluntarism. All in all, a series of action taken as the solutions to solve classroom
problems is constituted of a number of points. First of all, the practical learning strategies proposed by students were implemented within the fundamental basis of
differentiated instruction principles, so that every individual’s need on learning
would be fulfilled. Those strategies included the adjustment and diversification of materials, form of exercises, and learning activities according to individual
capability. Other than that, flexible ways of grouping the students were applied to PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
85 also
fulfill participants’ desire to work together in collaborative learning environment.
Based on the aforementioned finding, it was known that students were willing to embrace differences among them and use every opportunity to give and
receive support from peers. Therefore, collaborative learning was adopted as the second strategy to enhance the learning process since the students highly desired
to study in a collaborative learning environment. Additionally, the students would view their variety of strength and weakness in speaking as a uniqueness that they
need to develop, instead of creating competitive atmosphere among them. Finally, fun and enjoyable learning activities were applied to make the learning
atmosphere more relaxed and less stressful for the students. The findings above have provided a series of empirical truth to answer the
first research question. That is, it was found that the participants agreed to take an action
for solving their group’s problems into which differentiated instruction strategies were incorporated. This corroborated the universal notions that to teach
the mixed-competence class, a teacher needs to differentiate some instructional aspects Ur, 2005, as cited in Faleiros, 2009; Levy, 2008; Bremner, 2008;
Faleiros, 2009; Tomlinson, 2014 as well as learning atmosphere that can arouse learners’ motivation and ensure students’ interest in learning Xanthou Pavlou,
2008; Gurgenize, 2012; Salwa, 2014. In addition to that, students’ commitment
to study collaboratively was in accordance with Hall et al. 2003 and Tomlinson’s 2014 suggestion that working in collaborative groups can raise the
effectiveness of learners’ knowledge construction during learning processes. In PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
86 short, the overall action consented by the students during the mini workshop
session was in accordance with the alternatives proven to be effective in teaching mixed-competence classes, as some educational experts have suggested.
After all, as the process of action research is dynamic and never ending Burns, 2010, as cited in Mbato, 2013, it was agreed that further
teachinglearning strategies could be proposed anytime during the research cycles according to the necessities and students’ aspiration. This was done in order to
continuously refine the set of
action
taken during the research. Throughout the action research undertakin
g, students’ aspirations and suggestions were widely welcomed. They were able to convey whatever aspirations they had in mind
through writing in the reflective journals, as well as aspiration cards box. In the classroom, a box containing of blank cards was prepared for the students to write
any aspirations anonymously and the teachers would regularly check. Through this, they would be free to convey any ideas without worries. This was one of the
efforts to promote democracy among learners. As one of the academicians from Sanata Dharma University, I hold the
responsibility for sharing the values promoted by the institution, which is underpinned by Ignatian pedagogy that focuses on
“the attainment of academic excellence and humanistic values
” Mbato, 2013, p.4. One of these efforts has been done through the whole process of this action research. The full involvement
of students in this research stage was a form of empowering and emancipating students as they could take part in making decisions for determining their future
learning. Regarded as valuable participants in the research, students joined the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
87 process of negotiating the most suitable learning strategies based on their own
aspiration, in the pursuit of achieving the course goal. This process was highly relevant to the vision and mission of Sanata Dharma University, which is
“participating in the education of young people in the attempt to protect and develop human dignity by integrating academic excellence and humanistic
v alues” Mbato, 2013, p.60.