Basic concept Differentiated Instruction

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 31 Gangi, 2011. Some examples of differentiating learning environment suggested by Tomlinson 2000, p. 1 include: “1 making sure there are places in the room to work quietly and without distraction, as well as places that invite student collaboration; 2 providing materials that reflect a variety of cultures and home settings; 3 setting out clear guidelines for independent work that matches individual needs; 4 developing routines that allow students to get help when teachers are busy with other students and cannot help them immediately; and 5 helping students understand that some learners need to move around to learn, while others do better sitting quietly.” In this study, the modified elements were mostly content, process, and product. This is because there was not much modification that could be done in terms of learning environment due to the absence of facility in the institution where this study took place. However, students could always adjust the learning patterns according to their own interests and preferences when studying outside the class.

4. Action Research

This section explores the concept of Action Research, which becomes the underpinning methodology of this research. In the first part, the definition and purposes of Action Research are clarified. Following in the second part is the process of conducting Action Research.

a. Definition

The definition of action research has been formulated by a number of researchers in non-particular fields. Reason and Bradbury 2001, p.1 state that “there is no short answer to the question ‘what is action research’”. However, in a broad sense, they suggest a general definition of action research: 32 Action research is a participatory, democratic process concerned with developing practical knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes, grounded in a participatory worldview, which we believe is emerging at this historical moment. It seeks to bring together action and reflection, theory and practice, in participation with others, in the pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern to people, and more generally the flourishing of individual persons and their communities Reason Bradbury, 2001, p.1. Further, they emphasized the key points of action research, which are participative and emancipatory in the purpose of pursuing practical knowledge and new abilities to create knowledge. In accordance with this, according to Stringer 2007, p.8, action research is “a collaborative approach to inquiry or investigation that provides people with the means to take the systematic action to resolve specific problems.” Action research has been practiced in diverse fields. As Kemmis, McTaggart, and Nixon 2014 mentioned, it has been employed in the fields of women’s movement, indigenous land rights, green and conservation activism, disease prevention, and in professional fields such as education, nursing, medicine, and agriculture. A number of terms such as industrial action research, action science, action learning, soft systems approaches, and participatory research have been employed in different fields with similar purpose of action research. Despite the different terms to address action research, they still share the common key features, namely people’s active participation in all aspects of the research process and people’s intention to make improvements over certain encountered problems Kemmis, et al., 2014, p.4. As a manifestation of postmodern civilization in education Mills, 2011, p.6 , participatory action research emerges as the “evolution of action research and practitioner research as practiced in education” James, Milenkiewicz, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI