Supporting teachers in differentiating mathematics lessons in primary classrooms

Abstract

It is widely understood, that in order to address students' needs, teachers have to diversify their lessons. However, most teachers in Malta use whole class approaches. One of the reasons given is that curriculum materials and assessment are not differentiated. This study was an attempt to find out whether providing teachers with differentiated lesson plans and materials would lead to more responsive teaching. An action research approach was used. The researcher prepared five mathematics lessons of around fifty minutes each with differentiated lesson plans and materials for Year 5 primary school students. These were implemented by the researcher and passed on to the other three Year 5 teachers in the same school. Each lesson was observed, each teacher interviewed and two students from each class were interviewed about the lessons. It was found that the lesson plans and materials facilitated the teachers' implementation of differentiated lessons which were enjoyed by the students. The teachers reported it would be very difficult for them to do such differentiated lessons without the availability of relevant ready-made lesson plans and materials. On the other hand, evidence was also found that teachers were not flexible in the use of the pre-prepared materials and so differentiation was not in fact effective. It is suggested that in order for teachers to diversify the lesson plans and cater for all the students, there should be a diverse curriculum and material and relevant teacher training.