Many reforms in past decades have come and gone without having the desired impact on teaching practices. Two shared ideals that reforms have had are offering challenging content by using whole tasks and tailoring student guidance to what students need for effective learning. In this article, we aim to bridge the reform-practice gap by taking a…

Formative assessment has been long emphasised as a powerful means for enhancing science learning. However, there is still a lack of research to investigate the impacts of formative assessment on both students' motivational beliefs and behaviours in science learning. This study examined such impacts using data from six Western and six East Asian…

A cornerstone of inclusive education is teacher's readiness to respond adequately to different educational needs of students in their diverse classroom. Differentiated instruction, referring to the process by which teachers carefully monitor students' needs and progress, and adapt their instruction according to these differences, is a means to…

European higher education institutions (HEIs) are facing increasing demands for more flexible learning and flexibility in learning paths. This report from a 2023 European University Association Learning & Teaching Thematic Peer Group on "Flexible learning and teaching" explores the complexity of implementing flexible learning at…

Differentiated instruction occurs when teachers use students' level of readiness, interests, and learning preferences to adjust the content, process, or products, which increases engagement and academic performance. However, teachers cannot offer every form of differentiation to every student all the time. There exist limits of resources as well…

Differentiated instruction (DI) is an effective instructional strategy to maximize individual students' abilities; in practice, however, its implementation appears to be problematic. To better understand teachers' perspectives on DI and the effect different teaching contexts can have, we explored teachers' interactive cognitions of DI in their…

In this study we investigated how a theoretical framework we developed for making differentiated instruction practical worked out in a trajectory (1 year, 5 sessions) that aimed to support 5 secondary biology teachers in designing differentiated instruction practices. The key feature of the framework is the development of cost-effective…

Effective teaching is a key factor in educational effectiveness and improvement. To facilitate the knowledge exchange regarding effective teaching in secondary education internationally, there has been a growing interest in using classroom observation measures. However, little is known regarding the comparability of observation measures across…

This paper provides new evidence on the effect of computerized individualized practice and instruction on language skills, more specifically on spelling. An individually randomized experiment among 7th grade students in the Netherlands is developed to study the effect of an adaptive digital homework tool on spelling performance. Using an…

This study focused on the differentiation practices of second- and third-grade teachers in mathematics and reading comprehension lessons. Preconditions for differentiation, classroom organization, and how teachers dealt with students of different ability levels were investigated through observations, using a time-sampling instrument. Data of 43…

The diversity of students' achievement levels within classrooms has made it essential for teachers to adapt their lessons to the varying educational needs of their students ('differentiation'). However, the term differentiation has been interpreted in diverse ways and there is a need to specify what effective differentiation entails. Previous…

Adapting support contingently to student needs by first diagnosing their current understanding, that is, scaffolding, is considered a key aspect of excellent teaching. The use of classroom scaffolding is rare, however. We therefore investigated the benefits to teachers of a professional development program that was based upon a model of contingent…

After a short characterization of individualized study systems (ISS) and a survey of the number and subject fields of individualized courses in the USA and Europe, the construction and evaluation of an ISS system in freshman mathematics at the Twente University of Technology, in the Netherlands, is discussed. (Editor)

The introduction reviews and compares the audiolingual and cognitive code-learning methods. An experiment was conducted using audiolingual methods to show that learning behavior diverges considerably from the expectations set up by that method. Several charts and diagrams present the analyzed results. (Text is in German.) See FL 507 969 for…

Shows the effects of a tutorial program for college students using process-oriented instruction. Process-oriented instruction combines domain-specific knowledge with teaching thinking strategies. Tutorials included a diagnostic learning style instrument and learning guides. Evaluation questionnaires and exam scores both indicated improved study…