Differentiation of the learning task as a principle for developing an inclusive approach to pupils in primary education
Abstract
Heterogeneous collectives in today's schools consist of students from a rich spectrum of linguistic, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. Since the 2016-2017 school year, according to Decree No. 27/2016, the implementation of collaborative education has become an expected reality of inclusive education as meeting the social and educational needs of all students.
According to the Strategy of Educational Policy of the Czech Republic until 2030+, the basic starting point of inclusive education is to ensure comparable and high-quality teaching in primary schools by introducing internal differentiation and individualization, which will enable better quality education of diverse groups of pupils. When teaching mathematics, teachers encounter a variety of pupils' attitudes towards solving tasks and ways of acquiring new knowledge and skills.
However, many teachers are not adequately prepared to do so and there is very little relevant literature and research investigations to help them in practice. The intention of the research project is to analyse the pedagogical means of differentiating the learning task and to analyse aspects of difficulty, scope, content, time aspect of the task.
The research will also include the use of two theoretical concepts: the Zone of Proximal Development Concept and Bloom's Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives in the design and implementation of differentiated tasks. The aim of the research project will be to map, through a qualitative research design based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 7 teachers from 3 regions of the country, the ways of differentiating the learning task that they use in the real teaching process with regard to the individual aptitudes and needs of students in the subject of mathematics.
The research will target pupils in grades 3-4 of primary school. The planned project will build on the ongoing research conducted with an identical research sample, 7 teachers, which was conducted in 2020-2021 in grades 1 and 2 of primary school.
The aim of this project will be to monitor the progress of teachers and their progressive development in using resources for differentiating the learning task in the teaching of Year 3 and 4 primary school pupils. The contribution of the research will be to provide new perspectives and methods for teachers' practice in the construction and implementation of mathematical tasks and the implementation of a differentiated approach that respects the individual needs and abilities of pupils in contemporary inclusive education.