Date of Award

8-2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

College/School

College of Education and Human Services

Department/Program

Early Childhood, Elementary and Literacy Education

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Susan Wray

Committee Member

Nancy Lauter

Committee Member

Katrina Bulkley

Abstract

In any elementary school classroom there are students with different abilities, learning styles, and personalities. Teachers need to find a successful way to individualize their teaching in order to benefit every child in the class. I designed this action research study to study the implementation of differentiated strategies in my third grade classroom at Riker Hill Elementary in Livingston, New Jersey. My class consists of 22 students during Math instruction. I studied the use of differentiated instructional techniques through the implementation of specific strategies, including group work, attending to multiple learning styles, and the use of centers. I implemented the strategies at different times throughout the research study. While these strategies were being used in my classroom, student learning was studied. The instruments I used to collect data in this study were: a student questionnaire, a teacher observation journal, interviews, and short student feedback forms to be used after each lesson where a new strategy was used. I used all. instruments to analyze student learning based on the differentiated strategies used when teaching Math.

My analysis of multiple data sources demonstrated that working in groups was beneficial for student learning. Also, it was evident that students learn better when working with manipulative^ and when the teacher models.

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