Critical Commentary on the Sustainability of Differentiated Teaching

Abstract

Various debates such as Civitillo, Denessen and Molenaar (2016) and Haelermans et al. (2015) indicate that teachers might be aware of the impact of non-school and unobservable factors on teaching and learning, but are not adequately equipped or trained to ensure they are intertwined with differentiation techniques to achieve successful results. Within this context, teachers need extra time and effort to successfully implement differentiation. This is because tasks and assessments are very complex (Peter, 1992). Furthermore, class sizes, planning time, resources, increased teacher responsibilities and arrangement for collaboration with colleagues, must be taken into account for consistent application and effectiveness of differentiation.