This article is the second of a 3-part article series about differentiated instruction.
In the previous article, we discussed what differentiated instruction is and how it can improve your elearning course. We also discussed the elements that will help you create a differentiated online training program – as it is sometimes called.
To expound on this concept further, let us discuss the different strategies that you can use as your criteria in choosing how you will implement this approach in learning. These strategies should allow you to identify the details, tools and techniques that you will use as you create your training program. There are 5 that you can contemplate on.
- One content, different stimulations. In this strategy, you will provide employees with one content. However, there will be different stimulations present that will help cater to their specific learning preferences. A mix of videos, audio, games, social discussions – all of these can help stimulate a variety of learners without deviating from the original content. That way, you provide stimulation for the different learning preferences of employees. Thanks to technology and the availability of various tools, this is easy to incorporate in your elearning course.
- Self direction of content. This strategy will still involve one content but this time, you will give your learners with the ability to jump from one part of the content to the other. This will allow them to choose how they can to go through the elearning course. This can easily be done by providing a table of contents feature that will enable employees to jump from one part of the course to the other. They can choose to speed on to the latter part of the course or go back to places where they feel they need to re-learn. In this strategy, they can go through all the course content first before going through the activities. Or they can learn the content and complete the activity before going on to the next content.
- Random changes in the content. Also referred to as Naïve differentiation, this involved changing parts of the content. These changes are not necessarily in the content but the images, videos, and other representations that compliment it. As the learner revisits the content they are provided with a different view – thus making the learning process more interesting and non-repetitive. It is possible to use different content – but be careful to keep it from becoming confusing. You can probably stick to make examples and activities random – but not the main content itself.
- True or false logic to determine content. This strategy uses the boolean logic wherein the employee works around a set of rules that will get them to answer true or false. To be more specific, the software that you will use to support your course will use the boolean logic. Whatever the answer is will determine the next content that the employees will be presented with in the elearning course. You need to set a series of rules that will allow the employees to learn based on their response to pre-determined prompts throughout the course.
- Model-based differentiation of content. In the final strategy, you will use various approaches that are based, on most part, on expert opinions. You will choose the different models that you can combine to present the content the best way that suits employees (e.g. statistical models, item response models, etc.) What you are doing is actually data mining – you gather a lot of ideas so you can choose which one will best suit the goals of your elearning course.
Choosing which strategy to use will be the next challenge in your elearning course. That is what we will be discussing in the next and final part of this article series: how to use differentiated instruction in your training program.
This article is inspired by the study done by Kathleen Scalise (Assistant Professor, University of Oregon EDUCAUSE Information Resources Library, January 2000). The original text can be found on this link: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/csd4903.pdf
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