THE PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES OF DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION: THE CASE OF SELECTED GOVERNMENT UPPER PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN GONDAR CITY ADMINISTRATION

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the practices and challenges of differentiated instruction in the selected Government upper primary schools in Gondar city administration. Mixed type (both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used for this study. In Gondar city, there are 7 sub-cities. Among these, 4 sub-cities(Arada, Azezo Tseda, Zobel and Jantekel) were taken as samples using simple random technique. In those sample sub-cities, there are 34 Upper primary schools. Accordingly,5 schools(Abiyot Fire, Edget Felege, Kebele 19, Meserete and Atse Fasil schools were selected randomly. The participants of this study were teachers, principals and supervisors. The main method of data collection was questionnaire and for the sake of triangulation interview was used. To analyze the quantitative data, mean and frequency counts were employed. Theme classifications, narration and descriptions were used to analyze the qualitative data. The findings of the showed that differentiated instruction in the study areas was not fully practiced as desired. It was also found out that teachers ‘lack of awareness towards differentiated instruction, large class size, lack of training or teachers regarding differentiated learning, inappropriate learning environment, teachers teaching load and scarcity of instructional resources as major challenges that impede the effective implementation of DI in the study area.