Differentiated Instruction: Implications for Public Secondary School Teachers in Ede, Osun State

Differentiation is a teaching philosophy that helps in addressing the needs of students in heterogeneous classrooms. These are classrooms with students from different backgrounds, learning disabilities, quick learners, slow learners, special needs, gifted and others. With such diversity, something must be done to meet the needs of all learners, not just the “one size fits all” approach so that each student may learn and none is left behind. This study therefore investigated teachers’ perspectives and implementation of differentiated instruction in selected secondary schools in two local government arrears in Ede, Osun State. The study used a survey type of descriptive research design. The population consisted of all the 197 teachers in six secondary schools and simple random sampling was used to select 112 teachers. Inferential statistics of frequency counts and percentages were used to analyze the data using SPSS version 20. Results showed that 67% of the respondents have a clear and correct knowledge of the definition of differentiated instruction. About 60-84% of respondents have a positive attitude towards the different variables used to measure teachers’ perspectives. Only 9% of respondents actually implemented differentiated instruction in the classroom. In conclusion, findings revealed that many of the teachers sampled have knowledge of what differentiated instruction is, but very few of them implemented it in their classrooms. It is therefore recommended that differentiated instruction should be tackled during professional development workshops and teachers should be encouraged to differentiate their instructions consistently so all the students may learn without leaving any one behind.