Integration of Students with learning difficulties

Espinoza, Maria

Dube, F., Bessette, L., & Dorval, C. (2011). Differentiation and explicit teaching: Integration of students with learning difficulties. US-China Education Review B, 2, 167-184. doi: 1548-6613

Summary: Using flexible grouping and explicit teaching, the school divided all six years into three cycles and then into subgroups before implementing the program.  All three cycles showed a reduction of errors in activity 1 and 2 but on activity 3 it went up (however, it was still lower than the errors they got in activity 1.  After seeing the results, it seems that using these two approaches can benefit students with difficulties.

Evaluation: I found this article very informative because it not only looks into differentiation but also explains flexible grouping (which makes subgroups to compliment the students’ needs) and explicit teaching (which helps the student know more about their difficulties and get self-confidence through modeling, guided practice and independent practice).  It also very descriptive about how these approaches were used and allows the reader to duplicate their study