Analysis (cont.)
The data that has been discussed so far has focused on how differentiation within individual activities affect the retention of content knowledge, however I am also interested in how multiple activities that use different forms of differentiation to teach the same topic affect the retention of content material. I became interested in this due to an observation from the students experiences with introductory genetics (Artifact 9: Mendel and His Peas).
In Artifact 9: Mendel and His Peas, I found that when I asked students to apply information they had just been given in a lecture about Gregor Mendel and his findings, nearly none of the students could recall the key points. This indicates that the students likely did not retain the content material when it was delivered in this format. Subban (2006) writes that an instructional technique that is heavily reliant on one of the intelligences minimizes opportunities for students who may not possess a propensity to learn in this way. This leads me to conclude that the majority of this class does not learn optimally from the auditory and visual intelligences, as these were the ones that are mainly used in a lecture (see Artifact 9 Analysis for more details).
Halpern & Hakel (2003) write that learning is enhanced when learners are required to take information that is in one format and then put it into another, which leads me to conclude that in order to get students to retain the content material, I should differentiate instruction in several ways so as to increase the number of multiple intelligences that I rely on so as to reach the greatest number of students at their level. Therefore, I decided to test how delivering content material using three different forms of instruction affected student retention of content material.
In Artifact 9: Mendel and His Peas, I found that when I asked students to apply information they had just been given in a lecture about Gregor Mendel and his findings, nearly none of the students could recall the key points. This indicates that the students likely did not retain the content material when it was delivered in this format. Subban (2006) writes that an instructional technique that is heavily reliant on one of the intelligences minimizes opportunities for students who may not possess a propensity to learn in this way. This leads me to conclude that the majority of this class does not learn optimally from the auditory and visual intelligences, as these were the ones that are mainly used in a lecture (see Artifact 9 Analysis for more details).
Halpern & Hakel (2003) write that learning is enhanced when learners are required to take information that is in one format and then put it into another, which leads me to conclude that in order to get students to retain the content material, I should differentiate instruction in several ways so as to increase the number of multiple intelligences that I rely on so as to reach the greatest number of students at their level. Therefore, I decided to test how delivering content material using three different forms of instruction affected student retention of content material.