Science Journal of Education

Special Issue

Differentiated Development in Heterogeneous Groups of Learners

  • Submission Deadline: 31 March 2022
  • Status: Submission Closed
  • Lead Guest Editor: Erika Wiersumné Gyöngyösi
About This Special Issue
The world is constantly changing, so the reason for the need for change is that the methods used decades ago cannot be applied exclusively and effectively in today's educational practice. In Hungary differentiated education strategy moves towards methodological development instead of content development in terms of pedagogical innovation. This reform and innovation, can be transferred to other institutions.
When teachers differentiate they do so in response to a learner’s readiness, interest and learning profile. ‘Differentiated instruction allows all students to access the same classroom curriculum by providing entry points, learning tasks, and outcomes that are tailored to students’ needs’. (Hall, Strangman, & Meyer, 2003). Differentiated instruction is not a single strategy, but rather an approach to instruction that incorporates a variety of strategies.
Increased school diversity is negatively related to academic achievement at schools (Johnson, & Johnson, 1997). A wide range of ethnic and cultural diversity among students in the classroom, requires a differentiated approach to instruction. Group investigation through positive peer interaction in small groups increases students' motivation to learn while providing for flexibility and variety in teaching and learning. This strategy allows students to work with a wide variety of peers and keeps them from being labelled as advanced or struggling.
The strategy should be adapted to the different skills, motivation and knowledge of learners. In addition to the description of different learning organization methods and techniques, the Complex Instructional Program (KIP; K. Nagy 2006, p. 19) based on a special, collaborative technique (CT) also plays an important role in the strategies. The special feature of KIP is that it can handle the status ranking bet pupils, one of the determining factors of pupil performance. The goal of the status management is to ensure that the ranking among pupils in terms of the skills considered important by the school is arranged in such a way that pupils who are most successful in learning should continue to be excellent, and those who are less successful should be scattered around the average performance of the class rather than lagging behind.
The aim of the differentiated development in heterogeneous groups of learners (DDHG) is to reduce school leaving without education using an adaptive and innovative teaching-learning environment and using the most effective strategies, methods and techniques.

Research subjects:

  1. Differentiated Development in Heterogeneous Groups in different countries
  2. Problem-Solving Strategies around the world
  3. Logic-Based games and activities
  4. How to reduce school leaving without education?
  5. How does status-management education work in different countries?
  6. How to decrease the negative effects of school diversity to academic achievement at schools?
  7. How to use differentiated development in Primary, Secondary and advanced education?
Lead Guest Editor
  • Erika Wiersumné Gyöngyösi

    Tokaj-Hegyalja University, Sárospatak, Hungary