Teaching in the Face of Academic Diversity: Unit Planning and Instruction by Secondary Teachers to Enhance Learning in Inclusive Classes

Abstract

Teacher planning is a highly personal process, one that may be relatively complex when teachers attempt to differentiate instruction. Planning and individualizing instruction also may be problematic, particularly in secondary school settings, because of the curricular demands and the systemic variables that distinguish secondary from elementary schools (Cuban, 1993; Schumaker & Deshler, 1988). The purpose of this study was to explore how secondary teachers make decisions about differentiation in units of content instruction. Questions were developed and posed to the teachers during telephone interviews to document changes in teacher planning processes in conjunction with development and use of the Unit Organizer Routine. Detailed qualitative analysis of teacher responses revealed that they began thinking more carefully about their emphasis on certain aspects of the content, the organization of content as presented by texts, and the difficulty of learning certain aspects of the content. Despite these changes in planning and unit development, teachers’ classroom assessment methods remained unchanged.