The College of Education (CoE) in collaboration with the Graduate School initiated a seminar on Differentiated Instruction at the Richie Fernando Hall last 12 September 2015.

The participants of the seminar included students & faculty members from the graduate school and the College of Education. Julie Del Valle, an On-Study leave faculty member of the college, served as the Guest Speaker. Ms Del Valle is taking up a doctorate degree in Education in the University of Melbourne as an AusAid Scholar. She is currently back in the Philippines to gather data for her dissertation.

According to Ms. Del Valle, the seminar was not just a lecture, but also a sharing of some personal experiences of those who are present with regards to their teachers. She started the seminar with a comprehensive narration of her experiences as a student in Australia, followed by a motivational activity as a way of introducing the lecture on differentiated instruction in relation to the K-12 curriculum. She introduced various ways on differentiating instructions such as: 1) differentiating by content, 2) differentiating by process and 3) differentiating by product.

From the seminar, the identified major challenge for teachers is on how they can sustain motivation among their students individually. Ms. Del Valle emphasized that this challenge can be addressed by using differentiated instruction.

–By Marian A. Callo