Browsing by Author "Abdalla, Amiina"

Aims. The research question of this study is, how do craft teachers differentiate their teaching for students with Finnish as a second language. The phenomenon of differentiation is studied through the three dimensions of differentiation. Those dimensions are: aims, learning contents and learning methods. These dimensions originate from an Kallio and Metsärinne (2015). These dimensions were connected to the phenomenon of differentiation and the research question will be approached from these three dimensions. Methods. The data for this research was collected by observing. The observation took place in three multicultural schools in the metropolitan area. The research subjects were three craft teachers from whom i asked permission for this process in person. Two of the teachers teached textile craft and the third teached technical craft. First the observations were written down in an observation sheet and afterwords transcribed and finally analyzed by the content analysis method. Results and conclusions. All three craft teachers used differentiation as a teaching method with students with Finnish as a second language. Ways of differentiation appeared in all three dimensions, of which learning methods were most differentiated. An example of differentiating learning methods was elucidation. Elucidation appeared in the teaching both in spoken and in unspoken communication. Learning contents were the least differentiated. With regard to the research question, a remarkable finding was the integration of differentiated teaching. Differentiation methods were not only aimed at students with Finnish as a second language students but at all students. The conclusion is that by differentiating the whole class instead of one or a few pupils, the benefits of differentiation are expanded to a greater amount of pupils. Differentiation has to be a carefully considered teaching method in order for it to serve each pupil in the best possible way.