Teaching with Differentiation: Students Searching for Joy and Justice

This document is an action research project that studies a teacher’s growth to include two years of classes and student teaching from Western Oregon University Master of Arts in Teaching: Initial Licensure program. As a student teacher for high school social studies classes, environmental science classes, and teacher of record for engineering classes, the primary researcher wanted to ensure that he was continually improving his teaching skills and best practices. His experiences in the classroom led him to the questions listed below in his research to improve his teaching for current and future classes. An expanded version of the primary researcher’s chapters includes philosophy of education, a literature review, research methods, findings, and conclusions. Three specific research questions that were analyzed through various data sources included: (1) How and why has my incorporation of differentiation strategies changed since I started teaching last school year, (2) how and why has my use of instructional strategies changed since I started teaching last school year, and (3) how and why has my incorporation of technology changed since I started teaching engineering last school year and social studies and science this year