ABSTRACT
This study aimed to determine the views, experiences, challenges, and coping strategies of teachers in the use of the Differentiated Instruction Approach (DIA) to develop Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) in teaching science. It was found that the differentiated instruction approach, as viewed by teachers, is meant to boost learners’ interest, address diverse learning needs and abilities, and empower teachers to unlock their potentials. The findings also indicated that teachers' experiences with this approach may make activities suited to learners’ interests and abilities and may push learners toward deeper analysis, evaluation, and creativity. The challenges encountered by the teachers include constraints on time, limitations in resources and materials, difficulties in classroom management, and diversity among learners. To address challenges, the teachers’ coping strategies are to promote collaboration, design tasks at varying complexity levels, integrate technology, and attend professional development activities.
Keywords: Experiences, Differentiated Instruction Approach, Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS), In-Service Training
INTRODUCTION
Every student possesses a distinct background and set of life experiences that shape their individual requirements and how they respond to various situations. Consequently, no two students arrive in the classroom with identical academic capabilities, personal histories, or educational needs. Within any single student body, there is a wide spectrum of diversity regarding learning preferences, linguistic mastery, and overall academic preparedness.
Despite these significant individual variations, students are generally held to uniform standards, requiring them to grasp the same fundamental concepts and skills within the same timeframe. This creates a substantial undertaking for educators, who must navigate these disparate learner profiles to ensure every student achieves success across all curricular areas.
According to the work of Tomlinson, as referenced by Sertel Altun and Huma Nayman (2022), the classroom environment should offer diverse pathways for students to access information, internalize core concepts, and demonstrate their understanding through various outputs. This instructional variety ensures that every learner has a viable route to academic achievement. Differentiated instruction serves as a pedagogical strategy specifically designed to address the unique needs of a diverse student population, aiming to optimize personal development and individual achievement. By meeting students at their current level of proficiency, this approach provides tailored support that guides each child effectively through the learning journey.
There is no single set of strategies that contribute differentiated instruction. Instead, the practice rests on principles that require teachers to continuously assess simply relying on the curriculum, teachers use differentiated instruction to match the activities, tasks, and assessment to each student’s learning style, capabilities, and interest.
Differentiated instruction is one bridge in order to provide understanding between current researches to students’ performance outcomes.
Educators often perceive their classrooms as uniform entities, frequently overlooking the diverse levels of academic readiness present among their students. This generalization can lead to a problematic instructional gap, where some learners find themselves overwhelmed by tasks that exceed their current abilities, while others remain disengaged because the material fails to provide a sufficient challenge.
To address these disparities, many teachers employ cooperative and collaborative learning strategies, which restructure classroom activities into integrated academic and social experiences. This approach fosters an environment where students must interact and support one another to reach common objectives, effectively bridging the gap between individual differences through collective effort. In this approach, the teacher serves not only as a source of knowledge but also as a facilitator who guides and supports learners. Furthermore, education aims to integrate teaching methods with human development theories, ensuring that students’ multiple intelligences are nurtured through effective and varied instructional strategies.
From the researcher’s perspective, public secondary schools commonly have diverse and heterogeneous student groupings, which require responsive teaching approaches. To address this, differentiated instruction is aligned with the curriculum while being tailored to students’ varying learning needs and preferences. It emphasizes the development of creative and critical thinking through the use of varied instructional strategies and flexible learning formats.
To align with the objectives of the K–12 Science curriculum, the Department of Education prioritizes the cultivation of students' critical thinking abilities. In light of this goal, the present study investigated the application of differentiated instruction as a specialized approach to improving higher-order thinking skills within the sciences. By qualitatively analyzing the firsthand experiences, viewpoints, obstacles, and adaptive strategies of educators at a high school in Iloilo's fourth district during the 2025–2026 academic year, the research sought to evaluate the comprehensive influence of this teaching method on the evolution of students' analytical capabilities.
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