Examining the differentiated instruction in primary schools of Maldives : a case study of the knowledge and practice of a school in Male.'/ Fathimath Rasheeda

Abstract:
Managing challenging behaviors in the classrooms is a problem faced by many teachers. Therefore, this is a qualitative case study aimed at exploring teachers' perception of management of challenging behaviors of students in a secondary school, reasons for students to display challenging behaviors in the classrooms, challenges teachers face in managing challenging behaviors, various strategies teachers apply to effectively manage challenging behaviors and support teachers need to manage the challenging behavior of the students effectively. A case study research design was used and a private school was purposefully chosen for this study. One-to-one in depth semi structured interview was conducted to six secondary teachers of a private school. The result of this study has revealed that students' restlessness and avoiding doing school work, disruptions to the lessons and inappropriate social behaviors are the most occuring challenging behaviors in the classrooms. Various factors such as students home, school environment and society has been identified as the major reasons for students to display challenging behaviors in the classrooms. In addition to that, the findings revealed that large classroom size, lack of time, and lack of support from parents and school are the main factors which act as a barrier to manage the challenging behaviors. Furthermore, strategies such as creating positive learning environment by positively reinforcing students, making learning students centered, building healthy student and sharing exception are identified as strategies used by teachers for the effective management of challenging behaviors displayed by the students. Therefore, it is recommended that the support from the parents, school and ministry is needed to manage the challenging behaviors of the students in the classrooms.