Individualization in Teaching – A Conceptual-Methodological Challenge for the Didactics Theory and Teaching Practice

Abstract

The paper presents the results of the theoretical analysis of the scientific (original scientific papers, reviews, and short scientific papers) and professional papers investigating the problem of individualization in teaching, that were published in the Teaching Innovations journal from 1983, when the first issue of the journal was published, until the last published issue No. 4 in 2020. The aim of the research in this paper was to critically inspect how the problem of individualization in teaching was treated in the research papers published in the journal and to draw lessons about the conceptual and methodological approaches and implications for teaching practice in modern terms. The units for theoretical analysis were: the number of the relevant papers in relation to the total number of the papers by the year of publication of the journal, the type of the papers according to the current classification of papers published in the journal, theoretical aspects from which the authors consider the problem of individualization in teaching, and methodological approach. The results of the research show that during 33 years of publishing the Journal, 63 papers have been published that research the problem of individualization in teaching; the majority of the papers are professional papers; analytical approach prevails in the research (literature analysis and analysis of specific classes). The authors usually start from a general didactic approach, while methodological aspect is most common in the treatment of individualization in the Serbian language teaching and mathematics teaching. Based on the results of the analysis, some implications are pointed out from the aspect of development of student competencies and professional competencies of teachers.

Keywords

• individualization
• individualized teaching and learning
• journal/teaching innovations
• student
• teacher.