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Chapter 7 |
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I. What is direct instruction?
SELF-CHECK ITEM: List the sequence of steps that characterize a direct instruction lesson.
POSSIBLE ANSWER:
SELF-CHECK ITEM: Make a chart with the words Purpose, Strategy, and Example across the top and the seven steps of the direct instruction model down the left side. Fill in information for each step of the model.
POSSIBLE ANSWER:
| Steps | Purpose | Strategy | Example |
| State learning objectives and orient students to the lesson | State the learning objective and whet appetites to learn the lesson | Lesson plans prepare teachers by listing learning objectives. Teachers orient students to the lesson by placing them in the right mental set to learn, helping students become eager to learn. | "Today we will be learning about optical illusions," states the eager teacher. "To whet your appetites, here are some examples of optical illusions. How do you think they work?" |
| Review prerequisites | Go over any prerequisite knowledge or skills necessary to conduct the lesson | Review prerequisite knowledge, and ask questions that test students’ preparation to move on to new material, particularly should the new material depend strongly on prior knowledge. | "Today we will learn how to balance a checkbook. However, before we begin, let’s review addition and subtraction with decimal points." |
| Present new information | Here begins the main body of the lesson, the presentation of new information or skills | Present information in a clearly outlined manner, with transitional statements between points. Teachers should always indicate information that is particularly relevant to facilitate student attention. Include examples along with rules to solidify retention. Also, enliven lessons by introducing humor, anecdotes, and colorful graphics or other technology wherever possible. | "The human body contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, containing tens of thousands of genes. These genes are inherited from parents when the sperm and egg cells combine during conception. For instance, your eye color resulted from a combination of genes from your mother and father. You inherited 23 chromosomes from your father and 23 from your mother, including those containing genes for eye color. Let’s now explore why some of you have blue eyes and others have brown or green eyes." |
| Conduct learning probes | Learning probes allow instructors to know whether students comprehend lessons. | Present short in-class assignments to assess comprehension. Instructors should also be aware of body language or facial expressions that indicate confusion and should ask students if they are confused or need clarification, as necessary. Make sure all students participate, not only volunteers. | "Jill, you look confused. Can you explain how the average test score is calculated?" |
| Provide independent practice | To crystallize new knowledge and allow instructor assessment of learning | Assign independent practice only when sure that students can do it. Keep independent practice assignments short, give clear instructions, avoid interruptions, monitor independent work, and collect independent work and include it in student grades. | "After the lecture on calculating the arithmetic mean or average, we will do a few calculations of the mean. I’ll be collecting them for grade." |
| Assess performance and provide feedback | To provide feedback to students on their performance, and perhaps more important, to provide instructors with feedback on their teaching efficacy | Assign frequent assessments, such as quizzes or exams, and return them rapidly. If students are not understanding material, as indicated by poor exam performance, teachers should slow down and re-teach poorly understood concepts. If, on the other hand, students are mastering lessons with facility, instructors can speed up lessons. | "To assess your comprehension, we will complete a variety of worksheets throughout the course of this semester. I will return them with feedback so you can better prepare for exams. However, if I see that we are struggling as a class, we will slow down a bit in the following sessions." |
| Provide distributed practice and review | To increase retention by practicing learned material over extended periods of time | Provide homework so students can extend lessons beyond class time. Homework also assures that lessons are learned and practiced in more than one setting (home as well as school). | "Today we learned about the history of New York’s Central Park. Your homework is to go the library, find a book or articles about Central Park, and write a brief summary of its history. The assignment is due Friday." |
SELF-CHECK ITEM: List three variants of direct instruction. What does research suggest about the effectiveness of each?
QUESTION 1: List three variants of direct instruction.
POSSIBLE ANSWER: Three variants of direct instruction are the Missouri Mathematics Program (MMP), the Mastery Teaching Program (MTP), and Explicit Teaching.
QUESTION 2: What do research findings suggest about the effectiveness of each?
POSSIBLE ANSWER: The MMP research findings supports its efficacy in fourth graders, whereas the research did not support the efficacy of MTP. The research findings on Explicit Teaching were more interesting, indicating that low achieving readers did better with this direct instruction method only in the presence of peer tutoring.
IV. HOW DO STUDENTS LEARN AND TRANSFER CONCEPTS?SELF-CHECK ITEM: Describe how you would use the following approaches to teach students: a rule-example-rule approach and an examples and non-examples approach.
POSSIBLE ANSWER:
SELF-CHECK ITEM: Create a two-column chart comparing whole-class discussion and small-group discussion. Use the following categories for your chart: Appropriate Uses, Pre-requisites, Benefits, and Limitations.
POSSIBLE ANSWER:
| Whole-class discussion | Small-group discussion | |
| Appropriate uses | Discuss issues from a variety of perspectives. | Small groups are appropriate for discussions following the presentation of some material (e.g., a video on AIDS). |
| Pre-requisites | Students must have the appropriate knowledge base about the issue before starting a discussion. | A good student leader for each group, ability of participants to work independently, strong organization skills, and behavioral maturity. Therefore, young children may not be as prepared as older children and adolescents for small-group work. |
| Benefits | Students generate their own ideas and learn to manage cognitive encounters with others, particularly if their opinions disagree with those of others. | Students learn to work with others. Shy students get to speak out in less-fearful settings, and better-prepared students can enhance learning in less-prepared students through scaffolding. Formation of peer relationships. |
| Limitations | The teacher must be a strong conductor, encouraging participation by many, maintaining class focus, preparing students adequately, and not allowing any one student to dominate. | Requires student maturity. Groups require tremendous teacher supervision, and a division of attention to a variety of independent units. Selection of leaders may indicate teacher biases. |
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