Dickey45 says “balderdash” about some criticisms of Direct Instruction (DI).
… teachers insist people that learn through Direct Instruction are not “critical thinkers” and not very creative because Direct Instruction requires that the teacher do all the work (balderdash, I know).
Yes, balderdash about many of the popular “nots” for DI. DI teams removed some of the mystique from teaching-learning, as do other applied behavior analyses.
DI is effective and an efficient use of a learner’s time. It contrasts with academic hide-and-seek, and is not politically correct.
At its core, DI is simply a codification and use of what public speakers, advertisers, parents, missionaries, field teachers, Peace Corp workers, and other non-professional educators have been doing for centuries. We follow a simple code (formula); some call it the 3Ts: “Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em. Tell ’em. Tell ’em what you told ’em.” DI users have been among the latter day appliers of this pattern.
They identified, simplified, tested, and used such simple, repeatable codes as 3Ts in instructional skill and academic content areas.
That was tedious work that probably took hundreds of thousands of disciplined hours(and robust meetings, as I remember). Few individual teachers take that kind of time to prepare any lesson. Few such lessons in PK12 beyond DI have similar disciplined effort behind it.
Loren (he’s develooping Direct Learning) and Layne (he owns and edits multiple major websites) are two examples of how DI offered them the symbols and tools to enhance their creativity and critical thinking.
So, given this background, why do so many full time educators oppose DI?
Man you are hard to track down. I think I’ve been exchanging ideas/info on my site (kathyand…). I agree, the DI folks have limited imagination. How about doing DI to teach concepts to mastery THEN do projects, etc to apply that information in an intriguing way….
Bob, Direct Instruction (big “D” big “I”) is more than the three T’s. Lots more. Even direct instruction is more (little “d” little “i”). For the rubric on the definition of what constitutes DI see:http://www.zigsite.com/PDFs/rubric.pdfI have a shortened version on http://en.wikibooks.org but wikibooks is down right now…
Thanks for pointing to your links about DI. I agree that both the trademakered version or other forms of direct instruction are elaborations of the generic principle of 3Ts; that’s their genius. I argue direct instruction users have targeted imagination that provides useful protocols for parents and teachers who do not take the time to create better ones. As to applying information in “an intriguing way,” that seems like unnecessary diversions from purposes of learning, that is, it caters to student apathy rather than challenges students to expand their intellect. (Perhaps a definition of a good teacher is one whose results do not require such distinctions?) her.)