di: How does one differentiate between ignorance and arrogance?

Mon Mar 19 09:34:18 PDT 2018

Don,

I’m continuing my Direct Instruction expedition into uncharted territory - aviation. The lessons I’ve created and field-tested have proven very effective at teaching 36 concepts to beginners. Yes, we do a pretest and post-test. 

The whole process takes about an hour and a half. Far less time and far greater mastery than what’s peddled out there.

You might enjoy this article I wrote for LinkedIn. 

And I really enjoyed your comment about ‘improv’ teaching. So true from my experience as an aircraft pilot who’s also a lifelong learner.

Cheers,

Jim Walker

On Mar 18, 2018, at 6:10 PM, Don Crawford <donc1950 at gmail.com> wrote:

Below are the comments of a teacher who posted his opinions about scripted Direct Instruction.  My comments follow.  If you know how to share it with the original author, be my guest.  

Predictably, things aren’t that simple. Direct Instruction sometimes comes with capital letters. The capital-lettered variety rests on scripted, precisely paced lessons plotted by experts and expensively supplied by publishers. These daily scripts specify “the exact wording and the examples the teacher is to present.” They’re enjoying a resurgence owing to the academic decline spawned by student-directed learning.
DI boosters insist that when a student doesn’t learn, “it doesn’t mean something is wrong with the student…It means something is wrong with the instruction.” Mandating instruction down to the last syllable supposedly guaranties student learning and success, provided the teacher is faithful to the script.
Excuse me while I watch a roomful of actual students prove how wrong and silly that is.
Its inherent flaws aside, the problem with capital letter DI is the bad name it gives the kind of direct instruction teachers like me have delivered since before chalk was an innovation. Contrary to charges leveled by new paradigm fans, lower case direct instruction doesn’t preclude questions, opinions, student creativity, or independent thought. It also doesn’t preclude teacher creativity in preparing and conducting classroom activities. Unlike the scripted DI lessons publishers peddle, it permits a teacher to adapt to his class’s character and readiness for learning.
This teacher is claiming that his instruction is better than the scripted Direct Instruction "peddled by publishers."  Interestingly, there are scripted curriculum peddled by publishers that was not written by Zig Englemann and is not what we consider the real "Direct Instruction."  So the first thing to note is that the curriculum that is less effective than this teacher might not be our Direct Instruction.  

Point two.  The question of whether this particular teacher may be able to, arguably, teach a given topic better than a "scripted Direct Instruction lesson" is (a) an empirical question and (b) even if true does not extend to all topics without testing and (c) does not extend to other teachers.  It's possible to claim your instruction is better than a specific Direct Instruction lesson.  But you should be willing to prove it in an actual test of a specific topic, including a pre-agreed upon academic test of the efficacy of the instruction and a random assignment of students to conditions.  If you look for such experiments reported in the literature you won't find them.  

Point three.  There are better ways of teaching or explaining things than what teachers typically come up with extemporaneously.  There are better and worse sequences of instruction and there are more and less effective ways of structuring lessons to provide sufficient practice and ensure the best sequence of instruction and gradual dismantling of any scaffolding students need to begin with. More planning of direct instruction can make it more effective which is why scripted and published instruction is likely to be better than improv teaching.  Again, this is not a question about which we need to rely on opinion.  We could check it through experimentation.

Point four.  While this is an interesting question to some of us, this is a squabble among people who should be allies, among the few who still think students should be directly taught anything.  This author is absolutely right in stating that K-12 education is off the rails.  They aren't even interested in testing to see what's the best way to teach things to students.  That would be too authoritarian to define for children what they should learn.  Instead we need to sit on the sidelines and encourage them to explore their curiosities and impulses and hope for the best.      

Don Crawford
(503) 298-8656
14435 SE Donatello Loop
Happy Valley, OR 97086

On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 12:19 PM, Bryan Wickman <bwickman at nifdi.org <mailto:bwickman at nifdi.org>> wrote:
https://www.middletownpress.com/news/article/Poor-Elijah-s-Almanack-Educator-s-digest-12749449.php <https://www.middletownpress.com/news/article/Poor-Elijah-s-Almanack-Educator-s-digest-12749449.php>

Anyone care to post any comments to this opinion piece?

Bryan Wickman,

Outreach Coordinator
541.485.1973 <tel:(541)%20485-1973>

Have you seen our new series of video in-services? The current library includes Correcting Discrimination Errors, Critical Phrasing, and Implementing Thermometer Charts. For more information, go to https://www.nifdi.org/store/category/19-training-materials <https://www.nifdi.org/store/category/19-training-materials>.

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