The Curriculum Approach of Direct Instruction - Coursework Example

The Curriculum Approach of Direct Instruction 2007 Direct Instruction is a curriculum approach of focused instruction based on a series of curricula in reading, language, math and science published by Science Research Associates, a division of McGraw-Hill, which has shown brilliant and rapid results in teaching children of any ethnical, family, social and economic background. This highly structured and scripted instructional method was ‘designed to accelerate the learning of at-risk students’, providing constant interaction between the teacher and students and attempting to ‘move students to mastery at the fastest possible pace’ (ADI 2001, p.1; J/P Associates 2006; Lindsay 2004). The National Institute for Direct Instructions defines DI as “a model for teaching that emphasizes well-developed and carefully planned lessons designed around small learning increments and clearly defined and prescribed teaching tasks. It is based on the theory that clear instruction eliminating misinterpretations can greatly improve and accelerate learning” (NIFDI 2007). Primarily the series cover an elementary school (pre-K-6) program, but it is also used successfully with secondary and adult special education and remedial students (J/P Associates 2006). Unlike the majority of modern mainstream curriculum programs, demanding more funding, more welfare, more licensing of parents, more computers, more self-esteem therapy, etc. and blaming the government, family and the society as a whole, the philosophy behind Direct Instruction is “If the child hasnt learned, the teacher hasnt taught”. Direct Instruction has proved that even disadvantaged children may excel if simply properly taught at school. The vast research accomplished during thirty years has demonstrated that DI not only helps at-risk groups of students to catch up with their peers, but even to overcome them and continue being successful further in upper grades. Another important feature of DI is that the program is not expensive, while it was designed for the schools in poor districts, where the children have always shown low academic performance. The schools that have acquired the program have become the ones with the best results in their districts or even cities, notwithstanding the fact that those were less funded schools, with students viewed as problematic and disadvantaged. According to American Federation of Teachers, the program was created by Siegfried Engelmann and Dr. Wesley Becker in 1960’s as part of Project Follow Through, a massive educational initiative of President Johnsons War on Poverty. It was called Distar. Though Distar demonstrated high level of students’ achievement, it was criticized for being too rigid and prescriptive, boring and uncreative (J/P Associates 2006). Since the times of its appearance, the program has been largely expanded and enriched and has passed several tests, being modernized and improved each time. If applied correctly, DI greatly improves the academic performance as well as behavioral patterns of students. DI is currently used in thousands of schools in the USA and Canada, the UK and Australia. ‘Schools using DI accept a vision that actually delivers many outcomes only promised by other models’, states the NIFDI (2007). The effectiveness of Direct Instruction is supported by vast research. Project Follow Through is the main study to be mentioned. It was started in 1967 with the purpose of finding instructional methods that could increase the difference between the low and high performing students, through improvements with the low-performing students. It was also noticed that Head starters often had worse achievements by the fourth grade. There was a need in a program that would provide on-going success. The project was concluded only in 1995, having consumed nearly $1 billion and being conducted over 79,000 students in more than 180 communities nationwide. A variety of programs and educational philosophies have been implemented with the disadvantaged children in grades K-3. Basic skills, cognitive skills and affective gains were the outcomes that served as the assessment criteria of the study. Each program was tried during a period of over 5 years. The results were analyzed by the Abt Associates (Cambridge, MA) and Stanford Research Institute (SRI) (Lindsay 2004). The multiple programs were correspondently grouped into three models. Basic Skills Model states that “the objective of education is to induce certain behaviors, all behaviors are learned, and that carefully designed instruction must be employed in order to induce those behaviors”. Cognitive-Conceptual Skills Model presupposes that cognitive growth, resulting in free interaction with the environment and self-guided activity should and can be emphasized over the learning of specific content. Affective Skills Model based on the psychodynamic approach views social and emotional goals as ‘essential for optimal development of the whole child’. According to this model learning should develop a healthy individual, possessing ‘a positive self-image, trust, emotional stability, and constructive peer relationships’. An environment providing self-actualization and the quality of interpersonal relations are considered the major factors of healthy development, while ‘each child knows what is best for his personal growth’ (Project Pro.Com). Direct Instruction demonstrated the best results in the Basic Skills catagory. The students getting Direct Instruction achieved the best and on-going results in reading, spelling, mathematics, and language. Moreover, it was the only program that simultaneously showed high level of cognitive development and healthy self-actualization and interpersonal relationships. The rest of the programs not only resulted in low basic skills, but also had negative indexes in the two other categories of outcomes. What is really frightening about the situation is that most of the programs on study were of the same design and philosophy as the mainstream educational strategies used in most of the U.S. schools today (they are usually labeled as “student-centered learning,” “holistic,” “active learning,” “cooperative education,’ “whole language,” and ‘learning-to-learn”). “Students in the Open Education Center program, where self-esteem was the primary goal, scored LOWER than control groups in that area!” – underlines Jeff Lindsay (2004). Specific design principles and teaching practices used in the program were supported by numerous studies that were summarized by Engelmann and Carnine (1982), reviewed by Becker (1984), Becker and Carnine (1980) and Weisberg, Packer, and Weisberg (1981) (In Binder, & Watkins 1990, p.86). The program is based on field-testing and repeated analysis of errors. All the lesson scripts were tested on students to check whether they were effective, effectiveness being measured in terms of achieving the intended performance results. Programs were systematically revised in accordance with the data from field tests, so that by 1990 most of the commercially available programs had gone through three revision cycles and teacher-training manuals had been revised four times (Binder, & Watkins 1990, p.86). The schools that would like to implement the strategy should be ready to changes in their organization. The teachers must be ready to restrictions of their autonomy and creativity in favor of following carefully prescribed instructions, and the staff members should prepare to fulfill new operations. It is necessary to understand the essence of the strategies used by Direct Instruction. Learning “more in less time” is based on teaching procedures maximizing the time students spend in instruction, and materials providing an opportunity to teach a “general case.” “A general case strategy is one that uses the smallest possible number of examples to produce the largest possible amount of learning” (Binder, & Watkins 1990, p. 83). Direct instruction origins from behavioral theories and uses the principle of three major classes of knowledge forms (Simple, Joining and Complex) and rules for teaching skills in each category. For teaching the basic concepts it is necessary to properly select and sequent examples and non-examples. The five juxtaposition principles for sequencing and presenting examples and non-examples can be summarized as follows: 1) The wording principle requires that “the teacher’s wording should be as similar as possible across examples and non-examples, which helps focus students’ attention on the details of the examples by reducing distraction or confusion that may be caused by variations in the teacher’s language”; 2) The setup principle states that “anything that is the same across examples and non-examples rules out a possible incorrect interpretation, so that examples and non-examples selected for the initial teaching of a concept should share the greatest possible number of irrelevant features”; 3) The difference principle teaches that “to show the limits of a concept, we should juxtapose examples and non-examples that are similar to one another, and indicate that they are different”; 4) According to the sameness principle “to show the range of the concept we should juxtapose examples of the concept that differ from one another as much as possible and indicate that they are the same”. This approach has to ‘foster generalization to unfamiliar concept examples’. 5) The testing principle requires random presentation of new examples and non-examples to ensure that the concept has been learned. These five principles are implemented for programming sequences to teach any type of knowledge or sets of related concepts (Binder, & Watkins 1990, pp. 83-84). Teaching procedures of Direct Instructions are different from the traditional methods of teaching. 1. Scripted presentations. Everything the teacher says and does during the lesson is prescribed in specially designed lesson scripts, also serving for the quality control. While all the examples and sequences have come through testing and empirically established as the most effective, the teacher is not to change the order of the lesson. The teacher is also to use the language as prescribed by the lesson scripts, while the usage of different words is likely to distract the students’ attention from the examples. It is the teacher’s fault if the students fail to learn the material. The scripts provide an opportunity for quick assistance to parents and paraprofessionals. 2. Coaching. Specially trained facilitators assist the teacher. This role may be fulfilled by a contractor, or a teacher who is freed from its class duties and is appointed as a coach helping several other teachers. 3. Small achievement groups. The lessons are given with groups of 5 to 10 students with the same level of performance. This provides possibility for more instruction, attention and feedback. The achievement groups are flexible, which allows transferring higher-performing students to the higher-performing groups. The class is divided in two parts. Meanwhile the teacher gives instruction to the first half, the paraprofessional is helping the second half to complete the task. Then they change places. 4. Unison responding offers an opportunity to generate high rates of responding by all students. In contract to individual answers, when the rest of the students fall out of the area of teacher’s attention and thus do not concentrate on the material studied, unison responding helps to avoid wasting of time that could be spent on acquiring the academics skills. Besides, when responding together students cannot imitate other students’ answers. The teacher is able to see which of the students does not know the material. 5. Special cues or signals (visual or auditory) are used by the teacher to ensure simultaneous responding from all students. 6. Rapid pacing allows the teacher to present more material during each instructional period and helps to maintain students’ attention to the task, encourage fluent performance and reduce behavior management problems. 7. Frequent Assessment is another trait providing permanent monitoring of the class, which reveals the students progress, helps to prevent student’s falling behind and indicates the students, who need re-grouping. 8. Correction procedures. Inevitable students’ errors provide the teacher with information about the difficulties students are having, telling whether students need additional training and indicating the particular type of corrections (all of them are also described in the teacher’s manual) (Binder, & Watkins 1990, p.85; J/P Associates 2006) References: Association of Direct Instruction (2001). Teachers’ Perception of Direct Instruction Teaching. ADIHome. Org. Direct Instruction News. (Spring) Retrieved October 7, 2007 from http://adihome.org/articles/DIN_01_01_06.pdf Binder, C. & Watkinson, C.L. (1990) Precision Teaching and Direct Instruction: Measurable superior instructional technologies at schools. Performance Improvement Quarterly, Vol. 3 (4), pp. 74-96. Retrieved October 7, 2007 from http://www.binder-riha.com/PT_DI.pdf. J/P Associates (2006). What is Direct Instruction (DI)? World Class Direct Instruction. Retrieved October 7, 2007 from www.jponline.com/why-whatisDI.html - 24k Lindsay, Jeff (2004). Direct Instruction: The Most Successful Teaching Model. Retrieved October 7, 2007 from www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml - 29k National Institute For Direct Instruction (2007). What is Direct Instruction (DI)? Retrieved October 7, 2007 from www.nifdi.org/ - 26k ProjectPro.Com. Direct Instruction Research Summary. Retrieved October 7, 2007 from www.projectpro.com/ICR/Research/DI/Summary.htm - 20k Read More