Direct instruction is a general term for the explicit teaching of a skill-set using lectures or demonstrations of the material, rather than exploratory models such as inquiry-based learning.
I can see how this would be useful in certain areas like learning the names of numbers, where obviously there is not benefit to innovation. However I would be very cautious about applying it to wider areas, as much of what school systems are meant to teach is methods of researching and acquiring beliefs, not mere memorisation. Doesn’t this just make it easier to memorise the teachers password?
I would be especially cautious of trying to teach rationality this way.
[This is based on my admittedly limited understanding of the subject, so if there are details I have missed that tackle these concerns please explain.]
Seems our conversation’s getting a bit chopped up. Continuing from this (and forgetting the mixed up di/DI confusion from wikipedia)...
I’m going to quote “Theory of Instruction”:
“If the goal of instruction is to teach the learner to discover a particular relationship, actual practice in discovery is imperative. Such practice can be provided through a cognitive routine, however. The routine is demonstrated with some examples. The learner then applies the routine to other examples. By encouraging the learner to make up problems that may be solved by the routine and then testing them to see if the routine works, we provide the learner with a framework for discovery.” (pp 191-192)
Cognitive strategies are not mysteriously complete wholes. They reduce to generalizations and cross-fertilizations in pools of good cognitive routines, and cognitive routines are made up of moving parts themselves.
These moving parts are joining form concepts—transformation and correlated-feature relationships—which boil down to basic form discriminations of single-dimensional comparatives/non-comparatives and ‘nouns’ (multi-dimensional non-comparatives).
All the concepts represented by your brain on the idea of ‘reductionism’ must themselves by reducible somehow.
This making any sense? Some of the terminology related to the hierarchies in the knowledge system analysis might be slightly opaque...
From the wikipedia article:
I can see how this would be useful in certain areas like learning the names of numbers, where obviously there is not benefit to innovation. However I would be very cautious about applying it to wider areas, as much of what school systems are meant to teach is methods of researching and acquiring beliefs, not mere memorisation. Doesn’t this just make it easier to memorise the teachers password?
I would be especially cautious of trying to teach rationality this way.
[This is based on my admittedly limited understanding of the subject, so if there are details I have missed that tackle these concerns please explain.]
Seems our conversation’s getting a bit chopped up. Continuing from this (and forgetting the mixed up di/DI confusion from wikipedia)...
I’m going to quote “Theory of Instruction”:
“If the goal of instruction is to teach the learner to discover a particular relationship, actual practice in discovery is imperative. Such practice can be provided through a cognitive routine, however. The routine is demonstrated with some examples. The learner then applies the routine to other examples. By encouraging the learner to make up problems that may be solved by the routine and then testing them to see if the routine works, we provide the learner with a framework for discovery.” (pp 191-192)
Cognitive strategies are not mysteriously complete wholes. They reduce to generalizations and cross-fertilizations in pools of good cognitive routines, and cognitive routines are made up of moving parts themselves.
These moving parts are joining form concepts—transformation and correlated-feature relationships—which boil down to basic form discriminations of single-dimensional comparatives/non-comparatives and ‘nouns’ (multi-dimensional non-comparatives).
All the concepts represented by your brain on the idea of ‘reductionism’ must themselves by reducible somehow.
This making any sense? Some of the terminology related to the hierarchies in the knowledge system analysis might be slightly opaque...