Hello again, it’s Timothy
Hunnicutt. We have just completed the
lessons for Week 5 in our class. Let’s
talk about the weekly readings and discussion for my EDAT 6115 class. The reading and discussions came from Chapter
7 from Robert E. Slavin’s (2012) book, Educational
Psychology (10th edition). The
weekly readings focus on effective teaching as it pertains to direct
instruction, how students learn, and the use of discussion in class.
Chapter 7 begins with introducing
direct instruction and giving its definition.
Slavin (2012) talks about direct instruction as “lessons in which you
transmit information directly to students, structuring class time to reach a
clearly defined set of objectives as efficiently as possible” (p. 185). Furthermore, there are seven parts of a
direct instruction lesson: “state learning objectives and orient students to
the lesson, review prerequisites, present new material, conduct learning
probes, provide independent practice, assess performance and provide feedback,
and provide distributed practice and review” (Slavin, 2012, p. 185).
As a teacher, I feel like I perform
most of these parts when I conduct a direct instruction lesson. I always verbally express to the students
what we will be learning, and I post the daily plans on the board. I agree with Slavin’s (2012) ideas that it is
important for students to start a lesson with knowledge of what they are going
to learn for the day. Furthermore, I try
to provide an interesting anecdote or provide relevance of the lesson to the
students’ lives. Secondly, I make sure
to give the students information that provides them with the skills that they
will use to complete the lesson. When
implementing the lesson, I am sure to follow planning and notify the students
of moments when changing topics, just as Slavin (2012) suggests. I also try to include humor into my lessons
so that the students stay entertained and remain attentive. My direct instruction lessons include a
couple of Slavin’s (2012) suggestions to check students for understanding. I try to include formative assessments
throughout my lessons. These can take
the form of verbally questioning students or asking the students to perform
small tasks that prove comprehension. After ensuring that all students
understand the content, independent practice, a part of Slavin’s (2012) idea of
direct instruction, is included with almost all of my lessons. I find that independent practice is one of
the most important objectives that I want my students meet. Many students can seem to understand content
in the context of classroom discussion or formative assessments. However, I find that independent practice is
a key to proving mastery of the content.
Also, I agree with Slavin (2012) that independent practice assignments
need to be assessed so that students take the assignments seriously and
provides feedback. Often, we will grade
these assignments as a class or with partners.
Finally, I agree with text’s premise that it is crucial for teachers to
provide practice and review of assignments (Slavin, 2012). On most occasions, I will begin a class by
having students review previously learned lessons from the unit. This may take the form of practice
assignments or a discussion review.
However, despite Slavin’s (2012) recommendation, I do not include
homework into many of my lessons. In my
school, each subject, except for math, is discouraged from giving homework on a
regular basis. I believe that this idea
is based on the fact that many of our students come from low-income
families. However, I often wish that I
was allowed to assign more homework so that students could receive more
practice. As Slavin (2012) points out, direct
instruction allows the teacher to have command over the classroom and guide
students’ learning. Research seems to
show that direct instruction is constructive to student learning, but the research
on effects is inconclusive (Slavin, 2012).
The next part of the chapter deals
with student learning and teaching concepts.
“A concept is an abstract idea that is generalized from specific
examples” (Slavin, 2012, p. 203). The
chapter discusses the means of how teachers should deliver content so that
students are able to transfer concepts to different contexts (Slavin,
2012). Slavin suggests that “students
learn concepts through observation and definition” (Slavin, 2012, p. 214). Teachers have several different ways that
they need to teach concepts so that students can successfully transfer them to
meaningful situations. A teacher must
clearly define and teach a new concept, using explicit examples to help the
students (Slavin, 2012). Then,
instructors must allow students to apply the knowledge of the concept to
examples that are not recognizable (Slavin, 2012). This will allow students to be able to
transfer concepts to a variety of situations, which is one of the main purposes
of school (Slavin, 2012). I found this
section of the chapter very useful for teachers. Later in this blog, I am going to talk more
extensively about my thoughts on teaching students to transfer concepts to
different contexts.
The last part of the chapter deals with
discussion in the classroom (Slavin, 2012).
This idea was also a focal point of our weekly discussion. The class was expected to discuss the
differences in instructional preparation and participation that takes place in
whole-group lectures and small-group discussions. Slavin (2012) discusses how whole-group
discussion allows the teacher to take less control of the classroom. In small-group discussions, the teacher plans
the focus of the discussion and should choose a leader to guide each group
(Slavin, 2012). All forms of discussion
require an appropriate amount of knowledge to be obtained by students before
the activity begins (Slavin, 2012). Most
of my peers discussed how much preparation time is spent with small-group
discussions. I agreed with my peers in
the premise that successful planning is an important aspect of successful
small-group discussions. Also, the
majority of the class agreed that small-group discussion was an ideal method of
teaching students to develop their own ideas.
Furthermore, most classmates spoke of the lack of teacher participation
that is necessary for successful small-group discussions. As for whole-group lectures, I disagreed with
the premise of many of my classmates. I
noticed in discussion that many of my peers discussed whole-group discussions
rather than whole-group lectures. Many
discussion posts spoke of the lack of instructor participation that is required
with whole-group discussions. While this
premise is true, I did not think that was the idea that was posed in the discussion
prompt. In my view, the class was
supposed to compare whole-group lectures to small group discussions. Unlike whole-group discussions, whole-group
lectures require a large amount of teacher participation and possibly less
student participation. In this manner,
whole-group lectures and small-group discussions are vastly different. I may have been wrong in my assumptions about
the class discussions, but I found the confusion between whole-group discussions
and whole-group lectures interesting.
The concept of direct instruction
meant a great deal to me. I feel as if
direct instruction has been criticized more often the last few years. The idea of direct instruction is that the teacher
has control of the lesson and must have a clearly organized lesson that
contains the effective use of example (Slavin, 2012). This means that difficult material or new
concepts are best left in the hands of the teacher. Initially, it may be beneficial for students
to have direct instruction for new concepts so that they can receive clear
definitions and examples of how to apply the material. After properly learning new concepts under
direct instruction, the instructor can move to more indirect methods of
instruction.
I completely agree with the idea of
direct instruction being a valuable method of teaching students. Having a background in the social sciences, I
found direct instruction to be a valuable method of learning. Although I know that the solely using direct
instruction can have negative consequences, I believe it still possesses
valuable methods for the classroom. In fact,
I feel that teachers are trusted to be masters of our content, so we are the
best resources to use when teaching new concepts. I have seen a few teachers who wanted to keep
students entertained, so there were minimal amounts of direct instruction. More
often than not, I did not see positive student outcomes when direct instruction
was completely absent. Though I believe
that direct instruction should not be the solitary method of instruction, it
serves as a valuable tool in instructing students.
The concept of this lesson that I
will use in my classroom is the idea of properly teaching students to transfer
learning concepts to real-life situations.
I believe that Slavin (2012) is correct in his assumption that learning
may be useless unless students are able to apply knowledge and skills to other
contexts and situations. I need to use a
more varied approach to providing examples and practices of learning that can
be applied to different contexts. A possible
method of completing this task is having students read a phone bill in order to
study informational texts. I could also
have students practice writing cover letters for job resumes. This activity could help supplement lessons
about informational and persuasive writing.
The idea of teaching students to transfer learning concepts is a
valuable instructional tool that I plan to use more in my classroom.
The section of the chapter that
deals with how direct instruction should be taught was very reinforcing for me
as a teacher. As mentioned earlier, I
already use the steps that Slavin (2012) mentions for conducting and effective
direct instruction lesson. I was happy
to see that my instructional methods are on par with the approved pedagogical
techniques. I am a firm believer in
clearly stating what students will learn and the required skills that needed. While delivering instruction, I am sure to
check that students are properly comprehended the material. Furthermore, I strongly encourage and accept
independent practice as the best way of allowing children to learn new
concepts. After completing independent practice, my students receive assessments
and immediate feedback. Finally, each
lesson contains review to further emphasize the learned concepts. Seeing that my methods of instruction are
accepted and recommended practices confirmed my instructional ideologies. I was quite happy to read this section, and
it was reaffirming for me as an educator.
I enjoyed this week’s readings and
instruction. As I mentioned earlier, I
am quite upset that direct instruction has taken such a bad rap with some
teachers. I firmly believe that direct
instruction is invaluable if conducted by competent, organized, and
enthusiastic teachers. If more teachers
were able to read Slavin’s (2012) ideas about direct instruction, this
educational practice would receive more positive reaction from the educational
community.
Slavin, R.E. (2012). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (10th ed.). Boston, MA:
Pearson Education
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