1. Anatomy of Direct Instruction EDTE 408 Principles of Teaching

2. Board Work  Begin writing the focus section for your first “DECLARATIVE KNOWLEDGE” Lesson Plan  Share with your diagonal partner

3. The Research Base: Direct Instruction (Weinert and Helmke, 1995)  The teacher’s classroom management is especially effective and the rate of student interruptive behaviors is very low  The teacher maintains a strong academic focus and uses available instructional time intensively to initiate and facilitate students’ learning activities  The teacher ensures that as many students as possible achieve good learning progress by carefully choosing appropriate tasks, clearly presenting subject- matter information and solution strategies, continuously diagnosing each student’s learning progress and learning difficulties, and providing effective help through remedial instruction

4. The Research Base: Direct Instruction (Weinert and Helmke, 1995)  Instruction in which the teacher actively presents information to students and supports individual learning processes is more effective than instruction in which the teacher’s only role is to provide those external conditions that make individual or social learning success possible.

5. The Research Base: Observational Learning (Bandura, 1986, 1993)  People acquire new attitudes, skills and behaviors by watching and imitating the actions of others.  Teachers take advantage of observational learning when they model positive attitudes such as tolerance and respect for other people  Teachers use modeling to demonstrate complex skills such as writing and solving algebraic equations  Teacher modeling is one of the most powerful vehicles available for teaching these kinds of attitudes and skills

6. Teaching Skills: Goals  Understanding  Automaticity  Transfer

7. Teaching Skills: Understanding  To get students to not only know how to perform skills, but also to understand the logic behind them.

8. Teaching Skills: Automaticity  Students can perform skills effortless, even unconsciously  When skills can be used with little mental effort  Learning to drive a car is an example

9. Teaching Skills: Transfer  Transfer occurs when something learned at one time is applied later in another setting  Example: Writing skills learned in English transferred to writing assignments in science

10. Planning for Skills Instruction  Specify terminal behavior (Outcomes)  Identify prerequisite skills  Sequence subskills  Diagnose students

11. Teaching Skills: Traditional Approach  Teacher First Explains  Teacher Models the Skill  Teacher Guides Students Through the Initial Practice  Teacher Provides for Independent Practice

12. Teaching Skills: Traditional Approach  This transition from teacher control to student autonomy involves a gradual release of responsibility  Initially teacher is responsible for identifying the skill, explaining its functions, and modeling its uses  During instruction students become more knowledgeable and more autonomous  If successful students no longer need the teacher; they can perform the skill on their own

13. Teaching Skills: Warning to the Traditional Approach COGNITIVE OVERLOAD

14. Scaffolding: Providing Instructional Support  Teachers need to adjust their teaching accordingly to where students are in or to build on student strengths and accommodate student weaknesses  This is the support teachers provide that helps learners develop the skill  In providing support, the teacher metaphorically becomes a scaffold for the learner

15. Implications for Skills Instruction  The teacher must provide a learning environment that is safe but challenging  When success rates are too low, the scaffolding is insufficient  As success rates approach 80 to 90 percent, the instruction is both challenging and supportive  As students move higher, the need for scaffolding disappears  The teacher can move on, knowing the skill is essentially automatic and can transfer or be applied in diverse situations

16. A Skills Model for Effective Direct Instruction  This Model: –Exploits the three modalities of learning (auditory, visual, physical) –Teaches in small bits of time to guard against Cognitive Overload –Series of Cycles one step at a time  Called Say-See-Do –Found in Section 3 of Tools for Teaching –Will be trained later in the Teacher Preparation Program