When is direct instruction appropriate

Search for:. For example: Establishing learning objectives for lessons, activities, and projects, and then making sure that students have understood the goals. Purposefully organizing and sequencing a series of lessons, projects, and assignments that move students toward stronger understanding and the achievement of specific academic goals.

Reviewing instructions for an activity or modeling a process—such as a scientific experiment—so that students know what they are expected to do. Providing students with clear explanations, descriptions, and illustrations of the knowledge and skills being taught. Asking questions to make sure that students have understood what has been taught. Debate In recent decades, the concept of direct instruction has taken on negative associations among some educators. Return to Table of Contents.

In addition, the basic techniques of direct instruction not only extend beyond lecturing, presenting, or demonstrating, but many are considered to be foundational to effective teaching. For example:. In recent decades, the concept of direct instruction has taken on negative associations among some educators. Because direct instruction is often associated with traditional lecture-style teaching to classrooms full of passive students obediently sitting in desks and taking notes, it may be considered outdated, pedantic, or insufficiently considerate of student learning needs by some educators and reformers.

For example, all teachers, by necessity, use some form of direct instruction in their teaching—i. Negative perceptions of the practice tend to arise when teachers rely too heavily upon direct instruction, or when they fail to use alternative techniques that may be better suited to the lesson at hand or that may improve student interest, engagement, and comprehension. While a sustained forty-five-minute lecture may not be considered an effective teaching strategy by many educators, the alternative strategies they may advocate—such as personalized learning or project-based learning , to name just two options—will almost certainly require some level of direct instruction by teachers.

In other words, teachers rarely use either direct instruction or some other teaching approach— in actual practice, diverse strategies are frequently blended together. The next section of the chapter is adapted from:McLeskey, J.

High-leverage practices in special education. Public domain. Teachers make content, skills, and concepts explicit by showing and telling students what to do or think while solving problems, enacting strategies, completing tasks, and classifying concepts. Teachers use explicit instruction when students are learning new material and complex concepts and skills.

They strategically choose examples and non-examples and language to facilitate student understanding, anticipate common misconceptions, highlight essential content, and remove distracting information. They model and scaffold steps or processes needed to understand content and concepts, apply skills, and complete tasks successfully and independently.

In summary, explicit instruction is effective for most students, not only those with disabilities. This approach can be used across grade levels and content areas. Although explicit instruction can be provided by any teacher, the unique setting and needs of students being taught determines the level of intensity with which the teacher uses this practice.

The difference in intensity is not merely the number of students in each class, but that instruction should be appropriately intense, matched to the unique needs of students.

A trained special educator or similar specialist is responsible for ensuring data that is carefully collected and monitored drives instructional decision-making. This ensures the explicit instruction being delivered is appropriately intense, and the team is ready to make changes as needed. This next section contains excerpts from National Center on Intensive Intervention. Principles for designing intervention in mathematics.

Department of Education and is in the pubic domain. If you notice a student is still struggling with the content, you can set up a personalized planner with more guidance if necessary.

New vocabulary is something that needs to be automatized. A student needs to know this without thinking too much. Translations and meanings need to pop-up at the moment. Flashcards are the perfect fit for automatizing this learning content. As a teacher, you can add text, images, and audio. The more connections you make between those content styles, the better all students will understand, because combining images with text is one of the most effective learning techniques.

If your learning material allows multiple choice questions, Kahoot is a fun and quick way to measure understanding. Ask your students questions about the lesson material and immediately see how many students understood the lesson. Kahoot will show you instant statistics about what your students answered and if they were right or wrong. These statistics can give you an insight into whether you need to reteach certain parts of your lesson or not.

Ask your students to create a mind map about a topic you just taught them. If more students show the same gaps in their knowledge, you know what to reteach. You can use a rubric to evaluate a mind map. If you want your students to answer more in-depth questions, you should create a fun quiz about the learning content. As you can see above number 10 , quizzes have more possibilities. Some teachers will realize that they actually were already using the direct instruction teaching method all this time.

Others will consider this method as an opportunity to teach more effectively, as they know now direct instruction is not just a boring teaching strategy. Looking for more interactive teaching strategies?

Check out this post with 20 interactive teaching activities. Create An Interactive Widget. BookWidgets enables teachers to create fun and interactive lessons for tablets, smartphones, and computers. Toggle navigation. BookWidgets Teacher Blog. Direct instruction - A practical guide to effective teaching by Lucie Renard — Mar 28, What is direct instruction? Teaching what materials are magnetic is better learned through experimentation.

The direct instruction method is based on two core principles: All students can learn when taught correctly, regardless of history and background. All teachers can be successful, given effective materials and presentation techniques. Present the new material Use clear and guided instructions, so students can begin absorbing the new material.

Lecture method There are a few essential steps for a lecture to be successful: State the main points of the lecture. Introduce a main organizing idea or theme. Use examples to illustrate each idea.

Use repetition to reinforce the main points. Summarize and refer back to the main organizing idea. Demonstration Here, the teacher demonstrates the skill or principle in small steps. Guided practice Here, the teacher and students practice the concept together. Student answer Teacher action Correct, quick, and firm Ask a new question to keep up the pace of the lesson.

Correct, but hesitant Provide encouragement. Incorrect, but careless Simply correct and move on. Incorrect and lacking knowledge Provide hints, ask a simpler question, or reteach. Independent practice After guided practice and receiving the right feedback, students are ready to apply the new learning material on their own.

Entry ticket Use an exit ticket as an entry ticket. Mentimeter Use tools such as Mentimenter to quickly see what students still know about the previous lesson, or see what they already know about a certain topic. Present the new material 4. Storytelling New material can be presented in several ways.

Photo widgets Use compelling and interactive widgets to illustrate the new material. Guided practice 7.