Post 2: Direct Instruction

I would say that I have an interesting relationship with direct instruction. Direct instruction consists of a teacher standing in front of the classroom lecturing to students about the content. Unlike inquiry-based learning, like my friend Noah discussed in his blog post, direct instruction is content-centered and requires teachers to take full control of the learning environment and decide what is learned and how it is learned. Thinking and discussing direct instruction is very  interesting to me as I find it to be the approach that was frequently used with me throughout my education journey as a student; however, in University education courses I have frequently been taught to move away from direct instruction. When I think about direct instruction versus inquiry-based or experiential learning, I often connect to the BC curriculum and the difference between teaching content and curricular competencies. On the one hand, the content you teach is valuable knowledge that has been deemed necessary for all citizens to know, yet on the other hand, curricular competencies outline skills specific to each subject matter that all citizens should acquire and be able to apply to their lives. Though both of these elements of the curriculum are important, as teachers, we are asked to assess our students based on the curricular competencies, which I agree with. I believe that teachers should lead with approaches like experiential and inquiry-based learning and support it with direct instruction. With that being said, though there is a time and place for direct instruction, I believe that for the most part teachers should try to move away  from direct instruction and move towards more student-centered approaches. 

In relation to my project and the Circle of Courage, I feel that direct instruction fails to meet all four of the values of Belonging, Mastery, Independence, and Generosity. By having the teacher stand and lecture to students, children have no time to connect with others, apply their learning, learning in ways specific to them or help the greater community. As I said though there are benefits to direct instruction, for example, in my lessons I always like to begin with addressing a learning objective so that students are clear on what is being taught; there is a time and place with this instructional approach and I find that it should always be  paired with other approaches (Hollingsworth & Ybarra, 2009).

Resources

Hollingsworth, J., & Ybarra, S. (2009). Explicit direct instruction (EDI) the power of the well-crafted, well-taught lesson. Corwin.