Act of Teaching

Chapter 8
Four More Instructional Alternatives: Cooperative Learning, Discovery Learning,
Constructivism, and Direct Instruction
Outline
Cooperative learning: Teaching learners to like and Care for One Another (260)
WHAT IS COOPERATIVE LEARNING? (260)
PURPOSE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING (260)
GOOD LEADERS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING (263)
GOOD COOPERATIVE LEARNING (ONLY STAD) (264)
WHEN COOPERATIVE LEARNING SHOULD BE USED (266)
LIMITATIONS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING (268)
Discovery Learning: Figuring Things Out for Yourself (269)
WHAT IS DISCOVERY LEARNING? (269)
PURPOSES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF DISCOVERY LEARNING (270)
GOOD FACILITATORS OF DISCOVERY LEARNING (271)
GOOD DISCOVERY LEARNING (272)
WHEN DISCOVERY LEARNING SHOULD BE USED (277)
LIMITATIONS OF DISCOVERY LEARNING (277)
Constructivist Teaching and learning: Problem Solving under Teacher Guidance
(278)
WHAT IS CONSTRUCTIVISM? (278)
PURPOSES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM (278)
GOOD CONSTRUCTIVIST TEACHING AND LEARNING (279)
GOOD FACILITATORS OF CONSTRUCTIVIST LEARNING (280)
WHEN CONSTRUCTIVISM SHOULD BE USED (281)
LIMITATIONS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM (281)
Direct Instruction: Teaching in the Most Efficient and Effective Way (282)
WHAT IS DIRECT INSTRUCTION? (282)
PURPOSE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF DIRECT INSTRUCTION (282)
EXAMPLES OF DIRECT INSTRUCTION PROGRAMS (283)
GOOD DIRECT INSTRUCTORS (287)
GOOD DIRECT INSTRUCTION (287)
WHEN DIRECT INSTRUCTION SHOULD BE USED (289)
Notes
Cooperative learning: Teaching learners to like and Care for One Another (260)
WHAT IS COOPERATIVE LEARNING? (260)
o Instructional procedures whereby learners work together in small
groups and are rewarded for their collective accomplishments.
(260)
o Each team has 4 until 6 members
o Team task collectively learn or master contents from teacher.
 PURPOSE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING (260)
o All for one, one for all! The Three Musketeers
o General key characteristics:
The way the groups or teams are made up
The kinds of tasks they do
The groups' rules of behavior
Their motivation and reward systems
o [TEAM] Teams must be mixed in terms of gender, academic ability,
race, and other traits.
Cooperative learning is based partly on the humanistic school
of thought about learning.
Each member will have an equal opportunity to learn, since
"talent" is about equally distributed to each group.
Students with lower abilities are more likely to improve their
achievement in mixed groups than in homogeneous groups.
o [TASK] Kinds of tasks teachers typically assign to the teams.
Each team to master material the teacher presented
previously
Ask teams to work on projects
o [RULES] Rules of behavior required of team members.
Individual responsibility and accountability to oneself and the
team
Support and encouragement of team members
Peer helping and tutoring
Cooperation.
o [REWARD] Rather than a mark based on personal effort, the
individual receives a mark based on the team's achievement.
o SOME VARIATIONS ON THE THEME OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING
Student Teams, Team-Assisted Jigsaw Cooperative
Teams, Games, Individualizati Integrated
Achievement Tournaments on and Team- Reading and
Divisions (TGT) Accelerated Composition
(STAD) Instruction (CIRC)
(TAI)
Proficiency
testing of
students,
team
assignment
Presentation Presentation Individual but Individuals Pairs work
of information of information team-assisted work, experts and teams
study plan and give work
presentations
Team scoring Team scoring Team scoring Team scoring Team scoring
recognition recognition recognition recognition recognition

GOOD LEADERS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING (263)

o Believe in the importance of getting learners to work together for
the individual and common good.
 o Are able to get diverse learners to work cooperatively.
o Are competent presenters and use independent study assignments
effectively.
o Are especially effective organizers and coordinators of work.
o Are especially effective diagnosticians and clinicians, i.e., are able
to identify and help students and teams having difficulty.
GOOD COOPERATIVE LEARNING (ONLY STAD) (264)
o Preparation
Prepare the presentation utilizing elements of a "good
presentation"
Prepare the team assignment
Prepare students for future engagement in cooperative
learning by explaining effective interpersonal and interactive
skills.
o Delivery
Set the team goals
Prepare students for teamwork
Give the teams the assignment
Monitor the teams
Quiz the students
Score the quizzes
Recognize team accomplishment
o Closure summary
Remind students of what they learned
Relate new learning to past or future learning
Provide opportunity for practical use of information
WHEN COOPERATIVE LEARNING SHOULD BE USED (266)
o Often but not always
o There is possibility of boredom
o There is possibility that it will not effective
o Cooperative learning is probably best utilized when the class needs
to develop a sense of harmony and community building, when
students are at risk or generally suffer from low selfesteem, and
when teachers want to help integrate mainstreamed students.
(267)
LIMITATIONS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING (268)
o The success of cooperative learning depends on:
Team members must not simply share answers but, more
importantly, explain how they derived the answers and why
they are correct.
Individual team members be accountable to the team.
Team members must stay on task, since time on task is
consistently related to students' learning.
o In any team, individuals must get along with one another.
o Teaching arrangements that encourage some children to provide
assistance and others to receive it appear likely to increase
dependency.
Discovery Learning: Figuring Things Out for Yourself (269)
WHAT IS DISCOVERY LEARNING? (269)
 o Discovery or inquiry learning refers to learning that takes place
when students are asked to find out or figure out something for
themselves (270)
PURPOSES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF DISCOVERY LEARNING (270)
o Educational purposes:
They want learners to know how to think and find things out
for themselves
Want learners to see for themselves how knowledge is
obtained
These teachers want learners to use their higher-order
thinking skills
o Characteristic:
The role of the teacher is not to impart knowledge but rather
to create classroom experiences in which learners engage in
order to discover knowledge.
Learners engage in inquiry, the teacher encourages them to
think deeply.
Learners accept the challenge of finding something out for
themselves rather than having the teacher give them an
answer.
Learners operate at high cognitive levels as the teacher asks
questions such as, What do you think? How can we find out?
How will we know?
GOOD FACILITATORS OF DISCOVERY LEARNING (271)
o To find its purposes:
Do you think a major goal of education is to get students to
think for themselves? Do you believe students have the
ability to think for themselves?
Find out how knowledge constructed Do you want them to
know how concepts, facts, generalizations, rules, and laws
are formulated?
Develop higher order thinking Do you want them to know
how to analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and solve problems?
Can you encourage them to explore, investigate, observe,
classify, measure, define, interpret, infer, predict, and
hypothesize?
o Certain qualities
o Believe in the purposes of discovery learning
o Tend to be inquirers (curious) themselves
o Are optimistic and confident in students' ability to inquire
o Hold high expectations of students
o Are nurturing
o Are thoughtful
o Are patient
o Accept students' ideas
o Are reflective
GOOD DISCOVERY LEARNING (272)
o When preparing:
Determine the general purpose of the lesson
 Determine the specific lesson objectives: identify the
concepts, facts, generalizations, rules, or laws to be
discovered
Collect useful resources and materials
Plan the discovery lesson
Ensure that learners are ready to use inductive methods
o When delivering:
Obtain students' attention via set induction
Present the challenging or baffling situation
Utilize questions that will promote discovery
Ensure that learners know what they are supposed to do
Monitor and guide student activity and thinking
Encourage observation, collection and organization,
manipulation, analysis of ideas and data, and so forth
o When closing:
Help learners to organize and phrase what they have
concluded: the concepts, facts, generalizations, and so forth
Provide opportunity to use the new knowledge
WHEN DISCOVERY LEARNING SHOULD BE USED (277)
o It should be employed when your instructional goals coincide with
its main purposes.
o Discovery learning should be used when it best serves the personal
and educational needs of you and your learners.
o It should be used only when you have developed the qualities of a
good facilitator and you know and can follow the regimen for good
discovery learning.
LIMITATIONS OF DISCOVERY LEARNING (277)
o Not everything students must learn is amenable to classroom
discovery. Students in most classrooms cannot be expected to
discover chemical elements, the themes of famous writers and
artists, or the way a computer works.
o Some teachers simply do not have the experience or aptitude for
this approach
o Discovery learning allows students to make errors. Unless these
errors are corrected, serious confusion can result.
Constructivist Teaching and learning: Problem Solving under Teacher Guidance
(278)
WHAT IS CONSTRUCTIVISM? (278)
o Constructivism is a way of teaching and learning that intends to
maximize student understanding. (278)
PURPOSES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM (278)
o Purpose To enable students to acquire information in ways that it
is most readily understood and usable.
o Characteristic:
Active learning (when students are directly involved in finding
something out for themselves) is preferable to passive
learning (when students are recipients of information
presented by a teacher).
 Learning takes place best in communities of learners, that is,
group or social situations.
Learners should engage in "authentic and situated" activities,
that is, the tasks they face should be real problems versus
hypothetical ones: concrete rather than abstract.
Learners should relate new information to that which they
already have (called bridging).
Learners should reflect or think about what is being learned.
Rather than present information to learners, teachers
facilitate its acquisition.
Teachers must provide learners with scaffolding assistance
needed for them to progress (see Chapter 4).
Students are expected to resolve what they thought they
knew with new information that may be contradictory.
GOOD CONSTRUCTIVIST TEACHING AND LEARNING (279)
o When preparing:
Determine the purpose of the lesson
Describe how the purpose will be attained
Decide how grouping will be used
Decide how to link new learning to old
Collect useful resource materials
Decide how reflection will occur
o When delivering:
Ensure groups are pursuing lesson goals and interacting
humanely with others
Ensure learners are together and contributing
o When closing:
Determine what learners now understand and the extent to
which the understanding is new or different in some way
GOOD FACILITATORS OF CONSTRUCTIVIST LEARNING (280)
o Believe in the purpose of constructivism
o Want learners to draw their own conclusions and form their own
opinions
o Have high respect for constructivist principles including active
learning, concrete learning, group learning, and reflection
o Are willing to help all students understand by intervening a n d
providing support or scaffolding as needed
WHEN CONSTRUCTIVISM SHOULD BE USED (281)
o Every possible approach ensure students to understand better
LIMITATIONS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM (281)
o It would be difficult for novices to learn how to do something if they
do not have the needed prior knowledge.
o It also might be questionable to engage kids in a constructivist
activity if they do not have the ability to work well with others, or
the teacher has difficulty handling commotion. teachers would
need to be able to monitor and guide often freeflowing activity and
to provide scaffolding or help momentarily.
Direct Instruction: Teaching in the Most Efficient and Effective Way (282)
WHAT IS DIRECT INSTRUCTION? (282)
 o Direct Instruction (DI) is a variation on the theme of teacher
presentations in that it is teacher-dominated and directed. (282)
o Derive exclusively from research on teaching and/ or learning.
PURPOSE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF DIRECT INSTRUCTION (282)
o Purpose To directly cause students to learn academic content or
skills
o Characteristic:
Teacher provides strong direction
Orientation is very academic
Concern is for ach ievement; high expectation that students
can/will learn
Student accountability, cooperationdemanded
Students made to feel psychologically safe
Student behavior is controlled
EXAMPLES OF DIRECT INSTRUCTION PROGRAMS (283)
o Active teaching
Opening reviewing the concepts or skills recently taught,
and collecting homework
Development ensure that students have the knowledge
needed to understand the new information to be presented;
using numerous lively illustrations and explanations; make
skillful use of questioning, examples, and problems; they
repeat and elaborate as necessary.
Independent work uninterrupted practice, effective
teachers are careful to keep everyone involved and on task.
Homework Continued review
o Mastery teaching program
Objectives, i.e., what students should know and be able to do
Standards, or level of performance, expected of learners
Anticipatory set, or the "hook" that will be used to grab
learner attention
Teaching ("input," or what the teacher will do to facilitate
learning; "modeling" of what will be the acceptable student
end product, and "checking for understanding")
Guided practice and monitoring to find out if learning is
taking place at the mastery-standards level
Closure to help students realize what they have mastered
and how it may be applied
Independent practice or repetition of what has been learned
to overcome forgetting (Hunter 1 995, 2004) .
The Direct Instructional System for Teaching and Learning
(DISTAR)
GOOD DIRECT INSTRUCTORS (287)
o Enthusiastic
o Warm, accepting
o Humorous
o Supportive
o Encouraging
o Businesslike
o Adaptable-flexible
 o Knowledgeable
o Holders of high expectations for student success
GOOD DIRECT INSTRUCTION (287)
o When preparing:
Research on effective teaching hardly addresses what
teachers do to prepare. We might assume they do the same
things they would do when preparing a good presentation.
o When delivering:
Collect, review homework
Review earlier, related information
Communicate to learners what they are to know and be able
to do
Present an overview or orientation of how the lesson will be
conducted
Present information/skill to be learned
Proceed in small steps
Maintain a quick pace
Use many illustrations, examples
Encourage involvement of all stud ents
Ask many qu estions to check for understanding
Repeat and elaborate on major points to notice, remember
Provide teacher-guided whole-class practice
Provide feedback and reteach to eliminate misunderstandings
Ensure that students can practice with at least 80 percent
accuracy
Provide independent practice
Let students know the work will be examined
Monitor the work to keep students involved and to eliminate
errors
Continue practice until learners are confident and their
responses are both rapid and accurate
o When closing:
Assign short, regular, related homework
Establish when this information or skill will next be reviewed
WHEN DIRECT INSTRUCTION SHOULD BE USED (289)
o When the hoped-for result is to improve achievement in basic skills
as measured by tests
o Use direct instruction when the content to be learned is well
structured, clear, and unambiguous.
o Most useful during the first stages of learning unfamiliar material