Apt 102 Skill 1.4

Front 1

Direct Instruction

Back 1

Siegfried Engelmann and Dr. Wesley Becker, and several other researchers proposed the direct instruction method. DI is a teaching method that emphasized well-developed and carefully-planned lessons with small learning increments. DI assumes that the use of clear instruction eliminates misinterpretatons will tehrefore improve outcomes. Their approach is being used by thousands of schools. It recommens thatthe popular valuing of teacher creativity and autonomy be replaced by a willingness to follow certain carefully prescribed instructional practices. It encourages the retention of hard work, dedication, and commitments to sudents. It demands that teachers adopt and internalize the belief that all students, if properly taught, can and will learn.

Front 2

Discovery Learning

Back 2

Beginning at birth, discovery learning is a normal part of the growing-up experience. This naturally occurring phenomenon can be used to improve the outcomes within classrooms. Discovery learning, in the classroom is based upon inquiry, and it has been a factor in many of the advances mankind has made through the years. Dewey wrote, "There is an intimate and necessary relation between the processes of actual experiences and education. Piaget, Bruner, and Papert have all recommended this teaching method as well. Students solve problems by using their own experiences and prior knowledge to determine what truths can be learned. Bruner wrote "Emphasis on discovery in learning has precisely the effect on the learner of leading him to a constructioist, to organize what he is encountering in a manner not only designed to discover regularity and relatedness, but also to avoid the kind of information drift that fails to keep account of the uses to which information might have to be put."

Front 3

Whole Group Discussion

Back 3

It can be used ina variety of settings, but the most common is in the discussion of an assignment. Since learning is peer-based with this strategy, students gain a different perspective on the topic, as well as learn to respect the ideas of others. One obstacle that can occur with this teaching method is that the same students tend to participate time after time. With proper teacher guidance, whole group discussions are highly valuable.

Front 4

Case Method Learning

Back 4

Providing an opportunity for students to apply what they learn in the classroom to real-life experiences has poven to be an effective way of both disseminating and integrating knowledge. The case method is an instructional strategy that engages students in active discussion about issues and the problems inherent in practical application. It can highlight fundamental dilemmas or critical issues and provide a format for role playing ambiguous or controversial scenarios. Instructors should communicate this commitment to the sudents on teh first day of class by clearly articulating course expectations. Just as the instructor carefully plans the learning experience, the students must comprehend the assigned reading and show up for class on time ready to learn.

Front 5

Concept Mapping

Back 5

Concept mapping is a common tool used by teachers in various disciplines. There are many different kinds of maps which have been developed. They are useful devices, but each teacher must determine which is appropriate for use in his/her own classroom.

Front 6

Inquiry

Back 6

All learning begins with the learner. What children know and what they want to learn are not justconstraints on what can be taught; they are the very foundation for learning. Dewey's descriptions of the four primry interests of teh child are still appropriate starting points.
1. The child's instinctive desire to find things out
2. In conversation, the propensity children have to communicate
3. In construction, their delight in making things
4. In their gifts of artistic expression.

Front 7

Questioning

Back 7

The most imporant factor for the teacher to remember is that questioning must be deliberative and carefully planned. This is an important tool for leading students into critical thinking. Bloom's Taxonomy provides a hierarchy for increasing the critical thinking levels of questions posed.

Front 8

Play

Back 8

There are so many useful games available that the most difficult task is coosing which will fit with lessons. The entire classroom can be used to provide a useful learning experience.

Front 9

Learning Centers

Back 9

In a flexible classroom where students have time when they can choose which activity they will complete, learning centers are extremely important. They take out-of-class time for creating them, collecting the items that will make them up, and then stting up the center. In some classes, the students might participate in creating a learning center.

Front 10

Small Group Work

Back 10

Small group work is vital in a diverse classroom. Children can be grouped according to their level of development or the small grups themselves can be diverse, giving the students who are struggling an opportunity to learn from a student who is already proficient. The better prepared student will learn from becoming a source for teh weaker student, and the weake student may be more likely to accept help from another student sometimes than from the teacher.

Front 11

Revisiting

Back 11

Revisiting should occur during a unit, at teh end of a unit, and at the end of a semester. Giving students more than one opportunity to grasp principles and skills and to integrate them is practical teaching theory.

Front 12

Reflection

Back 12

Teaching can move along so rapidly sometimes that students fail to incorporate what they've learned and to hink about it in terms of what they bring to the topic in the firs place. Providing time for reflection and guiding students in developing tools for it is a wise teaching method.

Front 13

Projects

Back 13

Seeing a uinit as a project is also very useful. It opens the door naturally to a multi-task approach to learning. Not only will the students learn about birds, they will ahve an opportunity to observe them, they can try their hands at drawing them, and they can learn to differentiate one frm the other. It's easy to see how a lifetime interest in bird watching can take root in such a project, which is more effective than in simply reading about the topic and talking about it.