[IAEP] versus, not

[Caroline Meeks]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Kathy Pusztavari
<kathy at kathyandcalvin.com>wrote:

>  Bill, there is a difference between direct instruction and Direct
> Instruction.  The latter (big D big I) is usually based on SRA's products
> and outlined in the Direct Instruction Rubric.  Direct instruction (little d
> little i) is usually a general set of guidelines teachers use to directly
> instruction - to be a sage on the stage, to teach directly, to teach first
> then...
>
> I am only frustrated by SRA themselves.  The products are great and would
> be extremely useful in teaching but they have a copyright stranglehold.  If
> only I was an attorney and knew how to legally get around that....  Or if I
> could find the millions (billions?) to buy it for public domain use.  I'm
> telling you, people would have a fountain of curriculum they could use,
> morph, etc.
>

Kathy, I know SRA is calling this Direct Instruction, but I wonder if we
should be.  When I think of direct instruction, I think of the teacher
standing in front of the class explaining, which by the way, I think is
sometimes appropriate.  However, when I read SRA;s materials, and certainly
my memory of using SRA, involve a lot of time on structured tasks and
relatively little time with the teacher directly instructing.  Your
experience is way more recent, what do you find?

I actually remember SRA fondly from my own 2nd grade experience. We had
boxes of SRA material, all leveled and you worked through the levels at your
own pace.  Because of the way they step up the difficulty and the fact I
could set my own pace I think I had good "flow" experiences with the
program.  I think it was a good match for my learning style.

I was reminded of that experience when I tried out a cognative tutor program
in one of my classes.  Cognative tutors are programs that take kids through
lots of problems, measuring mastery and giving hints as requested.   This is
a comercial product example of this sort of program:
http://www.carnegielearning.com/

I agree with the big tent. We need to teach lots of different people, with
lots of different learning styles, lots of different things.

I think well thought out programs that step you through learning with early
and often error correction can be effective.

Right now the level of skilled and unified effort to create this sort of
content and out economic structures have resulted in this type of content,
both on paper and in terms of computer programs, being proprietary.   I
don't think that means we should dismiss this for Sugar in the longer term.

1. We could support proprietry content at some point.
2. Martin pointed out to me that a number of countries have noticed that in
the end the government ends up paying for all the content one way or another
and they are exploring paying directly for writing the content and free
licences.
3. Improved authoring tools and other automation tools might reduce the
level of effort required to create this content.

-Caroline



>
> -Kathy
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org [mailto:
> iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org] *On Behalf Of *Bill Kerr
> *Sent:* Monday, May 04, 2009 9:47 PM
> *To:* Kathy Pusztavari
> *Cc:* iaep
> *Subject:* Re: [IAEP] versus, not
>
> Kathy,
>
> I haven't read the books you cite but I do as a teacher frequently use
> direct instruction.  That was strongly implied in my initial post.
> Nevertheless, I'm sure I could do it better. When I read your response my
> first thought was that you had not read my post carefully.
>
> btw this discussion does mirror an earlier one b/w Patrick Suppes and
> Seymour Papert - well covered in Papert's 'The Childrens Machine' and
> Cynthia Solomon's 'Computer Environments for Children'
>
> Both Suppes and Papert argued that computers could improve education but in
> different ways. Cynthia Solomon found that there was a greater need for
> direct instruction approaches in disadvantaged areas. But that did not make
> her a DI only advocate. My own experience in teaching in disadvantaged
> schools for the past dozen years is consistent with that.
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:13 AM, Kathy Pusztavari <
> kathy at kathyandcalvin.com> wrote:
>
>>  "eg. I would see direct instruction as a must for autistic children but
>> don't see that it follows as a general model for all education "
>>
>> The problem is that at least 20% of our kids in the US qualify as either
>> special ed or learning disabled in some form.  So you would be leaving out
>> about 20% of the population (especially when teaching reading and math).
>>
>> Math can be improved greatly through Direct Instruction.  If you have not
>> taught Connecting Math Concepts and other non-DI curriculum, I would like to
>> know why you would say such a thing.  DI would make most, if not all kids
>> LIKE math at the early levels (Kindergarten - 8th grade).  It makes them
>> succeed because it is mastery based.  If you want to see brilliant
>> curriculum development, you should look at SRA DISTAR I & II, Connecting
>> Math Concepts (A-F) and Essentials for Algebra.
>>
>> -Kathy
>>
>>  ------------------------------
>> *From:* iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org [mailto:
>> iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org] *On Behalf Of *Bill Kerr
>> *Sent:* Monday, May 04, 2009 5:21 PM
>> *To:* Walter Bender
>> *Cc:* iaep; Sugar-dev Devel; community-news at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> *Subject:* [IAEP] versus, not
>>
>>   On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:43 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> ===Sugar Digest===
>>>
>>> I encourage you to join two threads on the Education List this week:
>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005382.html, which
>>> has boiled down to an instruction vs construction debate; and
>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005342.html, which
>>> has boiled down to a debate of catering to local culture vs the
>>> Enlightenment. I encourage you to join these discussions.
>>
>>
>> Agree that these are important discussions
>>
>> Need to be careful about the use of the versus depiction of these
>> discussions IMO, this tempting shorthand can create the wrong impression
>>
>> eg. I would see direct instruction as a must for autistic children but
>> don't see that it follows as a general model for all education (special
>> needs are special) or that we should even think it is possible to have a
>> correct general model. I don't think there is one and good teachers swap
>> between multiple models all the time.
>>
>> no one on this list has argued overtly against  "the enlightenment" or
>> that local culture ought not to be taken into account, eg. Ties said "think
>> practical", the response was of the nature that our context demands we do <a
>> certain course of action>
>>
>> however, I do think the roll back of enlightenment principles is not well
>> understood (http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/nonUniversals) and that
>> a  better understanding might persuade more people of the need to keep
>> searching and struggling for different ways to go against some of  the tide
>> of local culture - there is a recent interesting comment thread on mark
>> guzdial's blog which is worth reading from this point of view
>> http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3F4TMBURELZZK
>>
>>
>
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-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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