Kathy,<br><br>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.<br>
<br>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' <br>
<br>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.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:13 AM, Kathy Pusztavari <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kathy@kathyandcalvin.com">kathy@kathyandcalvin.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div class="im">
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Arial"><span>"<font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman">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
"</font></span></font></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span></span></font> </div>
</div><div dir="ltr" align="left"><font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Arial"><span>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).</span></font></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Arial"><span></span></font> </div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Arial"><span>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. </span></font></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Arial"><span></span></font> </div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Arial"><span>-Kathy</span></font></div><br>
<div dir="ltr" align="left" lang="en-us">
<hr>
<font size="2" face="Tahoma"><b>From:</b> <a href="mailto:iaep-bounces@lists.sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">iaep-bounces@lists.sugarlabs.org</a>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:iaep-bounces@lists.sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">iaep-bounces@lists.sugarlabs.org</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Bill
Kerr<br><b>Sent:</b> Monday, May 04, 2009 5:21 PM<br><b>To:</b> Walter
Bender<br><b>Cc:</b> iaep; Sugar-dev Devel;
<a href="mailto:community-news@lists.sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">community-news@lists.sugarlabs.org</a><br><b>Subject:</b> [IAEP] versus,
not<br></font><br></div><div><div></div><div class="h5">
<div></div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:43 AM, Walter Bender <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:walter.bender@gmail.com" target="_blank">walter.bender@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">===Sugar
Digest===<br><br>I encourage you to join two threads on the Education List
this week:<br><a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005382.html" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005382.html</a>,
which<br>has boiled down to an instruction vs construction debate; and<br><a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005342.html" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005342.html</a>,
which<br>has boiled down to a debate of catering to local culture vs
the<br>Enlightenment. I encourage you to join these discussions.</blockquote>
<div><br></div></div>Agree that these are important discussions <br><br>Need to
be careful about the use of the versus depiction of these discussions IMO, this
tempting shorthand can create the wrong impression<br><br>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.<br><br>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><br><br>however, I do think the roll back of
enlightenment principles is not well understood (<a href="http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/nonUniversals" target="_blank">http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/nonUniversals</a>)
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 <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3F4TMBURELZZK" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3F4TMBURELZZK</a>
<br><br></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br>