Chapter 11: Approaches to Instruction

Chapter 11: Summary



Devising and Using Objectives

• goals are broad, general statements of desired educational outcomes


• instructional objectives specify observable, measurable student behaviors


• Taxonomy- a classification scheme with categories arranged in hierarchical order

3 taxonomy areas:

1. cognitive domain- stresses knowledge and intellectual skills


2. affective domain- concentrates on attitudes and values


3. psychomotor domain- focuses on physical abilities and skills

Cognitive Domain- knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation

Affective Domain- receiving(attending), responding, valuing, organization, characterization by a value or value complex

Psychomotor Domain- perception, set, guided response, mechanism, complex or overt response, adaptation, origination

Most test questions stress knowledge, ignore higher levels of cognitive taxonomy. Using taxonomies will help to avoid ignoring entire classes of outcomes and overemphasizing the lowest level of the cognitive domain

Ways to State and Use Objectives

Mager's recommendations for the use of specific objectives

1. describe what you want learners to be doing when demonstrating achievement, and indicate how you will know they are doing it


2. in your description, identify and name the behavioral act that indicates achievement, define the conditions under which the behavior is to occur, and state the criterion of acceptable performance


3. write a separate objective for each learning performance

Gronlund's recommendations for the use of general objectives

1. examine what is to be learned with reference to lists of objectives such as those included in the 3 taxonomies


2. under each general instructional objective, list up to five specific learning outcomes that provide a representative sample of what students should be able to do when they have achieved the general objective (use action verbs: explain or describe)

Objectives work best when the students are aware of them, are clearly written, and the learning task is neither too easy or too difficult.

Students with average ability profit more from objectives than higher or lower ability.

Objectives lead to an improvement in intentional learning but a decline in incidental learning.

The Behavioral Approach to Teaching: Direct Instruction

• behavioral approach to teaching involves arranging and implementing those conditions that make it highly likely that a desired response will occur in the presence of a particular stimulus


• Direct Instruction- focus on learning basic skills, teacher makes all decisions, keep students on-task, and emphasize postive reinforcement

Components of Direct Instruction: orientation, presentation, structured practice, guided practice, and independent practice

1. Orientation- teacher gives an overview of the lesson, explains why students need to learn the material, relates the new subject to past learning or life experiences, and tells students what they will need to do to learn the material and what level of performance is expected


2. Presentation- explaining, illustrating, and demonstrating new material; also evaluate's student's understanding (question and answer session)


3. Structured practice- teacher leads the entire class through each step in a problem or lesson


4. Guided practice- students work at their own desks on problems of the type explained and demonstrated by the teacher; teacher circulates around the room


5. Independent practice-when students can solve at least 85% of the problems given during guided practice, they are then given problems to work independently in class or at home

Using technology to support behavioral approaches to instruction

• computer-based approach


• drill-and-practice computer-assisted instruction tools and integrated learning systems


• multimedia technology

The Cognitive Approach to Teaching: Facilitating Meaningful and Self-Directed Learning

Information-Processing Approach: design lesson around principles of meaningful learning, teach students how to learn more effectively

• Tell students what you want them to learn and why, and how they will be tested
• Use attention-getting devices (orally emphasize certain words or phrases by raising or lowering your voice, use dramatic gestures, underline key words and phrases that you write on a chalkboard or whiteboard, when discussing the work of important people dress up to look like the person and speak as you think the person might have spoken)
• Present organized and meaningful lessons (concept mapping- this technique involves specifying the ideas that make up a topic and indicating with lines how they relate to one another p.376)
• Present new information in small chunks and do not introduce new topics until you have evidence that the students have learned the presented material
• Build into lessons opportunities for students to write about, discuss, and use the ideas they are learning
• Arrange for short practice sessions spread over several weeks rather than one or two long practice sessions
• Present information through different medias such as pictures, videotape, audiotape, live models, and manipulation of physical objects; use alot of examples and analogies; prompt students to elaborate by asking them to put ideas in their own words, relate new ideas to personal experience, and create their own analogies
• Practice what you preach

Constructivist Approach: creating their own understanding of reality using characteristics such as existing knowledge, attitudes, values, and experiences

• Provide scaffolded instruction within the zone of proximal development (instruction should demand more than what a student is capable of doing independently and because of these demands instruction should be scaffolded {teachers should provided just enough support through such devices as explanations, modeling, prompting, offering clarifications, and verifying the accuracy of responses, that the learner can successfully complete the task})
• Provide opportunities for learning by discovery
• Meaningful learning aided by exposure to multiple points of view
• Emphasize relevant problems and tasks (need to challenging and realistic)
• Encourage students to become self-directed learners (how do teachers interact with the students)

Challenges to being a Constructivist teacher

• they need to understand how different students think, how complete each student's knowledge is about a subject, how accurate that knowledge is, and how aware students are about the state of their own knowledge
• they must know how to use a variety of methods to support understanding problem-based activities (modeling; providing prompts, probes, and suggestions; providing problem-solving rules of thumb; and using technology to organize and represent information)
• they must guide students to choose meaningful projects or issues to investigate
• they have to teach students how to work productively in collaborative activities
• they need to have a deep enough understanding of a subject to be able to guide students who become puzzled by an observation to an explanantion
• they need to know how to used a wide range of alternative assessment devices (interviews, observations, student journals, peer reviews, research reports, art projects, building physical models, and participating in plays, debates, and dances)

Technology and Cognitive Approaches

• helps students to code, store, and retrieve information (electronic encyclopedias {Grolier's Multimedia Encyclopedia}, hypermedia databases that contain conceptual resources such as timelines, information maps, and overviews, and concept mapping software such as Inspiration)
• Exploratory Environments: students might explore exciting information resources on the Web, enter simulations or microworlds like LEGO-LOGO, browse and rotate objects in a hypermedia or web database, and use imaging technologies to explore inaccessible places such as underwater canyons or planet surfaces)
• Geometric Supposer: a tool that students can use to construct, manipulate, and measure different geometric figures
• GenScope: help students better understand the principles of genetics
• Guided Learning: teachers help students set goals, ask questions, encourage discussions, and provide models of problem-solving processes (Higher Order Thinking Skills program {HOTS}- grades 4 through 8 www.hots.org)
• Problem and Project-Based Learning: requires learners to develop solutions to real-life problems
• Situated Learning: knowledge is closely linked to environment in which it is acquired (CSILE, WISE, and the GLOBE Program, and the WEB Project, Author-on-Line Project {students read a book, wrote a book reports, posted them on a school website, the author posted her/his reactions, these were then shared in the class)

The Humanistic Approach to Teaching: Student-Centered Instruction

Humanistic Approach: pays attention to the role of noncognitive variables in learning, specifically, students' needs, emotions, values, and self-perceptions

Abraham Maslow: help students develop their potential by satisfying their needs (Self-actualizers: have an inherent need for experiences that will help them fulfill their potential)

Carl Rogers: Learner-centered education (teaches should try to establish the same conditions as do person-centered therapists); establish conditions that allow self-directed learning

Arthur Combs: The teacher is the facilitator, encourager, helper, assister, colleague, and friend of his/her students

Teachers seek to create a classroom atmosphere in which students believe that the teacher's primary goal is the understand the student's needs, values, motives, and self-perceptions and to help the student learn (student-directed or nondirective)

The Humanistic Model

1. defining the helping situation
2. exploring the problem
3. develop insight
4. planning and decision making
5. integration
   

Japanese classrooms marked by humanistic orientation, high scores on international math and science test. They also place high value on children's social and ethical development by (1.) giving children various classroom responsibilities so they feel a valued part of the school, (2) emphasizing such qualities as friendliness, responsibility, and persistence, (3) communicating to students that teachers value their presence in the classroom and the contributions that they make.

Humanistic Approach and technology

• learner-centered technology tools can link concepts to everyday experiences, guide students in the problem-solving process, encourage learners to think more deeply, facilitate unique knowledge construction, and provide opportunities for social interaction and dialogue (Graphing calculators, hand-held computers, microcomputer laboratory equipment, prompts embedded in a word processing program, computer conferencing on the Web)

The Social Approach to Teaching: Teaching Students How To Learn From Each Other

Classroom tasks can be structured so that students are forced to compete with one another, to work individually, or to cooperate with one another to obtain the rewards that teachers make available for successfully completing these tasks.

Types of Classroom Reward Structures

1. Competitive: those in which one's grade is determined by how well everyone else in the group performs (grading on a curve); these may decrease motivation to learn
2. Individualistic Structures: students working alone and earning rewards solely on the quality of their own efforts; other students reward or failure do not matter;
3. Cooperative Structures: students working together to accomplish shared goals; positive interdependence; leads students to focus on effort and cooperation as the primary basis of motivation; motivated by obligation

Cooperative Learning

1. Group heterogeneity- small groups (4 to 5) and as heterogeneous (males and females, different ability levels, and different ethnic backgrounds and social classes if possible) as allowed
2. Group goals/positive interdependence- specific goals for the group to attain
3. Promotive interaction- students are shown how to help one another overcome problems and complete whatever task has been assigned (peer tutoring, temporary assistance, exchanges of information and material, challenging of one another's reasoning, feedback, and encouragement to keep one another highly motivated)
4. Individual Accountability- each member has to make a significant contribution to achieving the group's goal
5. Interpersonal skills- they must be taught basic skills such as leadership, decision making, trust building, clear communication, conflict management
6. Equal opportunities for success- ensure that all students have an opportunity to contribute to their team
7. Team competition- must be used appropriately between well-matched team, in the absence of a norm-referenced grading system, and not used too frequently

Does Cooperative Learning Work: YES (It affects motivation, achievement, and social interaction)

Why? Likely due to stimulation of motivation, cognitive development, and meaningful learning

Because of the proacademic attitudes of groupmates, appropriate attributions for success and failure, and greater on-task behavior.

Why do teachers follow the spirit but not the letter of the cooperative learning model?

1. perhaps teachers find the models too complicated and difficult to put into practice
2. teachers don't really believe the researchers' claims that certain elements of cooperative learning are essential for improved learning, perhaps because their classroom experience has led them to believe otherwise
3. teachers interpret the research as providing suggestions or guidelines rather than prescriptions that must be followed, leaving them free to construct personal adaptations
4. reseachers rarely explicitly state that the demostrated benefits of cooperative learning will occur only when certain conditions are met

Students with low and average ability in mixed-ability groups outperform peers in homogeneous groups on problem-solving tests; students with high ability in homogeneous groups score slightly higher than peers in mixed-ability groups.

Social Approaches and Technology

• successful technology applications are embedded in an active social environment
• collaborative learning- allows the students themselves to decide on their roles and use their individual areas of expertise to help investigate problems (GLOBE Program www.GLOBE.gov, WEB Project www.webproject.org, 4Directions Project www.4directions.org)

Life Experiences:

Every teacher throughout by educational career even up to now uses different approaches to instruction. They all would fall into the categories that are discussed in this chapter, but each teacher uses these approaches in a different manner. I really never had one that focused primarily on the humanistic approach though. This is an approach that I intend on using some because how a student speaks affects their basic needs. Most of my teachers used direct instruction, information processing and a constructivist approach. With the development of technology, we as teachers are able to use so many more different instruction techniques to help individualize our instruction.

Blog:

I have shared my blog ideas with the lady that I work with. She really likes all the ideas that I am adding to my blog from what I have learned. Besides being responsible for the Special Education Students and being the Speech Therapist, she is also in charge of writing our high school ACSIP plan. We have used some of the research that is discussed in this book within this plan. By having my information saved in a special place, I have been able to access it easily for her. We have also shared many of the technology ideas with so many of the other teachers that I work with. Without this blog I would never be able to find these ideas as quickly as I do.

Question of the Week: Find another school district's website (this will be your third) outside of your hometown and/or Springfield (or the city you live in). Make sure that this school district is in a different state. Copy and paste (or type) the link into your blog. Answer the following questions about the school district in your blog:
Would you want to teach in this particular school district?
What makes this school district stand out from others that you found on the Internet?
Are there specific features that this school district has to offer that you hadn't thought of before? What are they? If not, what would you like?
Would you ever consider applying for a job at this school district? Why or why not?
Based on what we've learned so far in this class, how does this school district measure up?

Thayer, MO website at http://thayer.k12.mo.us/

I do not think that I would want to teach in this particular school district mainly because it just does not have the qualities that I am looking for in a school district. It is pretty close to me so distance would not be bad but my license that I am receiving is not for Missouri, it will be for Arkansas. It is a good school district, but a little larger than I am looking for. I do know some of the teachers and adminstration there. They do use technology more than the school that I am currently at which is a major plus. The kids class scheduling is also different than what I am used to, but could be a plus I think. They do have more resources in some areas than where I am currently at, but unfortunately even with these additional resources and more technology their academic scores do not seem to be as high as I would have thought. They have a high majority of their students that are just in the basic range, I would have thought their scores would be a little higher.