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If it is called "direct instruction" it does not follow that therefore there will be scripting.

In other words, I disagree with the statement that "In DI, teachers use pre-designed scripts when teaching."

As far as I know, D.I., a bizarre renaming of the norm that only happens in education, has nothing to do with scripting. It is defined, sadly, against the [even more sadly] oft-maligned "student-centered" instruction.

D.I., as you call it, is nothing new in my mind. It has simply been forgotten theoretically, though in practice it is still, in my opinion, the norm.

-- JdFisher - 18 Nov 2005

I keep seeing the notation 'signal'. What does it mean?

-- CarolynJohnston - 18 Nov 2005

I'm sold.

-- CatherineJohnson - 18 Nov 2005

I would say that 'Direct Instruction' in caps is essentially a trademark indicating the program studied in Project Follow-Through.

Thus far, when I see teachers & education professors talking about Direct Instruction they do mean scripting, and they discuss, at length & in detail, what that scripting should involve.

Often, it involves writing a specific number of questions that will be asked during class time.

-- CatherineJohnson - 18 Nov 2005

A signal is a teacher prompt that tells the students that they are to take an action. The signal can be a hand clap, snap, or turn or a spoken prompt like "Say It."

The purpose of the signal is to get the students to take a moment to think and then to answer at the same time. Otherwise, the bright kids will dominate the class and the slower kids will hang back and not respond.

Take a look at the why use signals video for some examples.

-- KDeRosa - 18 Nov 2005

JD, DI is not merely traditional teacher led teaching, it is a much more precise form of instruction. The precision necessitates the scripts.

-- KDeRosa - 18 Nov 2005

The purpose of the signal is to get the students to take a moment to think and then to answer at the same time. Otherwise, the bright kids will dominate the class and the slower kids will hang back and not respond.

This is hilarious!

I have the exact same technique for my hyperactive Labrador, Abby.

If I'm feeding her out of my hand, she can bite my fingers off.

Not because she's the smartest dog in the class, but because she is far and away the most eager.

Abby loves bananas.

So, when I feed her a banana in the morning, I hold it in my hand in manner that implies 'Wait'; that's the signal.

Then I say, 'Take it,' and she instantly but precisely & very carefully chomps down on the banana, but not my fingers.

The signal helps her pause long enough to remember: There are fingers around that banana.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Nov 2005

And the 'Take it' tells her: You're getting the banana now, no matter what. No other dog is going to take it; no other person is going to eat it. It's yours.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Nov 2005

OH! That's interesting!

Here's how I've done something similar -- but not quite the same -- with my dogs.

I'll hold something for them. Instead of 'take it', I say 'gentle'.

If they start to snap at it -- if they're doing anything other than appearing to think about it -- I draw my hand up and say 'no'.

Then they'll take it with their dog lips.

Clearly something similar is intended by the phrase 'signal' in DI. But of course, you are taking something from the bright kids by waiting for everyone to answer -- they want to be the only ones to answer. I'm not convinced the 'signal' will work, or that it's even good for all the kids to answer at once (is that what's going on, or is one child being called upon?).

I tend to go more with the call-on-every-child-at-least-once school of thought.

-- CarolynJohnston - 20 Nov 2005

They call on all of class while firming and then they call on individuals to test and to keep them on their toes.

-- KDeRosa - 20 Nov 2005

And the pause is in the order of about a second, just enough time for the slower children to form their thought. Remember they're striving for automaticity so the kids shouldn't be thinking too much.

-- KDeRosa - 20 Nov 2005

'choral response' is fun

this is why people go to church

also to Bruce Springsteen concerts

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Nov 2005

I went to a huge Springsteen concert at USC years ago, and it was an amazing experience.

There's nothing like having 35,000 people thinking the exact same thought in the exact same second.

Same thing with the Who Shot J.R.? cliffhanger.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Nov 2005

Hmm... I must be the outlier. Whenever I'm in a large group of people and everyone starts responding/reacting/behaving the same way, I think, "What sheep. I'm not going to do that."

examples: YMCA dance, singing along at concerts, "the wave" at sporting events.

-- KtmGuest - 21 Nov 2005

I'm sorry, but I can't say that I'm a big fan of scripting to the point of choral/vocal student feedback. It reminds me of those class/group meetings where the leader is bound and determined to get everyone involved, whether they like it or not. It makes me feel manipulated. I always resist. I would settle for good curricula, good (even detailed) lesson plans, and well prepared teachers. Just leave off the choral/vocal/rap/whatever response. Otherwise, I might do something with my fingers other than snap.

-- SteveH - 21 Nov 2005

At first I was not thrilled with the choral feedback aspects of DI either, but I've since come around.

Kids (young kids especially) actually like to do choral response even though we adults tend not to. (Kids like to memorize too, even though adults find it tedious.)

One reason for the choral response in DI (unlike in other pedagogies) is purely for efficiency in teaching small groups. The choral response gives the teacher instant feedback on who is firm and who is not. If the whole or a large portion of the group is not firm then the teacher continues the group practice. If only certain students are not firm, then the teacher can now single them out for more individual responses. This focues the attention quickly to the students who need it.

Another resason is that the choral responses force the students to be constantly engaged and attentive. They don't get a chance to tune out the teacher. This also merges with the somewhat randomized individual response portion of the instruction which also forces the students to be engaged since they know they will be picked on often and unpredictably. (Anyone who wants to learn the power of random teacher selection should attend law school for a semester with a professor that uses the socratic method with random stdent selection -- there's nothing like the threat of humiliation in front of class to motivate you to do your homework nightly.)

-- KDeRosa - 21 Nov 2005

Just because students aren't participating in the choral response doesn't mean they don't know the material. Perhaps they already learned it and are reading ahead out of boredom.

-- KtmGuest - 21 Nov 2005

Perhaps they already learned it and are reading ahead out of boredom.

You're thinking too much traditional clasroom with the teacher droning on and on. "Children learn little from straight teacher talk. Too much teacher talk decreases pupil-motivation, draws out the lesson length unnecessarily, and often causes confusion by changing the focus of the tasks, disrupting the development of the larger generalization, of which a teacher the first time through is usually unaware."

In DI, there are 10-14 responses per minute on average. There is simply no time for any student to be reading ahead or doing anything but paying close attention to the lesson and what is being presented at that moment by the teacher. Plus, if the student really is bored with the pacing, he'll be quickly bumped-up to the faster moving groups until he finds a pace he's comfortable with."

-- KDeRosa - 21 Nov 2005

Hmm... I must be the outlier. Whenever I'm in a large group of people and everyone starts responding/reacting/behaving the same way, I think, "What sheep. I'm not going to do that."

oh yeah, I have that personality, too

but this really is different

Part of the reason I know this is that in second grade I had an older, 'old-maid-type' teacher—her kind doesn't even exist any more—who taught phonics the old-fashioned way, via choral response. (I think that's the term.) We'd stand up and chant 'bla ble bli blo blu'—I still remember it vividly.

It was incredibly invigorating & fun, and is one of my few vivid memories from grade school.

The thing to remember is that little kids are different.

Ivar Lovaas told us, years ago, that the time to mainstream autistic kids was pre-school, because all pre-school kids are 'perseverative.'

He was right!

Very little kids love repetition; they love singing the same songs over and over, same rhymes—they are repetitive little souls.

Freud interpreted this as the 'death instinct,' but that's SO wrong.

Ernst Schactel has a wonderful book, METAMORPHOSIS, in which he says that the small child's desire for repetition stems from the fact that, for the child, the world is new.

The child repeats things to make the world stable & 'old,' the way it is for us.

The coffee table is still the coffee table today! (I'm proabably garbling this after all these years; I read his book in college. But I was moved by it at the time, and I am still today.)

We need to look at videos of the KIPP Academy if we can. Those kids are chanting and singing and rapping all day long.

And they're learning.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Nov 2005

Kids (young kids especially) actually like to do choral response even though we adults tend not to. (Kids like to memorize too, even though adults find it tedious.)

Yes!

Right!

Kids like all kinds of things we find deeply tedious!

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Nov 2005

In the classroom, teachers utilize a variety of devices such as repetitive chants and visual aids to help children remember the material they need to absorb.

Making Schools Work

They got their chants from a legendary black female teacher in Houston, I think. Feinberg & Levin were, IIRC, working for Teach For America, and couldn't get math taught at all, and the teacher came to their rescue.

She has a big catalogue of chants and rhymes that she says were divinely inspire.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Nov 2005

Another resason is that the choral responses force the students to be constantly engaged and attentive.

Again, see: church.

I can have SERIOUS mind-wandering in church, but the minute we're doing choral response I'm back paying attention.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Nov 2005

The sheep thing is the reason I can't see myself ever operating a Kumon franchise.

It's the requirement to do things the Kumon Way. Even if the Kumon Way is a good thing, which it might be.

Plus it's loads of grading, which is the thing I like least about teaching.

-- CarolynJohnston - 21 Nov 2005

You know, I don't know how much grading the KUMON folks do.

The mom does the grading.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Nov 2005