Indirect Instruction

General Description:

In indirect instruction, the teacher is not the sole source of all information. The focus in these activities is on student involvement rather than having the students listen to a lecture. The students will be actively engaged in their learning through student inquiry. Overall, the teacher’s job for indirect strategies is to provide students resources, such as an open-ended problem or examples, so that students can discover the content on their own.

Pros / Cons
Accommodates visual learners, auditory learners, and kinesthetic learners. (Differentiated) / Students may get off task due to lack of structure.
Students develop problem-solving skills. / Requires scaffolding.
Provides the opportunity for self-assessment via concept mapping, reflective discussion etc. / Students may get discouraged or overwhelmed by the responsibility of the task.
Helps students understand cause and effect through trial and error. / Making appropriate assumptions about students’ prior knowledge.
Provides an authentic experience. / Teacher work-load. Making assessments and figuring out how to plan in the future.

Common Instructional Strategies:

  • Concept Mapping: A graphic representation in which students can show the relationships between multiple concepts.
  • Problem Solving: Students are presented with information regarding a problem and work in a series of self-directed steps to solve the problem. There are multiple strategies that could be used during problem solving depending on the student or group’s preference and prior knowledge.
  • Reflective Discussions: A student-led discussion that encourages them to connect their own experiences with topics they’ve learned or experienced in class. This reflective process with help to solidify concepts covered during a lesson or unit.
  • Concept Attainment: The teacher provides students with examples of a concept (without directly telling them the content objectives) and then students use those examples to draw connections and discover the concept on their own.
  • Inquiry:“ An approach to learning that involves a process of exploring the natural or material world, that leads to asking questions and making discoveries in the search for new understandings.”

Detailed Instructions and Materials:

Instructional Strategy: Concept Attainment

Materials: Examples of the concept

Math Examples:

  1. The following diagram that represents the area of a big rectangle that is broken up into two smaller rectangles. Given that the area of smaller rectangle with sides b and c is 24 ft2, the side length of the big rectangle a + b is 36 ft., and the perimeter is 80 ft., what is the total area of the remaining inner rectangle and the total area of the entire rectangle?

Not drawn to scale.

With the following expressions, generate the corresponding area models. The expressions are:

  1. 3(3 + 3)
  2. 5(6 + 1)
  3. 4(10 +8)

With the following area models, write two expressions that represent the area for the entire rectangle.

Expression 1: ______

Expression 2: ______

Expression 1: ______

Expression 2: ______

Expression 1: ______

Expression 2: ______

  1. What are these problems trying to get at? Describe what you learned from these questions.

Appropriate Assessment for Indirect Instruction:

List of performance criteria of how the students will perform their tasks. Develop a grading scale or rubric in alignment with the performance criteria. Probably this most appropriate way to assess students using indirect instructions would be formatively.

Works Cited

(2009, November). From Instuctional Strategies Online:

Fundamentals of Online Pedagogy. (2000, September). From Concept Attainment:

Inquiry Descriptions. (1996, November). From Exploratorium Institute for Inquiry:

Novak, J. (2006). The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them. From Institute for Human and Machine Cognition :