Teaching Method Paper

1

TEACHING METHOD PAPER

Teaching Method Paper

Meera Mehtaji

Virginia Commonwealth University

Direct Instruction

Rationale

Direct Instruction is one of the oldest methods of teaching. Today’s education system has many new techniques like Universal Design for learning, Peer Tutoring, Collaborative Teaching. Still, Direct Instruction remains the most used method. Direct Instruction consists of carefully sequenced curriculum and a rigid controlled instruction program (Stallings and Stipeck 1986).

This is effective for students with disabilities for there is immediate feedback and the wrong answer is corrected before proceeding further.

Introduction

The first research paper titled ‘Effectiveness of the DISTAR reading I program in developing first graders' language skills.’by Sexton, C.W. (1989), aims to determine the effectiveness of the Direct Instruction System for Teaching Arithmetic and Reading (DISTAR) reading program as compared to the basal reading program, in increasing school based language ability. This research will be labeled Research Data 1. The second research paper titled ‘The effectiveness of direct instruction in teaching English in elementary public education schools in Kuwait: a research case study.’ by Zaid, A.S., Hussain, A.S., & Thomas, D.Y. (2008). This research studies the effectiveness of direct instruction for improving English proficiency among non – English speaking students. This research will be labeled Research Data 2. Both these researches study the effect of direct instruction on students who are not at grade level.

Research Data 1

Purpose

The purpose of the present study was to determine if the combined use of direct instruction strategy and the language emphasis of the DISTA reading program increased school – based language ability more than the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (HBJ) basal reading program (Sexton, 1989).

Method

The experimenter randomly selected 40 students out of 80 students, for the experimental group. In a similar process the experimenter randomly selected 40 students out of 112, for the control group. In both the groups the experimenter omitted those students who participate in special education, students possessing Spanish surnames and repeaters.

The experimental group received DISTAR instruction, daily for 120 minutes per day. The students received additional language instruction in the district approved language series.

The control group received HBJ basal reading instruction, daily for 125 minutes per day. These students also received additional reading in the district approved language series.

Participants

The experimental group (DISTAR reading program) consisted of 40 African American students from the first grade. There were 18 boys and 22 girls. These students were from a metropolitan school district in southwestern United States. This school enrolled, 617 students in the elementary school, out of which 99% were African American. The school rated 16th on the district economic index. Number 1 on this index rates the lowest socioeconomic status.

The control group (HBJ basal reading program)consisted of 40 African American students from the first grade. There were 15boys and 25 girls. These students were from the same metropolitan school district in southwestern United States, as the experimental group. This school enrolled, 850 students in the elementary school, out of which 70% were African American. The school rated 5th on the district socioeconomic status.

Procedure

The experimenter used ‘The school language and listening’ subtest of the Metropolitan Readiness Test (MRT), as a pretest. To establish the reliability, in the individual area scores of the test, the experimenter used the split-half reliability. The MRT was used by the school district at the beginning of the school year for all first grade students in the district. This test was administered by the teacher.

The experimenter used the Slossons Intelligence Test (SIT) in the March, as a post test. This test was administered by the experimenter along with a reading specialist. This test provides age adjusted measure of generalized language skill (Sexton, 1989).

Design

The experimental design was used for this study. The experimenter chose two groups of student, one for the control group and one for the experimental group, randomly. The scores were reviewed, with pretest and a post test, on the MRT and SIT respectively.

Results

The results indicated that the DISTAR reading program was significantly more affective in influencing SIT than the HBJ basal reading program (Sexton, 1989). The DISTAR reading program was equally effective for students with low initial language ability and for students with high initial language ability.

Research Data 2

Purpose

The research attempts to study the effectiveness of direct instruction in improving non-native student achievement in English learning.(Zaid, Hussain, & Thomas, 2008)

Method

The researcher selected a formal curricular unit from the Kuwait public school system. Then the experimenter interacted with the teachers of the experimental group and discusses the students differences based on their abilities and needs. The researcher then designed a lesson plan based on direct instruction method. The lesson plan was reviewed and revised. Then experimenter then trained the teachers used these lesson plans in the experimental group. The experimental group received direct instruction lesson for a particular unit. The control group on the other hand, did not receive any direct instruction lessons. At the end of the lesson plan, both the groups were evaluated

Participants

The sample groups were selected form two English classes from the 5th grade. The experimental group had 21 students. The control group had 22 students. The two groups were chosen on the basis of the past achievement of these two classes on the formal curriculum of the public schools of Kuwait.

Procedure

There was no pretest for this experiment. The experimenter conducted post tests for both groups. The experimenter used static analysis to interpret the results. The T-test was used to evaluate the null hypothesis.The researchers also used the Mann-Whetney test (Non-Parametric) to test the mean ranks of these two groups(Zaid, Hussain, & Thomas, 2008).

Design

The research design is a case study.

Results

The tests indicated that using a direct instruction approach with the experimental group led to better results when compared to the results for the control group (traditional method) (Zaid, Hussain, & Thomas, 2008).

Summary

It is evident from both the researches that Direct Instruction is an effective method of teaching students.

In the first experiment,1st grade elementary students improved significantly more on language tasks with the use of DISTAR reading program, as opposed to HBJ basal reading program. The direct instruction method was especially effective for teaching African American students who came from a lower socioeconomic background. It also was effective for students who had a higher initial ability. This proves that the program will be equally effective with students who have a good base in language, but need build it.

The second experiment was not conducted in the United States. Thus the experiments were establishing the efficacy of direct instruction in another education system. This experiment also proved that direct instruction was an effective means of teaching language. The structure and controlled process make it easy form non- native learners to learn a new language and succeed.

As I reviewed both the researches, the effectiveness of direct instruction was evident. The teacher is an important part of this process. This method requires detailed and systematic planning, as a teacher. The teacher guides and builds the lesson according to the requirements of the class. The concept of immediate feedback is very effective, especially for elementary students. As I reviewed the literature, it emphasized that the student masters that content before moving to the next. This is especially effective for students with disabilities, as understanding and learning concept is difficult. Thus one step at a time is ideal way to proceed. This method can be incorporated with pictorial representation of information to help students learn. Though direct instruction looks like it is teacher centered, it can be used to have structured participation of students. The teacher has to develop questions that the students can respond to during the explanation.

According to me direct instruction is effective if the teacher plans and structures the tasks to meet the specific need of her students. The student feels that they have mastered the task because of immediate feedback. This makes learning a joyous process for the students.

References

Sexton, C.W. (1989). Effectiveness of the DISTAR readingIprogram in developing first graders' language skills. Journal of Educational Research, 82(5), 289-293

Zaid, A.S., Hussain, A.S., & Thomas, D.Y. (2008).The effectiveness of Direct Instruction in teaching English in elementary public education schools in Kuwait: A research case study. Education, 129(1), 80-90.