You may not be surprised that I like this topic a lot. Although, I might quibble about the emphases in some spots, the main idea (if I got it right) is right dang close to "spot on." When does systematic-explicit instruction work better and when might discovery-emphasis instruction be at least as good, if not better? Of course, this is a description of a possible aptitude-x-treatment interaction (aka, "the holy grail" in the religion of education research).
The analysis in your column tip-toes right up to the studies that would examine such a question. When might SE > DE and DE = SE? (It's not a disordinal interaction, as I hope I've made clear here.)
Known studies bear directly on this matter. Sigmund Tobias talked about some of them in his 1976 paper (Tobias, S., 1976, Achievement treatment interactions. Review of Educational Research, 46(1), 61-74.). There are also a couple of examples from the special education literature, too. I'm assembling a post about them.
The simple characterization of the results is this: When learners are farther away from mastery, they will have greater success under direct, systematic, explicit instruction. When learners are already pretty close to mastery, it probably does't matter whether they get systematic-explicit or loosey-goosey teaching.
i've always found the supposed advice cognitive load theory gives about when students are allowed to do open-ended tasks one of its weaknesses… isn't it implied they should only be offered open ended opportunities after having mastered a certain amount of content knowledge? So the question is – for students who are never able to attain the amount of knowledge the teacher thinks is enough – they never get to do open ended activities? That's a bit sad. I would like to be corrected.
Like all thoughts, it is definitely an argument I've had inside my head.
The post states CLT provides advice about when to allow open-ended opportunities. So, if that time is not "after they've developed X amount of content knowledge", what is the CLT advice?
Ben. You are concerned that student who hasn’t mastered the semantic and procedural knowledge won’t get open ended activities and see that as a sad outcome.
I think the alternative is a student who hasn’t mastered these and finds the open ended questions that much more confusing and hates the whole topic. Which is sadder.
Take an example such as fractional division, where the procedure is to flip the numerator and denominator of the divisor and use fractional multiplication and simplification on the result.
It’s not hard to teach this procedure and test that has been learned. So hopefully you agree determining that this is done is not a challenge.
It’s also not hard for someone who has mastered these procedure to do as you do and play with it in their head - trying it on simple cases like 1/2,1/3 and then 2/3 and concluding it makes sense for all the examples they try.
Open ended questions then might involve examples with hours and minutes say or ratio problems where students have to conceptually understand what is being divided by what and what the outcome means.
Where in this process of teaching the procedure first and then moving to more open ended questions would the teacher be unclear on what to do or find it impossible to proceed to open ended questions?
You may not be surprised that I like this topic a lot. Although, I might quibble about the emphases in some spots, the main idea (if I got it right) is right dang close to "spot on." When does systematic-explicit instruction work better and when might discovery-emphasis instruction be at least as good, if not better? Of course, this is a description of a possible aptitude-x-treatment interaction (aka, "the holy grail" in the religion of education research).
The analysis in your column tip-toes right up to the studies that would examine such a question. When might SE > DE and DE = SE? (It's not a disordinal interaction, as I hope I've made clear here.)
Known studies bear directly on this matter. Sigmund Tobias talked about some of them in his 1976 paper (Tobias, S., 1976, Achievement treatment interactions. Review of Educational Research, 46(1), 61-74.). There are also a couple of examples from the special education literature, too. I'm assembling a post about them.
The simple characterization of the results is this: When learners are farther away from mastery, they will have greater success under direct, systematic, explicit instruction. When learners are already pretty close to mastery, it probably does't matter whether they get systematic-explicit or loosey-goosey teaching.
i've always found the supposed advice cognitive load theory gives about when students are allowed to do open-ended tasks one of its weaknesses… isn't it implied they should only be offered open ended opportunities after having mastered a certain amount of content knowledge? So the question is – for students who are never able to attain the amount of knowledge the teacher thinks is enough – they never get to do open ended activities? That's a bit sad. I would like to be corrected.
That conclusion seems to be the result of a conversation you have had in your head. Can you point to where someone has argued this case?
100%.
Like all thoughts, it is definitely an argument I've had inside my head.
The post states CLT provides advice about when to allow open-ended opportunities. So, if that time is not "after they've developed X amount of content knowledge", what is the CLT advice?
See section 2: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X23000775?via%3Dihub
Isn't the answer: in the adaptation phase of Haring and Eaton's Instructional Hierarchy?
Ben. You are concerned that student who hasn’t mastered the semantic and procedural knowledge won’t get open ended activities and see that as a sad outcome.
I think the alternative is a student who hasn’t mastered these and finds the open ended questions that much more confusing and hates the whole topic. Which is sadder.
Take an example such as fractional division, where the procedure is to flip the numerator and denominator of the divisor and use fractional multiplication and simplification on the result.
It’s not hard to teach this procedure and test that has been learned. So hopefully you agree determining that this is done is not a challenge.
It’s also not hard for someone who has mastered these procedure to do as you do and play with it in their head - trying it on simple cases like 1/2,1/3 and then 2/3 and concluding it makes sense for all the examples they try.
Open ended questions then might involve examples with hours and minutes say or ratio problems where students have to conceptually understand what is being divided by what and what the outcome means.
Where in this process of teaching the procedure first and then moving to more open ended questions would the teacher be unclear on what to do or find it impossible to proceed to open ended questions?
To put this more succinctly- isn’t testing proficiency in using procedural knowledge relatively easy?
What would be an example where this is not straightforward?