Speaking from long experience, I can say that various forms of inquiry can be very useful and appropriate when designing - co-curricular - extension programs for very bright, highly able students. I’m thinking of philosophy seminars, linguistic arts colloquia, high level academic mentoring programs, preparation for Olympiads - Ethics, IOL etc etc. That being said, these students have as a basis the most solid / advanced subject knowledge and advanced motivation. Even so, the classroom does not always meet their need for cognition, or love of learning beyond the syllabus in the company of like minds.
Your discussion of explicit instruction and direct instruction is interesting. Engelmann and Carine might say that direct instruction is the purest form of explicit instruction. Explicit instruction with problem learners, when done correctly, is effective. There is no guarantee that just telling, modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and testing will produce long-lasting learning. It takes a skilled teacher to understand the perturbations in a student's logic and problem-solving processes. Scripted lessons are someone's idea about what should be said and asked of a generalized student. It is a generalized instruction for a generalized student. It generally works.
The research yields a pattern of highly trained teachers who are given autonomy and resources to meet high expectations. That highly trained teacher is a master of both explicit instruction and inquiry methods. Trailing teachers was a major factor in the "Mississippi Miracle." Teachers who are at a high level of problem-solving development according to Michael Commons Model Hierarchy of Complexity.
Greg, I agree with much of what you say here. "Both methods are valid" does often mask a preference for inquiry—the recent NCSM piece is a good example. The misinterpretation of explicit instruction is real. The distinction between novice and expert is important, and I agree it presupposes a teacher with clear learning objectives.
But the shifting sands run both ways. "Minimally guided instruction" has been a motte-and-bailey since Kirschner, Sweller and Clark 2006. The motte is the genuinely unguided extreme; the bailey is anything with discovery, inquiry, project-based, or problem-based in the name, including approaches with substantial teacher guidance: carefully sequenced problems, anticipation of strategies, responses to student thinking, orchestrated discussion, explicit synthesis. When pressed, the term retreats; when marketed, it expands. It's the same move you're calling out.
And "malpractice" mirrors "pedagogy of poverty." Both harden positions rather than move them. I take your point that hinting is ineffective, but naming a tradition as malpractice is not the only alternative to hedging.
I find it interesting that you have chosen to argue with the title of a paper I did not reference rather than with what I wrote. Personally, I think it was a mistake for Kirschner et al to use ‘minimal’ in the title of their paper, if only because it has allowed a generation of constructivists to focus on that rather than the substance of the paper. In their 2007 response to critics, the authors agree that adding guidance to inquiry improves it, but then ask why, if this is the case, full guidance would not be better still. People who raise objections to ‘minimal’ usually go silent at this point.
I am actually very comfortable with people calling explicit teaching a ‘pedagogy of poverty’ if that’s what they believe. I take a dim view of them doing it and then claiming there is nothing to debate and other people are responsible for trying to start maths wars.
This is a rich topic, Greg. Thanks for broaching it. As much as I like it, the concept of malpractice doesn't really seem to have much traction.
In the US, there have actually been legal cases brought against schools for using ineffective instructional methods. Indeed, in 1971 Don Stewart published a book called " Educational malpractices: The big gamble in our schools" that argued that case. For those who are interested, a couple of my colleagues (Mitch Yell, David Bateman) and I summarized the legal cases in a post called "B. Bateman's legal corner: Educational malpractice" in June of 2025.
Speaking from long experience, I can say that various forms of inquiry can be very useful and appropriate when designing - co-curricular - extension programs for very bright, highly able students. I’m thinking of philosophy seminars, linguistic arts colloquia, high level academic mentoring programs, preparation for Olympiads - Ethics, IOL etc etc. That being said, these students have as a basis the most solid / advanced subject knowledge and advanced motivation. Even so, the classroom does not always meet their need for cognition, or love of learning beyond the syllabus in the company of like minds.
Your discussion of explicit instruction and direct instruction is interesting. Engelmann and Carine might say that direct instruction is the purest form of explicit instruction. Explicit instruction with problem learners, when done correctly, is effective. There is no guarantee that just telling, modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and testing will produce long-lasting learning. It takes a skilled teacher to understand the perturbations in a student's logic and problem-solving processes. Scripted lessons are someone's idea about what should be said and asked of a generalized student. It is a generalized instruction for a generalized student. It generally works.
The research yields a pattern of highly trained teachers who are given autonomy and resources to meet high expectations. That highly trained teacher is a master of both explicit instruction and inquiry methods. Trailing teachers was a major factor in the "Mississippi Miracle." Teachers who are at a high level of problem-solving development according to Michael Commons Model Hierarchy of Complexity.
Greg, I agree with much of what you say here. "Both methods are valid" does often mask a preference for inquiry—the recent NCSM piece is a good example. The misinterpretation of explicit instruction is real. The distinction between novice and expert is important, and I agree it presupposes a teacher with clear learning objectives.
But the shifting sands run both ways. "Minimally guided instruction" has been a motte-and-bailey since Kirschner, Sweller and Clark 2006. The motte is the genuinely unguided extreme; the bailey is anything with discovery, inquiry, project-based, or problem-based in the name, including approaches with substantial teacher guidance: carefully sequenced problems, anticipation of strategies, responses to student thinking, orchestrated discussion, explicit synthesis. When pressed, the term retreats; when marketed, it expands. It's the same move you're calling out.
And "malpractice" mirrors "pedagogy of poverty." Both harden positions rather than move them. I take your point that hinting is ineffective, but naming a tradition as malpractice is not the only alternative to hedging.
I find it interesting that you have chosen to argue with the title of a paper I did not reference rather than with what I wrote. Personally, I think it was a mistake for Kirschner et al to use ‘minimal’ in the title of their paper, if only because it has allowed a generation of constructivists to focus on that rather than the substance of the paper. In their 2007 response to critics, the authors agree that adding guidance to inquiry improves it, but then ask why, if this is the case, full guidance would not be better still. People who raise objections to ‘minimal’ usually go silent at this point.
I am actually very comfortable with people calling explicit teaching a ‘pedagogy of poverty’ if that’s what they believe. I take a dim view of them doing it and then claiming there is nothing to debate and other people are responsible for trying to start maths wars.
Great, thanks. You've raised points worth further discussion.
This is a rich topic, Greg. Thanks for broaching it. As much as I like it, the concept of malpractice doesn't really seem to have much traction.
In the US, there have actually been legal cases brought against schools for using ineffective instructional methods. Indeed, in 1971 Don Stewart published a book called " Educational malpractices: The big gamble in our schools" that argued that case. For those who are interested, a couple of my colleagues (Mitch Yell, David Bateman) and I summarized the legal cases in a post called "B. Bateman's legal corner: Educational malpractice" in June of 2025.