tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post8068489004791278766..comments2024-03-26T14:44:37.985-04:00Comments on D-Ed Reckoning: Teaching Content -- the Dred Scott DecisionKDeRosahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06853211164976890091noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-20922060406332596872008-07-28T11:08:00.000-04:002008-07-28T11:08:00.000-04:00Yes. I do, the charge that DI is soul-killing dru...Yes. I do, the charge that DI is soul-killing drudgery is an old one. Unfortunately, the research doesn't validate that charge. From <A HREF="http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adiep/ft/adams.htm" REL="nofollow">Adam's review</A> of theProject Follow Through data in which the DI intervention had the highest affective scores:<BR/><BR/>"Critics have often complained that the DI model was a pressure cooker environment that would negatively impact students' social growth and self-esteem. As the Abt Associates' authors note:<BR/><BR/>Critics of the model have predicted that the emphasis of the model on tightly controlled instruction might discourage children from freely expressing themselves and thus inhibit the development of self-esteem and other affective skills. (Stebbins, St. Pierre & Proper, p. 8)<BR/><BR/>Because of this expectation, the affective scores are of interest. Three of the five lowest scoring models on the affective domain were models that targeted improving affective behavior; none of the affective models had positive affective scores. In contrast, all Basic Skills models had positive affective scores with the Direct Instruction model achieving the highest scores. The theory that an emphasis on basic skills instruction would have a negative impact on affective behavior is not supported by the data. Instead, it appears that the models that focused on an affective education not only had a negative impact on their students' basic skills and cognitive skills, but also on their affective skills.<BR/>"<BR/><BR/>The take-away is that when children are learning they feel good about themselves.KDeRosahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06853211164976890091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-76810074623878199082008-07-28T10:42:00.000-04:002008-07-28T10:42:00.000-04:00The first paragraph of this piece? You think the ...The first paragraph of this piece? You think the DI approach would be less boring?Tom Hoffmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08577165613934129833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-73967143893792147052008-07-27T20:46:00.000-04:002008-07-27T20:46:00.000-04:00Tom, you are arguing points that I didn't actually...Tom, you are arguing points that I didn't actually make. Go re-read the first paragraph and try again.KDeRosahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06853211164976890091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-5450665712416925752008-07-27T18:42:00.000-04:002008-07-27T18:42:00.000-04:00I don't see any evidence whatsoever that direct in...I don't see any evidence whatsoever that direct instruction in high school history class will lead to the kind of analysis you're looking for.<BR/><BR/>Nor, for that matter, do I see any reason to think that you know or don't know if "big ideas" or their equivalent are a part of most high school history curricula. <BR/><BR/>Nor do I think that distributed practice requires or implies a change from the traditional history curriculum. It is a different learning strategy.<BR/><BR/>I don't think you have any evidence whatsoever for your claims about high school history education. You're just guessing.Tom Hoffmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08577165613934129833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-66902584212291168182008-07-24T19:22:00.000-04:002008-07-24T19:22:00.000-04:00The concept of Big Ideas aren't exactly new, but i...The concept of Big Ideas aren't exactly new, but its actual use isn't exactly widespread.<BR/><BR/>Distributed practice is a concept of mastery learning which is what separates this history curriculum and other DI programs from a traditional curricula.<BR/><BR/>Part of the reason for the read aloud (which doesn't necessariy have to be aloud or whole-class) is to obtain immediate feedback from the students to see if they understand what they've just read. That's why summative and comprehensive questions are prepared.<BR/><BR/>The specfics of mastery learning as employed in DI can be found in <A HREF="http://www.zigsite.com/PDFs/StuPro_Align.pdf" REL="nofollow">Student-Program Alignment and Teaching to Mastery</A>.KDeRosahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06853211164976890091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-15223468072166255782008-07-24T18:53:00.000-04:002008-07-24T18:53:00.000-04:00"Big ideas" is not a particularly innovative or no..."Big ideas" is not a particularly innovative or non-traditional concept. I don't know what "distributed practice" is... perhaps there is something about this reading aloud that I don't understand. And what does one do if the students aren't learning what's taught? Slow down and do the same thing again? Repeat the grade?Tom Hoffmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08577165613934129833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-39079041242388481622008-07-23T22:11:00.000-04:002008-07-23T22:11:00.000-04:00Yes, except for the big idea part, the distributed...Yes, except for the big idea part, the distributed practice part, and the making sure all students are actually learning what's taught part. But for all those things it's exactly the same.KDeRosahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06853211164976890091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-5060312657238650712008-07-23T21:55:00.000-04:002008-07-23T21:55:00.000-04:00So, basically, a traditional history course, excep...So, basically, a traditional history course, except apparently with students spending a lot of time listening to each other reading aloud in class?<BR/><BR/>If this is all we need, you should be able to find plenty of examples of excellent freshman writing, because this looks to me like the way most high school history classes are taught.Tom Hoffmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08577165613934129833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-71432196480242828202008-07-23T14:17:00.000-04:002008-07-23T14:17:00.000-04:001. Preteaching of key vocabulary terms and their d...1. Preteaching of key vocabulary terms and their definitions that are simple enough to be learned, but that won't be contradicted by the text.<BR/><BR/>2. Preparation of interspersed comprehension check questions to ask while students are reading aloud the text to monitor their comprehension.<BR/><BR/>3. Preparation of summarization questions to ask while students are reading aloud the text to give them a chance to begin practicing summarization of the key ideas in the section.<BR/><BR/>4. Preparation of essay questions. If you want more than rote recognition of facts you will need to prepare essay-style questions, such as one or two good summative question(s) whose answer will capture the important idea(s) of the whole section and require some integration of these ideas.<BR/><BR/>5. Create a graphic organizer that summarizes the key information for students to study from the graphic and practice how to explain it for answeringthe essay questions.<BR/><BR/>6. Identify which questions above must be studied by students to prepare for the unit test. Put these onto a study sheet or help students to do so. For essay questions these can be broken into prompted parts.<BR/><BR/>7. Prepare some challenging questionsthat will extend the thinking of the high performing students in the class.<BR/><BR/>8. Use a game, such as a baseball-style quiz to help students: learn how to tell if they really "know" the material, begin to practice study habits, and feel some social pressure to learn material.<BR/><BR/>Do I also need to explain why practice is important for short and long term retention and for developing "higher-order" analytical skills or I can I trust that you already know these concepts being an educator?KDeRosahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06853211164976890091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-84378812328768261342008-07-23T10:13:00.000-04:002008-07-23T10:13:00.000-04:00What kinds of practice?What kinds of practice?Tom Hoffmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08577165613934129833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-83621958877067732072008-07-22T21:42:00.000-04:002008-07-22T21:42:00.000-04:00Tom,I look forward to seeing your evidence that th...Tom,<BR/><BR/><I>I look forward to seeing your evidence that the text you quote produces student work of a depth you find satisfactory</I><BR/><BR/>I didn't claim that it necessarily would. What I said was that it was "one way to make [learning facts] less painful and boring for the student." Whether the student acquires a deep understanding will depend on much more than the textbook text.<BR/><BR/>I do suspect that a student, like the magnet students at SLA would be able to perform an analysis of similar depth as the one I provided since the lesson directly taught the analysis and then some.<BR/><BR/><I>Also, how does one do this exactly: "The challenge for techers is to teach all this material so that the students know it well enough to explain it without the referring to the textbook."</I><BR/><BR/>Lots of well designed practice which the teacher's guide explains how to do.KDeRosahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06853211164976890091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-42234106984077251572008-07-22T21:09:00.000-04:002008-07-22T21:09:00.000-04:00Also, how does one do this exactly: "The challenge...Also, how does one do this exactly: "The challenge for techers is to teach all this material so that the students know it well enough to explain it without the referring to the textbook."<BR/><BR/>Really well written lectures?Tom Hoffmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08577165613934129833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-34492811856553755392008-07-22T21:08:00.000-04:002008-07-22T21:08:00.000-04:00Ken - thanks for the example - for me (a social st...Ken - thanks for the example - for me (a social studies teacher) it was an enjoyable example.<BR/><BR/>Your outline of teaching this topic certainly helps a student have access to many of the relevant facts surrounding the Dred Scott decision and its importance. I particularly liked the example of adding new players to the game and upsetting the balance of power. Tug-of-war immediately came to mind as a type of activity in class to help illustrate visually for students what adding new states to the nation might have done for the slavery issue.<BR/><BR/>Whether or not a deep understanding of this concept is reached is still in question, even if they understand that the Dred Scott decision upset the balance of power. The higher order understanding here comes when students can take the big idea concept of balance of power that is illustrated in the Dred Scott decision and apply it to other current or past situations. If they can then use this idea and perhaps refer back to the example of the Dred Scott decision as way identify or offer predictions about other issues or problems, then I feel a student would qualify for a deep understanding.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-62479124230558361142008-07-22T21:03:00.000-04:002008-07-22T21:03:00.000-04:00Since you and Dr. Carnine are such strong advocate...Since you and Dr. Carnine are such strong advocates of scientific based research, I look forward to seeing your evidence that the text you quote produces student work of a depth you find satisfactory, in particular from students fitting a similar demographic profile to SLA's incoming ninth graders.<BR/><BR/>Otherwise, this is more dead reckoning on your part.Tom Hoffmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08577165613934129833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-34110991498280854312008-07-22T20:22:00.000-04:002008-07-22T20:22:00.000-04:00Individual events, including Polk's presidency, ar...Individual events, including Polk's presidency, are also easier to remember once they have been related by some concept. Dred Scott forms a very strong peg because the topic of slavery evokes strong emotions and is very memorable. <BR/><BR/><BR/>ari-freeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-5518358282193457302008-07-22T19:08:00.000-04:002008-07-22T19:08:00.000-04:00For example, if one of the course’s big ideas is u...<I>For example, if one of the course’s big ideas is understanding history through the personal lens (i.e., being able to see, interpret, and understand historical events through the perspectives of people living at that time), that might change our interpretation of the quality of the student’s work.</I><BR/><BR/>How would it change our interpretation? The student's work does not strike me as displaying an interpretation or an understanding through the perspective of people living at the time. The abolitionist cause is the cause that totally won on a moral level. Most students nowadays know that slavery is bad. The student then writes the letter from the perspective of someone like themselves. A real test for understanding history through the personal lens would be to see and interpret the Dred Scott decision through the perspective of a supporter of slavery, or someone who, while opposed to slavery, also supported the right of the slave-owning states to secede, or some other view more particular to the location in history. <BR/><BR/>Also, the student proposed a remedy (petitioning the legislature's judiciary committee) that would be ineffective.<BR/><BR/>If one of the course's big ideas is understanding history though the personal lens of people around at the time who happened to have the same values as us but weren't very effective at political lobbying, then of course this letter is a good quality letter. But in that case, I think the objectives of the assignment were pretty pitiful.<BR/><BR/>(Please note, I agree that slavery is evil. I think it is important to understand why other people have done evil things, in the hope that then we will be better prepared to stop evil in the future, and, at least as importantly, not to do evil things ourselves).Tracy Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08999246551652981965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-87885489773057440172008-07-22T14:32:00.000-04:002008-07-22T14:32:00.000-04:00I guess what I am missing is how inquiry-driven, p...<I>I guess what I am missing is how inquiry-driven, project-based (or problem-based) education is incompatible with your description of appropriate history instruction, which I thought was the purpose of your original post.</I><BR/><BR/>Parry, I didn't mean to suggest that PBL et al. are incompatible with this. I believe they are much more difficult to pull off properly and in practice compromises are usually made. Often what gets the short shrift is the content which I think is what happened in the SLA axample. This is why I stated that the example "shows [] that the 'pedagogical' tail is wagging the 'student learning' dog.<BR/><BR/><I>For example, if one of the course’s big ideas is understanding history through the personal lens (i.e., being able to see, interpret, and understand historical events through the perspectives of people living at that time), that might change our interpretation of the quality of the student’s work.</I><BR/><BR/>This is a perfectly valid objective, but do you think that the student's letter demonstrated a deep understanding and interpretation of the Dred Scott decision under this rubric? I still don't think that I do. i still think the analysis was superficial: abolitionists are against slavery, Dred Scott is a slave, the Dred Scott decision negatively impacted the slave, therefore we should be against the decision, and show our disdain by protesting to the legislature's judiciary committee. Even if you can get by the factual inaccuracies, you are still left with a superficial analysis that misses the big issue.<BR/><BR/>My point is that there are many possible objectives for this lesson; however, if you're are looking to achive deepe understanding in a history class, then the fulfillment of those objectives must contain a deep undestanding of the releveant historical content. In this case, regardless of the objective, this didn't happen.KDeRosahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06853211164976890091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-88922169647647726332008-07-22T13:36:00.000-04:002008-07-22T13:36:00.000-04:00Ken,Thanks for the History lesson and for the beau...Ken,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the History lesson and for the beautiful example of the interplay between facts and context, between data and theory.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-67493278129367789362008-07-22T12:51:00.000-04:002008-07-22T12:51:00.000-04:00Ken,I agree with everything you said above about t...Ken,<BR/><BR/>I agree with everything you said above about the importance of content knowledge in history and the importance of teaching content knowledge within the context of big ideas. I guess what I am missing is how inquiry-driven, project-based (or problem-based) education is incompatible with your description of appropriate history instruction, which I thought was the purpose of your original post.<BR/><BR/>I also believe that we are in a difficult position to evaluate the 9th grade student’s work without having more information about the context of the assignment. When the teacher developed the assignment, which specific state standards was he hoping to address? What scoring criteria were in place (e.g., rubric) to evaluate the student’s work? What “big idea” was this assignment intended to relate to? You have placed the assignment primarily within the context of the “balance of power” idea, which was clearly not substantively addressed in the student’s work, but it is entirely possible that the work was intended to address a different big idea. For example, if one of the course’s big ideas is understanding history through the personal lens (i.e., being able to see, interpret, and understand historical events through the perspectives of people living at that time), that might change our interpretation of the quality of the student’s work.<BR/><BR/>Without having additional contextual information about the purpose of the assignment, I think we are in a difficult position to adequately evaluate it.<BR/><BR/>ParryParry Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01109638345554364909noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25541994.post-27933134684685683062008-07-22T11:39:00.000-04:002008-07-22T11:39:00.000-04:00Nice job, Ken. Establishing a context or framework...Nice job, Ken. <BR/><BR/>Establishing a context or framework that lets a student make sense out of individual teachings is always a good classroom strategy. Learning in a vacuum where nothing seems to be connected to anything else is almost always temporary.<BR/><BR/>I think if teachers gave it more thought...and presented the context before delivering the information, they would be pleasantly surprised at how much more students retained and how much more they really understood.<BR/><BR/>Every subject has context. Nothing occurs in a vacuum.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com