Joanne Jacobs' blog post on Direct Instruction (DI) ignited a spirited debate. The conversation there encouraged me to post a response here.Jacobs posted a new blog, Progressives vs. traditionalists, and that conversation, too, has snowballed.
So, is there a winner?
I would hope that the kids would be the winners. As I have read these posts, I was aware of the misconceptions. A big one is that inquiry-based learning is random...that there is little or no planning involved and kids are merely "turned loose". The reality is that inquiry-based learning is finely orchestrated. Learning and the projects that assess that learning are tied to learning outcomes. Time? Yes, they may take more time, but frequently they assess several learning outcomes and kids generally remember that learning because they invested themselves in the process. In my biology classroom, I tie cell division (a boring topic) to cancer. It then has meaning. Last year, I had two girls in my 10th grade class who had lost their moms to cancer by 7th grade. Another lost her grandpa to cancer. One girl had lost her three-year-old cousin to a rare cancer. Still another had a step-dad in the midst of fighting the disease. Their project? A silent presentation that showed the impact of that cancer on a life, including the biology of the cancer and its treatment. There was not a dry eye in class when these kids finished presenting. Did they learn about cancer and cell division? You bet - and no one will ever forget it. There is no worksheet or textbook that could have had this kind of impact. People can tag techniques and strategies with whatever labels that they would like, but unless the learning has some meaning to the kids it will soon be forgotten. If the kids aren't the point of our teaching, then it doesn't matter how we teach.
ReplyDeleteLove your project. You're right. Your students will never forget the lesson. I have students who have returned 10 years later and told me they'll never forget a particular project and what they learned from it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. Hope you'll do so often.