I agree with you about this. I've only been teaching for two years (United States), and based on anecdotal evidence and my gauge of how my students feel: they like the lessons that are teacher-led, highly structured, and guided/direct.
I was always wary of "student-led" instruction. What disturbed me during my training was when my mentor said, "teaching is just facilitating now. Give them the work and give yourself a rest". I suspect sometimes that this leaning towards "student-led" instruction is because of teacher burnout. But teaching lessons, if they are well-designed, can actually be incredibly energizing.
The idea that students will take initiative and take ownership of their learning experience is a pipe dream. Where I teach, only certain college-level courses with high performing students can even try to approach that ideal. From how I see it, my students are really refreshed when they see me actively involved in all parts of the lesson. They're sick of the onus being put on them.
Thank you for compiling and summarizing all that research!
I agree with many of the statements made, after nearly three decades of teaching experience.
For me, the focus is always on the student, the protagonist of learning. But the teacher's role is necessary in teaching, and they need to have the courage to want to teach, even if that idea doesn't sound good to some.
We need to cultivate—in my opinion—a new vision of the need for transmission, along with the constant study that it demands of the teacher.
I think we often face a situation that is more rhetorical than educational, which requires a rethinking of teaching from the perspective of the various agents and essential elements of the educational process, viewed from the perspective of purpose.
We can intuit what it means to be a good citizen, but we need to learn and want to be one. My proposal is to foster social attitudes such as optimistic altruism, responsibility—both social and political—respect, loyalty, and justice, all supported by personal freedom.
The role that teachers play in this area, as described here in terms of equity, is truly important.
I enjoyed reading this. Thanks. Especially the idea that balance for balance's sake is not an inherent good.
My approach generally aligns with teacher-led but I run into problems when I have competent students. e.g. I have to teach the class the topic of the day and I have sufficient evidence that one or more of them already 'know it'. Do you have a blog addressing what strategies one might use to engage those students?
I'm not suggesting student-led activities is the answer. When I have to teach 'the class', I haven't found a neat general solution to be able to stimulate the competent learner other than treating each case individually and gradually adding to my repertoire of things to give competent students in topic x, but generally I feel I am short changing them because I leave them alone with something to work on and can rarely check in with them on their puzzle/open-task/depth-rather-than-breadth-activity/inverse problem/etc
Thanks,
Victor (maths teacher, mixed-background adult education)
Thank you, but I wonder about how the dynamics going on in the classroom affect how students learn and thus the best approach for a teacher to take when trying to teach all the students.
Thanks for your response. Sorry my question wasnt clear. I'll try and explain what I meant. I've taught lots of students. Classes vary in their behaviour and attitude to learning. I can see direct instruction working well with a class who are motivated to learn and who will listen to teacher instructions. I can see it being almost impossible with a class who find it hard to focus on learning. So my question was about whether you think, or have available, any research which talks about how direct instruction can be modified for different types of classes. I know that there is not a one size fits all approach, but I thought that there might be some principles regarding how to take into account the dynamics of a class and teach in a way that suits the behaviour and attitude of the group.
Maybe there’s some confusion about what explicit instruction *is*? I find it’s the only way to approach challenging classes. The ones who are motivated to learn don’t need it nearly so much. For the record I would set out explicit instruction as containing these ingredients:
Kirchner, Sweller & Clark cite Mayer (2004) to support their claim, "partial guidance during instruction is significantly less effective than full instruction." But Mayer concludes something very different, "guided discovery was more effective than pure discovery in helping students learn and transfer."
Also, Mayer promotes a balanced approach,
"In many ways, guided discovery appears to offer the best method for promoting constructivist learning. The challenge of teaching by guided discovery is to know how much and what kind of guidance to provide and to know how to specify the desired outcome of learning. In some cases, direct instruction can promote the cognitive processing needed for constructivist learning, but in others, some mixture of guidance and exploration is needed. This is a lesson that emerges again within the context of learning in social context."
Mayer doesn’t support the claim that partial guidance is “significantly less effective” than full instruction. He gives examples where minimal feedback (e.g. “you’re right”/“you’re wrong”) helped students learn. His guided discovery examples include hints, modelling, and feedback — some overlap with explicit instruction, but not entirely.
I agree with you about this. I've only been teaching for two years (United States), and based on anecdotal evidence and my gauge of how my students feel: they like the lessons that are teacher-led, highly structured, and guided/direct.
I was always wary of "student-led" instruction. What disturbed me during my training was when my mentor said, "teaching is just facilitating now. Give them the work and give yourself a rest". I suspect sometimes that this leaning towards "student-led" instruction is because of teacher burnout. But teaching lessons, if they are well-designed, can actually be incredibly energizing.
The idea that students will take initiative and take ownership of their learning experience is a pipe dream. Where I teach, only certain college-level courses with high performing students can even try to approach that ideal. From how I see it, my students are really refreshed when they see me actively involved in all parts of the lesson. They're sick of the onus being put on them.
Thank you for compiling and summarizing all that research!
Thank you for this article. I enjoyed reading it.
I agree with many of the statements made, after nearly three decades of teaching experience.
For me, the focus is always on the student, the protagonist of learning. But the teacher's role is necessary in teaching, and they need to have the courage to want to teach, even if that idea doesn't sound good to some.
We need to cultivate—in my opinion—a new vision of the need for transmission, along with the constant study that it demands of the teacher.
I think we often face a situation that is more rhetorical than educational, which requires a rethinking of teaching from the perspective of the various agents and essential elements of the educational process, viewed from the perspective of purpose.
We can intuit what it means to be a good citizen, but we need to learn and want to be one. My proposal is to foster social attitudes such as optimistic altruism, responsibility—both social and political—respect, loyalty, and justice, all supported by personal freedom.
The role that teachers play in this area, as described here in terms of equity, is truly important.
I enjoyed reading this. Thanks. Especially the idea that balance for balance's sake is not an inherent good.
My approach generally aligns with teacher-led but I run into problems when I have competent students. e.g. I have to teach the class the topic of the day and I have sufficient evidence that one or more of them already 'know it'. Do you have a blog addressing what strategies one might use to engage those students?
I'm not suggesting student-led activities is the answer. When I have to teach 'the class', I haven't found a neat general solution to be able to stimulate the competent learner other than treating each case individually and gradually adding to my repertoire of things to give competent students in topic x, but generally I feel I am short changing them because I leave them alone with something to work on and can rarely check in with them on their puzzle/open-task/depth-rather-than-breadth-activity/inverse problem/etc
Thanks,
Victor (maths teacher, mixed-background adult education)
Thank you, but I wonder about how the dynamics going on in the classroom affect how students learn and thus the best approach for a teacher to take when trying to teach all the students.
I'm not sure what you mean. As I've set out, the most fair, efficient and effective way to make sure all students lean is explicit instruction.
Thanks for your response. Sorry my question wasnt clear. I'll try and explain what I meant. I've taught lots of students. Classes vary in their behaviour and attitude to learning. I can see direct instruction working well with a class who are motivated to learn and who will listen to teacher instructions. I can see it being almost impossible with a class who find it hard to focus on learning. So my question was about whether you think, or have available, any research which talks about how direct instruction can be modified for different types of classes. I know that there is not a one size fits all approach, but I thought that there might be some principles regarding how to take into account the dynamics of a class and teach in a way that suits the behaviour and attitude of the group.
Maybe there’s some confusion about what explicit instruction *is*? I find it’s the only way to approach challenging classes. The ones who are motivated to learn don’t need it nearly so much. For the record I would set out explicit instruction as containing these ingredients:
https://open.substack.com/pub/daviddidau/p/attention-meaning-and-mastery?r=18455&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Kirchner, Sweller & Clark cite Mayer (2004) to support their claim, "partial guidance during instruction is significantly less effective than full instruction." But Mayer concludes something very different, "guided discovery was more effective than pure discovery in helping students learn and transfer."
Also, Mayer promotes a balanced approach,
"In many ways, guided discovery appears to offer the best method for promoting constructivist learning. The challenge of teaching by guided discovery is to know how much and what kind of guidance to provide and to know how to specify the desired outcome of learning. In some cases, direct instruction can promote the cognitive processing needed for constructivist learning, but in others, some mixture of guidance and exploration is needed. This is a lesson that emerges again within the context of learning in social context."
What even is “guided discovery”? All too often, it’s functionally inseparable from explicit instruction with fading
Mayer doesn’t support the claim that partial guidance is “significantly less effective” than full instruction. He gives examples where minimal feedback (e.g. “you’re right”/“you’re wrong”) helped students learn. His guided discovery examples include hints, modelling, and feedback — some overlap with explicit instruction, but not entirely.
Teacher-led instruction is most effective for students with lower prior attainment. Student-led instruction enhances engagement and autonomy.
How are you measuring “engagement and autonomy”? I don’t think this is true is any way but I’d be delighted to see your evidence.