While skimming through Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres, I came across a set of educational principles called Direct Instruction, the brainchild of Siegfried Engelmann. I started digging into Direct Instruction, and it's kind of blown my mind.

Here is a good starting article about DI (the wikipedia entry is lacking):
http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml

Engelmann has a website:
http://www.zigsite.com/

Here's a great article that illustrates the level of his thinking:
The Dalmatian and Its Spots: Why Research-based Recommendations Fail Logic 101

He's written several books:
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
Theory of Instruction (found it in my university library)
Inferred Functions of Performance and Learning

Here's a video interview:
http://www.zigsite.com/interview.htm

People either love DI or passionately abhor it, so something interesting is going on. His ideas really resonated with me (like, with Wilber-level intensity), so I figured other people might like to know about his stuff, especially in the educational arena.

His ideas might be subsumed by more conventional stuff, or he's unique and mandatory reading for integral. (That's my opinion so far, anyway. I'm just digging in.)

Thoughts or suggestions, anyone?

Later!
-Mark

Mark:

I also resonate completely with the Direct Instruction process!

I taught a college level course on Ethics and the Law a couple of years ago. Most of my students were not "scholars." I wanted them to do well, and had a serious concern they would not do well, so instead of assigning readings, chatting in a disorganized way in class, and then expecting them to identify the important materials to prepare for an exam, what I did was:

I created a list of 500 knowledge units, representing the core ideas of each chapter of the text. I gave them the list the first day of class. And I told them that if they learned 450 of the units or more and could demonstate this on the final exam, they would get an A, provided they also came to class and participated in good faith in the discussions.

We then drilled fairly strictly in the class on the units, but allowed for questions and discussion as well.

It was amazing. The units were small enough bite sizes to where they could grasp them, but they contained an abundance of important seeds on the subject of Ethics and the Law. I am convinced that today, wherever they are, most of my students have retained knowledge about the subject that would otherwise not be retained using a readings and discussion style.

I liken the distinction between DI and contemporary educational theory as one between giving a set of clear instructions on how to build a tool and then walking with the student through each step as they build the tool versus talking about tools and ensuring that everyone feels good about tools and trying to inspire students to discover how to build the tool.

Bottom line: those who are offended by DI feel that it is dehumanizing or manipulative. So, I guess it depends on whether you want students to learn something or to be free of manipulation.

Here is what I regard as a classical example of DI at work: in Beijing, I visited a Wushu (martial arts) academy. Trust me, they are very, very serious about wushu there. You are not allowed to not learn, period. It is clear that this is not an option.

They have these choreographed forms, very complex, a hundred or more individual moves. And you know how they learn them?

They start with the first move. It may simply be standing erect, and pulling your hands in fists at your sides. But, you do the move hundreds or thousands of times until you can do it with a high degree of power and precision. Then you move onto the next move. And as you move along, you start to notice that what you learned earlier feeds into the next module and things come quicker and you see patterns. The entire process is likened to constructing a necklace. You put one pearl on, then you put another pearl on, etc. Pretty soon, you have a necklace that looks more than just like a bunch of pearls stuck together.

To put it plainly, our schools are full of junk. Junk is material or substance that does not serve the purpose. It gets in the way. It distracts. It cheats us of nutrients we need. But there are many Ph.D.s who depend on the junk industry to sustain their careers. That is where we are.  

Thanks a lot for sharing this.