Direct Instruction or Inquiry Learning

People often debate whether direct instruction is better or whether it is inquiry learning. Research says that sometimes it's one and sometimes the other.

Direct Instruction
Direct instruction is an instructional approach which is structured, sequenced, and led by teachers. Direct instruction involves many features that are fundamental to good teaching:
Establishing learning objectives for lessons, activities, and projects, and then making sure that students have understood the goals.
Purposefully organising and sequencing a series of lessons, projects, and assignments that move students toward stronger understanding and the achievement of specific academic goals.
Reviewing instructions for an activity or modelling a process—so that students know what they are expected to do.
Providing students with clear explanations, descriptions, and illustrations of the knowledge and skills being taught.
Asking questions to make sure that students have understood what has been taught.

Some people argue that direct or explicit instruction implies that the teacher is an authority fully capable of delivering correct information in a natural progression - hopefully this is the case - if we are doing our jobs. As teachers, we should know more than students about the topic we are teaching because in fully preparing for lessons we should be making sure we do. Certainly, when it comes to teaching students reading, writing, spelling and maths facts, direct instruction is important.

Inquiry Learning
Inquiry learning is a constructivist approach, in which students have ownership of their learning. It starts with exploration and questioning and leads to investigation into a worthy question, issue, problem or idea. Effective inquiry learning needs to be well designed by the teacher. With its emphasis on 'hands on' learning inquiry learning fits in well with the old adage 'I do I understand'. Through inquiry learning, students can develop higher order, information literacy and critical thinking skills. In this age when students can 'Google' any fact it is more important that students are involved in meaningful, authentic learning tasks that lead to deep understanding about the world.

Inquiry learning fits is well with learning areas such as science, society and environment and general capabilities such as critical and creative thinking.

When it comes to the question of inquiry learning or direct instruction, it has to be a case of whatever fits the task at hand.

Google

I remember the first time I saw a thumb drive. I was given some photos and maps on one for impending trip. Up until then I had been using rewritable CD Roms and DVDs and thought the thumb drive was the coolest thing. This was in about 2002. Since then I have accumulated at least 20, maybe even 30, of these devices along with several external hard drives. What I do know is that I have an incredible amount of double ups of data and have always had some ridiculous idea that one day I will go through them all and organise them.

Then along came cloud storage. Being a big Apple fan, I do use iCoud for my documents, keynotes and photos but I also like the simplicity and versatility of Google products. I have long used GoogleDrive to store photos, movies, presentations and much more, Gmail for email and GoogleForms for surveys but I have only recently started using GoogleDocs, GoogleSheets and GoogleSlides. It's funny because I was introduced to then long ago and thought they were great. It's almost like I have an adult equivalent of a zone of proximal development - as far as technology goes I need to be developmentally ready to take the next step.

So it comes that now I use GoogleDocs for all of my word processing, GoogleSheets for all of my spreadsheets and I am working toward GoogleSlides for my presentations. No more double ups for me and they make sharing and collaboration so easy.

iPads in the Early Years

It is very tempting, when working with Kindy and Pre-Primary students, to use iPads as an independent activity. Downloading content based apps and setting them up as a rotation, thus freeing up the teacher and EA is certainly an easy option but is it making the most of this fantastic tool? In my opinion, the answer is a definite no. While the iPad is extremely intuitive and the touch screen makes it well suited to young children, can we be sure students are actually getting anything out of the activity? Are they actually learning or is the iPad being used as a babysitter while the teacher does the 'teaching' at a different table.

What if the teacher takes the powerful tool and uses it with the students? Quality teaching, powerful tool, engaged and motivated students = learning!

Some ideas:

Make use of the camera to film students or have them film themselves or each other as they develop phonemic awareness.

Have students use basically any app that they can create text on (pic collage, pages, Educreations, book creator, drawing pad, doodle buddy) to explore graphemes.

Have students reflect on stories from whole class reading or reading groups using apps that they can create pictures and text on (book creator, drawing pad, feltboard).

Have students reflect on stories by drawing and writing but also recording their voice telling the story using apps such as Explain Everything, Educreations, Book Creator.

Teachers create relevant games and stories to fully differentiate and personalise the learning.

Teachers use resources such as Nearpod, Beat the Teachers, TinyTap and the camera to collect assessment data.

These are just few ideas but hopefully readers can see the value in using the iPad table as a teacher led station rather than an independent one where it's questionable whether or not the intended objectives are achieved.