In his Physhare post of 3 Nov 2004 titled "Re: Will NCLB Promote
Direct Instruction of Science?" high-school teacher Michael Horton
(2004) wrote [bracketed by lines "Horton-Horton-Horton. . . ."] :
Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton
Recently, my department was asked to fill out an "Improvement Plan." Part
of this plan was to identify research-based strategies that we'd like to use
more often in our classes. The list that they gave us to choose from was
old, very limited, and useless to a science teacher trying to do active
learning. The top three techniques on the list (which I don't have with me
right now) were, "Direct instruction, identifying similarities and
differences, and mnemonic devices." Creating and testing a hypothesis was
waaaaay down on the list near "stimulant drugs" (I'm not joking here).
I asked if I could make up my own list of skills and they said only if I
could back it with peer-reviewed research. Anybody have a source of lists
of teaching methods that research has shown to be effective? If there's
interest, I can give the reference and type out the two lists that
they gave us.
Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton-Horton
From the list of "research-based strategies" given to Michael, I
suspect that the administration of his school may be relying on the
California Curriculum Commission (CCC), the US Dept. of Education's
"What Works Clearinghouse"
<http://www.w-w-c.org/about/memberlist.html>, or direct instruction
zealot Douglas Carnine (2000)] for its understanding of the meaning
of "research based." Michael might consider calling his
administration's attention to the National Research Council's more
enlightened view [Shavelson & Towne (2002)].
In response to Michael's request for lists of research-based teaching
methods, Larry Woolf, in a Physhare post of 4 Nov 2004 21:28:10-0800,
wrote [bracketed by lines "WWWWW. . ,"; numbers and academic
references have been added]:
For more references to teaching methods that research has shown to be
effective see Hake (2004a). There I wrote [bracketed by lines
"HHHHHHH. . . ."; see that article for references other than Hake
(2004b) and Klahr and Nigam (2004)]:
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2. The "Criteria". . .[by the California Curriculum Commission (CCC)
for 2006 science-materials adoptions]. . . . . ignore the substantial
amount of scientific research evidence . . . that "hands-on
guided-inquiry methods" [commonly called "inquiry" or "interactive
engagement" methods] are far more effective than "direct instruction"
for promoting student learning IN CONCEPTUALLY DIFFICULT AREAS [for
reviews see e.g., Hake (2004b); Doss-Hammel (2004); Lowery (2003);
and the literature references in AAAS (1993, 2004), NRC (1996;
1997a,b; 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003), Bransford et al. (1999), and
Donovan et al. (1999).
In Hake (2004b) I wrote: [The CCC] appears to inhabit a "private
universe" [Schneps & Sadler (1985)], seemingly oblivious of the
literature of cognitive science [see, e.g. Bransford et al. (2000)]
and three decades of science-education research showing the
superiority of hands- and minds-on
pedagogy to direct instruction in conceptually difficult areas [see
e.g., Karplus (1974, 1977, 1981); Arons (1960, 1972, 1974, 1983,
1985, 1997, 1998); Shymansky et. al. (1983, 1989, 1990); Halloun &
Hestenes (1985a,b); McDermott & Redish (1999); Hake (1998a,b;
2002a,b); Lopez & Schultz (2001); FOSS (2001); Pelligrino et al.
(2001); Crouch & Mazur (2001); Fagen et al. (2002); Fuller (2002)];
Redish (2003); and Belcher (2003).
Note that none of the above research concerns unguided "discovery
learning". . . [the straw man whose incineration by Klahr and Nigam
(2004) was celebrated at the U.S. Dept. of Education's national
science education "summit"
<http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2004/05/05042004a.html> and]. .
. the evident bugaboo of CCC's Stan Metzenberg and executive
director Thomas Adams (2004). Still other references showing the
superior effectiveness of hands-on guided inquiry methods over direct
instruction are Bredderman (1982, 1983, 1985), Kyle et al. (1988),
Jorgenson & Vanosdall (2002), GLEF (2001), and Anderson (2002).
In addition, the eleven K-12 science-education studies listed in
Table 1 of Lipsey & Wilson (1993) (where the test group is
characterized by reform
methods) yield a total N = 888 students and average effect size <d> =
0.36 [Cohen (1988)]. Most of these studies include grades 4 or 6 to
12 with the effect size control group being traditional direct
instruction and the measurement unit being "achievement" or
"learning" (presumably as measured by tests). Cohen's rule of thumb -
based on typical results in social
science research - that d = 0.2, 0.5, 0.8 imply respectively "small,"
"medium," and "large" effects, but Cohen cautions that the adjectives
"are relative, not only to each other, but to the area of behavioral
science or even more particularly to the specific content and
research method being
employed in any given investigation." My own survey [Hake (1998a,b)]
yielded a much larger effect size of d = 2.43 [Hake (2002a)] and such
large differences in the effectiveness of interactive engagement vs
direct instruction have been corroborated by many other physics
education researchers as discussed in Hake (2002a,b).
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REFERENCES
Bransford, J.D., A.L. Brown, R.R. Cocking, eds. 2000. How people
learn: brain, mind, experience, and school. Nat. Acad. Press; online
at <http://books.nap.edu/books/0309070368/html/index.html>. This is an
update of the earlier 1999 edition.
Carnine, D. 2000. "Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices
(And What It Would Take to Make Education More Like Medicine),"
online as a 52kB pdf at
<http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/global/found.cfm?author=72&keyword=&submit=Search>.
The Fordham Foundation's Chester Finn introduces Carnine's paper by
stating that: "After describing assorted hijinks in math and reading
instruction, Doug devotes considerable space to examining what
educators did with the results of 'Project Follow Through,' one of
the largest education experiments ever undertaken. This study
compared constructivist education models with those based on direct
instruction. One might have expected that, when the results showed
that direct instruction models produced better outcomes, these models
would have been embraced by the profession. Instead, many education
experts discouraged their use."
Hake, R.R. 2004b. "Re: Back to Basics vs. Hands-On Instruction" online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0402&L=pod&P=R11091>. Post
19 Feb 2004 23:59:37-0800 to AERA-K, AP-Physics, Biopi-L, Chemed-L,
FYA-List, Math-Teach, Phys-L, PhysLrnR, Physhare, and POD.
Horton, M. 2004. "Re: Will NCLB Promote Direct Instruction of
Science?" Physhare post of 14 Nov 2004 21:28:10-0800; online at
<http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0411&L=physhare&D=0&X=6269CF7395D33B5AB3&Y=rrhake%40earthlink%2Enet&P=4172>.
The encyclopedic URL indicates that Physhare is one of the few
discussion lists whose archives are closed to non subscribers :-( -
WHY ??. However, it takes only a few minutes to subscribe by
following the simple directions at
<http://lists.psu.edu/archives/physhare.html>/ "Join or leave the
list (or change settings)" where "/" means "click on." If you're
busy, then subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under "Miscellaneous."
Then, as a subscriber, you may access the archives and/or post
messages at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from the list!
Klahr, D. & M. Nigam. 2004. "The equivalence of learning paths in
early science instruction: effects of direct instruction and
discovery learning." In press at Psychological Science; online at
<http://www.psy.cmu.edu/faculty/klahr/papers.html>.