What's the Meaning of "Direct Instruction"?

Some subscribers to Math-Teach might be interested in a recent discussion-list post "What's the Meaning of 'Direct Instruction" (aka "The Effective But Forgotten Benezet Method of K-8 Education - Response to Camp").

ABSTRACT: In my post "The Effective But Forgotten Benezet Method of K-8 Education"[Hake (2012a) at <http://bit.ly/SbTiWD>, I listed as one of the reasons that the Benezet Method <http://bit.ly/926tiM> is virtually forgotten is "the opposition of those who favor 'direct instruction' (i.e., 'drill and practice') in the early grades."

Camp evidently thinks "direct instruction" has some commonly accepted meaning. But had Camp bothered to scan my *complete* 21 kB post at <http://bit.ly/SbTiWD>, he might have noticed my emphasis on the ambiguity of that term and my guess as to its operational meaning to those who oppose the Benezet Method. Therein I wrote:

"The ambiguous phrase 'direct instruction' is used [here] in the 'Mathematically Correct' <http://bit.ly/beOVtu> sense discussed in 'Language Ambiguities in Education Research' (Hake, 2008) at <http://bit.ly/bHTebD>: " 'DRILL AND PRACTICE,' 'non-hands-on,' 'teach 'em the facts' (Metzenberg, 1998) at <http://bit.ly/9rGbSj> (scroll down to just above "AAAS Benchmarks for Science Literacy"), and 'non-discovery-learning,' where 'discovery learning' means setting students adrift either in aimless play or ostensibly to discover on their own, say, Archimedes' principle or Newton's Second Law."

In "Language Ambiguities in Education Research" I indicate my guesses as to what the following groups have meant by "direct instruction": (a) Mathematically Correct, (b) physics education researchers, (c) Klahr & Nigam (2004) in "The equivalence of learning paths in early science instruction: effects of direct instruction and discovery learning" <http://bit.ly/9jzh39> (the CMU server was down on 04 Sept 2012 but will probably recover), and (d) Association Of Direct Instruction <http://www.adihome.org/>.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
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"When we say force is the cause of motion we talk metaphysics, and this definition, if we were content with it, would be absolutely sterile. For a definition to be of any use, it must teach us to *measure* force; moreover, that suffices; it is not at all necessary that it teach us what force is *in itself*, nor whether it is the cause or the effect of motion."

Hake, R.R. 2012a. "The Effective But Forgotten Benezet Method of K-8 Education," online on the OPEN AERA-L archives at <http://bit.ly/SbTiWD>. Post of 02 Sep 2012 15:28:15-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists and are also on my blog "HakesEdStuff" at <http://bit.ly/ORLO6e> with a provision for comments.

Hake, R.R. 2012b. "What's the Meaning of 'Direct Instruction" (aka "The Effective But Forgotten Benezet Method of K-8 Education - Response to Camp") online on the OPEN AERA-L archives a archives at <http://bit.ly/PWS8aj>. Post of 3 Sep 2012 13:20:41-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists and are also on my blog "HakesEdStuff" at <http://bit.ly/OIVVtI> with a provision for comments.

Poincare, H. 1905. "Science and Hypothesis," Walter Scott Publishing; online at <http://bit.ly/9hVfA8> thanks to the Mead Project. A Wikipedia entry on Poincare is at <http://bit.ly/b4jGVS>.