by Jarred James Breaux

Created on: August 16, 2009   Last Updated: August 18, 2009

The direct instructional approach is a teacher-centered instruction method that is directed and controlled by the teacher. Teachers require mastery of certain academic skills, high expectations for students, and place time constraints on learning the material.

My favorite high school teacher, Mrs. Hardy, used direct instruction when teaching. She stood in front of the class and lectured the entire time. She used an overhead projector to project pages of notes that we had to copy and memorize for the test.

A cognitive constructivist approach requires a student to be actively engaged in the learning process. The teacher is not the director of instruction but rather a facilitator of instruction.

Mrs. Tabb, my chemistry teacher in high school, would require us to outline lessons and search the text for information before she would introduce the topics in class. She would also have us perform a lot of experiments, more so than any other teacher. She also would take us out of the classroom and have us find things on our own made of certain minerals. Her class was a lot of work but I remember more information from her class because I experienced most of it first hand.

The social constructivists approach to education focuses on collaboration between peers to spread knowledge and obtain understanding. Students work in groups and discuss amongst themselves the ideas put forth by the teacher.

Mr. Leeson used a lot of group work in his physics class. While we did do many equations from the board, he would have us work together to build projects that we would then use to apply the equations to. He would have members from different groups exchange seats and inform others on what their groups did. He would also pair students and have them come up with their own problems in class to be worked on the board.

I am currently teaching social studies at a middle school. I use direct instruction because it is the method of instruction I am most familiar with when it comes to social studies. Throughout school, my history teachers always stood in front class and dictated notes for us to copy and use. Since this is my first year, I tried to include cooperative learning and other activities with my students instead of just note-taking; however, I found that my students understood chronological order of events better when it was just spelled out to them instead of having them look up dates. Recently I used cooperative learning groups to have students develop hypothesis based on what if situations in American history. So basically, I used direct instruction most of the time, but I do utilize cooperative learning groups as well as other differentiated instruction techniques to reach all my students.

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