- Title: Theory of Instruction: Principles and Applications
- Authors: Doug Carnin and Siegfried Engelmann
- Access the original paper here
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Paper summary
This document presents a theory of instruction, contrasting it with theories of learning. It focuses on direct instruction principles, emphasizing clear communication and systematic design for diverse learners. The text explores various communication structures, including basic concepts, complex forms, and cognitive routines, and how to build those communications to enhance learner understanding. It outlines methods to organize knowledge, teach physical operations, and address learning failures through specific instructional remedies. The document also provides guidance on constructing effective examples, sequencing content, and incorporating expansion activities to promote generalization. Finally, it addresses complex topics like multi-skill chains and troubleshooting established learning problems, grounding those techniques in existing research.
What are the key implications for teachers in the classroom?
Based on the source, “Theory of Instruction,” there are several key implications for teachers in the classroom:
Teachers need to analyze programs for teaching main ideas to make sure that the logic of communications is present, for example, that there are enough examples and that corrections are specified.
Instruction is essential for driving standards, curriculum, and assessment. It provides evidence of what can be achieved in altering student performance and serves as the foundation for standards, curricula, and testing.
Teaching involves transmitting new skills and knowledge specified in the curriculum. The teacher’s presentation should align with the curriculum, and student performance is the measure of its adequacy.
Teachers should relate teaching to standards, curriculum, and testing in a rational system.
Teachers should consider how to communicate any concept within a given category, even with less specific guidelines for complex forms.
Teachers need to understand how to create sameness between the rehearsal and transfer situations to induce transfer of an expanded chain to a different situation. This can be achieved by showing learners that some feature in the transfer situation is also in the rehearsal situation, triggering the same behavior in both.
Teachers should use models for establishing divergent responses. The sameness is that the students are going to behave like a particular person.
Teachers should consider a number of factors in implementation: a standard, teacher behavior that can be compared to the standard, and expected student outcomes. The standard should specify teacher and student behaviors.
Teachers should focus on failures, not on successes, and the information must permit investigation of the cause of the failure.
Teachers should remember that training is necessary for good implementation. Effective training is possible only if the instructional programs used by the teachers are standardized across all teachers.
Teachers should be aware of the potential for misrules and the importance of creating appropriate juxtapositions for firming responses.
Teachers must understand that instruction is manipulation and occurs through communications, whether designed by intent or by accident. The teacher is responsible for achieving student outcomes.
Teachers should facilitate learning, design the program, work out a reasonable daily schedule, and leave nothing to chance. They should monitor and respond quickly to problems.
Teachers should implement quality-control measures: identify failures that may not be obvious to the monitors.
Teachers can use microcomputer technology to achieve greater standardization, eliminate teacher-presentation problems, and provide a better medium than the printed page.
Teachers in tryouts of programs will provide information about the weaknesses in the program.
Teachers need to have training in the specific behaviors called for by tasks. The teacher’s presentation of potentially troublesome tasks should be monitored in the classroom.
Teachers should know that when a program is standardized, the trainer has pre-knowledge of tasks in the program that are typically failed by teachers.
Teachers must follow the program and if the students have trouble with specific items, the program is faulty and must be changed.
Teachers must not help students when they are working independently, or their worksheet performance does not reveal performance problems.
Quote
Instruction is at the heart of education, and Theory of Instruction is the first true theory that cuts to the heart of instruction
