Reading Reflection 3 / Borich, Chapters 7 and 8
In reading Borich, Chapter 7, Teaching Strategies for Direct Instruction, the most succinct and useful explanation – to me – of a direct instruction presentation I’ve encountered is stated: “…a quickly paced, highly organized set of interchanges that you control, focusing exclusively on acquiring a limited set of predetermined facts, rules, or action sequences (p.223).“ The pacing is further defined by characterizations (p. 225), especially “organization of learning around questions you pose,” and “formal arrangement of the classroom to maximize recitation and practice,” both of which I distinctly recall being used by my own high school teachers.
One other point I never thought much about was that the content divisions in textbooks are created for reading (p. 231), not oral presentation. So that’s why reading the book never seemed to help much when I was absent.
From Chapter 8, Teaching Strategies for Indirect Instruction, one of the central principles of indirect instruction, the use of questions to direct the discovery process (p. 278), seems to require more finesse (and experience) and grasp of the flow of discussion to remain focused. This was another technique I recall from high school, but the application was more subtle.
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