Those SRA reading instruction boxes were not Direct Instruction. I hear about those things all the time - my ex-husband learned that way, too. Sig Engelmann is behind Direct Instruction. I think that at some point things will merge, morph, combine. What will emerge is not something I've probably ever seen before or could dream of. It will be field tested and our little Sugar interface (thru somethink like Journal) will collect data so that the instruction can be improved - even if it is a game. [Goodness, if only Pajama Sam & Freddie Fish could be more educational (I love those games!).] I'm hoping that we can also, at some point, look at current proprietary content and morph several pieces of content into a public domain like situation. This knowledge (preschool through, say, 6th or 8th grade) is not rocket science here. It really feels like we are inventing the wheel, fire, forks, and everything else again and again and again. You should see some of these teachers putting together their science curriculum. A little from here. A little from there. The time they put in is, honestly, a waste. No wonder they get burned out. And what they put together? Certainly not field tested. 1. We could support proprietry content at some point. *I wish it were free already.
2. Martin pointed out to me that a number of countries have noticed that in the end the government ends up paying for all the content one way or another and they are exploring paying directly for writing the content and free licences. *Sadly, the grip that the textbook industrial complex has on the US - I wonder if we'll ever participate. 3. Improved authoring tools and other automation tools might reduce the level of effort required to create this content. *Yes, this will be key. I really liked some of the ideas that Albert Cahalan put forth - even if I didn't fully understand them. I'd love to hear more of his ideas (hint, hint, prod, prod, wink, wink). -Kathy _____ From: iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org [mailto:iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Caroline Meeks Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 7:10 PM To: Kathy Pusztavari Cc: iaep Subject: Re: [IAEP] versus, not On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Kathy Pusztavari <ka...@kathyandcalvin.com> wrote: Bill, there is a difference between direct instruction and Direct Instruction. The latter (big D big I) is usually based on SRA's products and outlined in the Direct Instruction Rubric. Direct instruction (little d little i) is usually a general set of guidelines teachers use to directly instruction - to be a sage on the stage, to teach directly, to teach first then... I am only frustrated by SRA themselves. The products are great and would be extremely useful in teaching but they have a copyright stranglehold. If only I was an attorney and knew how to legally get around that.... Or if I could find the millions (billions?) to buy it for public domain use. I'm telling you, people would have a fountain of curriculum they could use, morph, etc. Kathy, I know SRA is calling this Direct Instruction, but I wonder if we should be. When I think of direct instruction, I think of the teacher standing in front of the class explaining, which by the way, I think is sometimes appropriate. However, when I read SRA;s materials, and certainly my memory of using SRA, involve a lot of time on structured tasks and relatively little time with the teacher directly instructing. Your experience is way more recent, what do you find? I actually remember SRA fondly from my own 2nd grade experience. We had boxes of SRA material, all leveled and you worked through the levels at your own pace. Because of the way they step up the difficulty and the fact I could set my own pace I think I had good "flow" experiences with the program. I think it was a good match for my learning style. I was reminded of that experience when I tried out a cognative tutor program in one of my classes. Cognative tutors are programs that take kids through lots of problems, measuring mastery and giving hints as requested. This is a comercial product example of this sort of program: http://www.carnegielearning.com/ I agree with the big tent. We need to teach lots of different people, with lots of different learning styles, lots of different things. I think well thought out programs that step you through learning with early and often error correction can be effective. Right now the level of skilled and unified effort to create this sort of content and out economic structures have resulted in this type of content, both on paper and in terms of computer programs, being proprietary. I don't think that means we should dismiss this for Sugar in the longer term. 1. We could support proprietry content at some point. 2. Martin pointed out to me that a number of countries have noticed that in the end the government ends up paying for all the content one way or another and they are exploring paying directly for writing the content and free licences. 3. Improved authoring tools and other automation tools might reduce the level of effort required to create this content. -Caroline -Kathy _____ From: iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org [mailto:iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Bill Kerr Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 9:47 PM To: Kathy Pusztavari Cc: iaep Subject: Re: [IAEP] versus, not Kathy, I haven't read the books you cite but I do as a teacher frequently use direct instruction. That was strongly implied in my initial post. Nevertheless, I'm sure I could do it better. When I read your response my first thought was that you had not read my post carefully. btw this discussion does mirror an earlier one b/w Patrick Suppes and Seymour Papert - well covered in Papert's 'The Childrens Machine' and Cynthia Solomon's 'Computer Environments for Children' Both Suppes and Papert argued that computers could improve education but in different ways. Cynthia Solomon found that there was a greater need for direct instruction approaches in disadvantaged areas. But that did not make her a DI only advocate. My own experience in teaching in disadvantaged schools for the past dozen years is consistent with that. On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:13 AM, Kathy Pusztavari <ka...@kathyandcalvin.com> wrote: "eg. I would see direct instruction as a must for autistic children but don't see that it follows as a general model for all education " The problem is that at least 20% of our kids in the US qualify as either special ed or learning disabled in some form. So you would be leaving out about 20% of the population (especially when teaching reading and math). Math can be improved greatly through Direct Instruction. If you have not taught Connecting Math Concepts and other non-DI curriculum, I would like to know why you would say such a thing. DI would make most, if not all kids LIKE math at the early levels (Kindergarten - 8th grade). It makes them succeed because it is mastery based. If you want to see brilliant curriculum development, you should look at SRA DISTAR I & II, Connecting Math Concepts (A-F) and Essentials for Algebra. -Kathy _____ From: iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org [mailto:iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Bill Kerr Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 5:21 PM To: Walter Bender Cc: iaep; Sugar-dev Devel; community-n...@lists.sugarlabs.org Subject: [IAEP] versus, not On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:43 AM, Walter Bender <walter.ben...@gmail.com> wrote: ===Sugar Digest=== I encourage you to join two threads on the Education List this week: http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005382.html, which has boiled down to an instruction vs construction debate; and http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005342.html, which has boiled down to a debate of catering to local culture vs the Enlightenment. I encourage you to join these discussions. Agree that these are important discussions Need to be careful about the use of the versus depiction of these discussions IMO, this tempting shorthand can create the wrong impression eg. I would see direct instruction as a must for autistic children but don't see that it follows as a general model for all education (special needs are special) or that we should even think it is possible to have a correct general model. I don't think there is one and good teachers swap between multiple models all the time. no one on this list has argued overtly against "the enlightenment" or that local culture ought not to be taken into account, eg. Ties said "think practical", the response was of the nature that our context demands we do <a certain course of action> however, I do think the roll back of enlightenment principles is not well understood (http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/nonUniversals) and that a better understanding might persuade more people of the need to keep searching and struggling for different ways to go against some of the tide of local culture - there is a recent interesting comment thread on mark guzdial's blog which is worth reading from this point of view http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3F4TMBURELZZK _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove carol...@solutiongrove.com 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax
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