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A recent report from Canada "Which pedagogies are efficient?" by Gauthier C., Mellouki M. & al. is crossing the Ocean and being abundantly debated here in Switzerland and in France. . . . [Philippe Gervaix - Please give a reference - I've been unable to find this report]. . . In this literature survey, they compare different researches that examine the efficiency of different pedagogical methods. Some of their conclusions are based on the Follow Through Project that compared schools that used "curriculum based learning" vs "learner-centered methods": The report concludes that Direct instruction Methods (curriculum based learning) do better than constructivist methods (learner-centered methods).
Can anyone tell me more about the Follow Through Evaluation Project? Who is behind it? How solid are their methods? What exactly do we have to understand by "Direct Instruction" model? How are these questions debated overseas?
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In a recent article "Will the No Child Left Behind Act Promote Direct Instruction of Science?" [Hake, R.R. 2005a] I wrote [bracketed by lines "HHHHH. . . . .":
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There are at least seven reasons why Direct Science Instruction threatens to predominate nationally under the aegis of the No Child Left Behind Act:
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5. DOUGLAS CARNINE IS A MEMBER OF THE TECHNICAL ADVISORY GROUP
<http://www.w-w-c.org/whatwedo/factsheet.pdf> (68kB) FOR THE U.S. Dept. of Education's "WHAT WORKS CLEARINGHOUSE <http://www.w-w-c.org/>.
."
Carnine is perhaps the U.S.'s most prominent advocate of Direct Instruction [see e.g., Carnine (2000)]. Carnine played a leading role in undermining effective math instruction in California [see, e.g., Schoenfeld (2003)], and, I suspect, is now poised to attempt the same on a national scale for the 3 R's and for science instruction.
The Fordham Foundation's Chester Finn introduces Carnine's (2000) paper "Why
Education Experts Resist Effective Practices (And What It Would Take to Make
Education More Like Medicine)," by eulogizing: "After describing assorted
hijinks in math and reading instruction, Doug devotes considerable space to examining what educators did with the results of 'Project Follow Through,' one of the largest education experiments ever undertaken. This study compared constructivist education models with those based on direct instruction. One might have expected that, when the results showed that direct instruction models produced better outcomes, these models would have been embraced by the profession. Instead, many education experts discouraged their use."
But according to Lagemann (2000), the results of Project Follow Through were
inconclusive. She writes: "Some experiments ended inconclusively. One of these was the 'planned variation' strategy used in implementing Project Follow Through in the late 1960s . . . . as education researcher David K. Cohen . . . [1970]. . . concluded, all the Follow Through experiment really demonstrated was that power in education was so decentralized that the controls necessary for experimentation were virtually impossible
to maintain."
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University 24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake> <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>
REFERENCES
Carnine, D. 2000. "Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices (And What It Would Take to Make Education More Like Medicine)," online as a 52kB pdf at
<http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/global/found.cfm?author=72&keyword=&submit=Search>.
Cohen, D.K. 1970. "Politics and Research: Evaluation of Social Action Programs in Education," Review of Educational Research 40: 231.
Gervaix, P. "Efficient teaching methods," TIPS post of 8 Mar 2005 00:17:50 +0100; online at
<http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?sub=342238&id=271314171. [TIPS =
Teaching in the Psychological Sciences, with archives at <http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english>]
Hake, R.R. 2005a. "Will the No Child Left Behind Act Promote Direct Instruction of Science?" Am. Phys. Soc. 50: 851 (2005); APS March Meeting, Los Angles, CA. 21-25 March; online as ref. 36 at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>, or download directly by clicking on <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/WillNCLBPromoteDSI-3.pdf> (256 kB). For excerpts see Hake (2005b).
Hake, R.R. 2005b. "Seven Reasons Why The NCLB Might Promote Direct Instruction of Science in the U.S. and One Reason Why It Might Not," online at <http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0504&L=phys-l&F=&S=&P=1107>. Post of 4 Apr 2005 15:03:45-0700 to AERA-C, AERA-D, AERA-G, AERA-H, AERA-J, AERA-K, AERA-L, AP-Physics, ASSESS, Biopi-L, Chemed-L, EvalTalk, Math-Learn, Phys-L, Physhare, POD, and STLHE-L.
Lagemann, E.C. 2000. An Elusive Science: The troubling history of education research. Univ. of Chicago Press.
Schoenfeld, A.H. 2003. "Math Wars," ["almost final draft of 5 August 2003"] to appear in 2004 Politics of Education Yearbook, edited by B.C. Johnson and W.L. Boyd; online as a 76 kB pdf at
<http://gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/AHSchoenfeld/AHSchoenfeld.html>, along with some other worthwhile papers, or access directly by clicking on
<http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/aschoenfeld/Math_Wars.pdf> (76 kB).
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