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Zig Engelmann, progenitor of Direct Instruction (DI), has posted a video of a talk he gave earlier this month. The presentation is an explication of the underlying principles of DI, “Theory of Direct Instruction.”
In the presentation (video below the jump), Mr. Engelmann shows some of his chops from his undergraduate degree in philosophy. He starts with philosophers’ fundamental arguments and shows how those correspond (or don’t) with learning and teaching concepts. For example, as he works through John Stuart Mills’ five methods of induction from A System of Logic, he makes clear how each would apply to teaching. I suspect that this particular sequence will show many people why DI instruction (the examples used in the scripts, not the teaching behavior) is structured the way it is.
Continue reading ‘Engelmann explains’

Image of CMU home page
Over on LD Blog I posted an entry a couple of months ago about a study showing changes in brain function as a result of instruction. I’m noting it here because Carnegie Mellon University featured the study on its home page. The story is that Ann Meyers and her colleagues reported another study documenting how reading instruction affects learners’ brains. In this case, the research involved 100 hours of remedial instruction and the outcomes were improved comprehension.
Link to the entry on LD Blog. Link to the CMU Web page, part of which is pictured above. Link to the press release about the study.
Meyler, A., Keller, T. A., Cherkassky, V. L., & Just, M. A. (2008). Modifying the brain activation of poor readers during sentence comprehension with extended remedial instruction: A longitudinal study of neuroplasticity. Neuropsychologia, 46, 2580-2592.
Dan Willingham has posted a revised version of his brief video explaining the relationship between research on brain functioning and education. I referred both faithful readers of Teach Effectively to the original video in this earlier post and I’ve now updated that post with a link to the new video (a link to the old one’s still there, too).
Published in Administration,
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Content learning,
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News,
Policy,
Reading,
Research,
Spelling,
Teacher education,
Technology,
The press and
Written Expression .
My colleague Dan Willingham has posted a marvelous video that’s an introduction to thinking about neuroscience and education. Under the title “Brain-based Education: Fad or Breakthrough,” he illustrates important elements about what are reasoned extrapolations from cognitive neuroscience to education and what are not.
Update (18 May 2008): It’s heartening to see that other sites are pointing to Dan’s video. Here’s a preliminary list (please add others via the comments):
Update (7 June 2008): A couple of days ago, Dan posted a new version of the video; I’ve modified the links in the box accordingly.
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