Direct Instruction post at Fordham

check yourself before you wreck yourself

Fordham draws the familiar analogy between scripting in medicine and scripting in education: do you want your physician to be inventing new concepts in hand-washing on the spot or do you want him to do it the way the Best Practices checklist says to do it?

What often goes unremarked in these discussions is the fact that master teachers and professors often write their own scripts. These scripts will be revised, edited, and polished over the years, but they are scripts nonetheless. Teachers of older students and professors who teach seminars write questions and create discussion structures they repeatedly use. Here, for instance, is a terrific set of videos of a professional development session in which the presenter explains how to write one's own DI questions. Again, these questions and structures are revised, edited, and polished from one semester or school year to the next, but the fact is that superb teachers and professors don't wing it. Nor do they reinvent each course from scratch each year.

Creative people use scripts.

Another point: creativity comes in many forms. There is no reason to assume that a 1st grade teacher following a script could be replaced by a robot following the same script. Here is Ken on the question of scripting: (you may have to hit refresh to bring the page up)

Inevitably, whenever Direct Instruction (DI) is discussed the subject of “scripting” is raised. One frequent objection is that the scripts stifle teacher creativity. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Before we jump in, let’s first look at some sample scripts. Here’s a sample script on Writing Fractions. Here’s one on Subtraction. And, here’s another. (pdf files)

In DI, teachers use pre-designed scripts when teaching. The scripts are based on extensive research regarding student retention, and every aspect of every script is based upon results that were demonstrated through research. The great advantage of this approach is that every teacher using the script becomes the beneficiary of that research and will probably teach much more effectively than if left to her own devices.

DI designers test the programs carefully before publishing them and each DI program is extensively revised based on specific student error data from the field test. Scripting the lessons allows sharing of these “polished stones” across teachers. Also scripting helps reduce the amount of teacher talk. Children learn by working through the sequence of tasks with carefully timed comments from the teacher. Children learn little from straight teacher talk. Too much teacher talk decreases pupil-motivation, draws out the lesson length unnecessarily, and often causes confusion by changing the focus of the tasks, disrupting the development of the larger generalization, of which a teacher the first time through is usually unaware.

Also, without guidance, teachers may use language that students do not understand or that distracts students’ attention from examples. Scripts also allow aides, parents, and other paraprofessionals to assume teaching responsibilities, resulting in increased quality instructional time.

Moreover, even though the DI programs are carefully tested and scripted, successful use of them requires training in the special techniques of delivery. Teachers must make many decisions in response to the children's performance. Some of the most important decisions involve placing each child appropriately and moving the children through the lessons at a pace that maximizes their learning potential.

Lastly, the scripted presentations do not comprise the whole lesson, and the lessons do not comprise the whole school day. There are opportunities for group and independent work. A good DI teacher also creates additional activities that allow students to make use of their learning in various situations. So, there is a great deal of teacher creativity involved in the interpretation and presentation of the script, in attending to the needs and progress of all students and in designing expansion activities.

why is scripting used in Direct Instruction?
big concepts in DI
Explicit Direct Instruction professional development videos (brief - very worthwhile)
Carol Gambill in a nutshell