This article on the effects of the COVID lockdowns contains quotes from teacher surveys. One in particular, caught my attention:
“COVID greatly impacted students in terms of academic growth and we cannot continue teaching the way we taught before COVID,” one teacher commented. “Yes, it is critically important to teach to the standards. But we also need to reflect on what changes, accommodations we need to make to make sure that ALL students succeed and the achievement gap doesn't widen any more than it already has.”
If this means what I think it means, approaches like Problem- and inquiry-based learning, collaboration and group work, and the high-minded “understanding uber alles” approach to math will necessarily have to give way to traditional methods. Articles on education in the last year or so increasingly refer to “explicit instruction”, which was once derided and mischaracterized as rote memorization without understanding.
And with the acquiescence to more traditional modes of math teaching comes the inevitable tacking on of explicit instruction and worked examples to inquiry-based approaches. Old habits die hard, but eventually I’m hoping it swings over to more sensible teaching methods and the reformers can say “We’ve always done it this way” as much as they damned well want.
We've Always Been at War with EastAsia, Dept.
Generally 80 % explicit and 20% other methods. This was discussed in an article by Anna Stokke as a rule of thumb: https://www.cdhowe.org/sites/default/files/attachments/research_papers/mixed/commentary_427.pdf
Thank you for answering my question the other day and for the link to an earlier article on making a fetish of understanding, which I enjoyed reading. If direct or explicit instruction should be the primary modality for introducing concepts, over the course of the year, what percentage of time would ideally be dedicated to direct instruction? For the sake of argument, let's assume it's an Algebra I course. If we had to allocate time between direct instruction, individual in-class practice, collaborative work, non-graded (formative) assessments, graded (summative) assessments, other group work, thinking routines, metacognitive or self-reflection exercises, etc., what would the distribution of time look like? Would it be direct instruction all the time? In other words, in a traditional math classroom is there any place for other methods even if the dominant teaching modality is direct instruction? (FYI, I don't treat "direct instruction" and "lecturing" as synonymous but rather am using "direct instruction" to mean that the teacher demonstrates the concepts and procedures for students rather than a constructivist approach that starts by asking students to figure it out on their own).