Constructivism and Direct Instruction as Competing Instructional Paradigms

Constructivism and Direct Instruction as Competing Instructional Paradigms: An Essay Review of Tobias and Duffy's Constructivist Instruction: Success or Failure?

One of my publications is the essay review:

Contents

The Agenda of Tobias and Duffy
Constructivism and False Dichotomies
Considering Educational Issues in Paradigmatic Terms
The Debate about Instructional Approaches
The Nature of Educational Science
Two Contrasting Educational Research Paradigms
Facets of Constructivism
Constructivist Research Perspectives
Constructivism as Learning Theory
Constructivism as the Basis of Instructional Theory
Learning about Paris
Views from within the Paradigms
The Notion of Minimally Guided Instruction
Arguments for Teaching Through Direct Instruction
The Question of Transfer
Understanding the Nature and Role of Long-Term Memory In Learning
Not Really Like Cloning; A Bit Like Sex; But More Like Eating: Constructing The Right Metaphor For Learning, To Inform Instruction
Stepping Outside the Cognitive Domain
Testing Instructional Effectiveness
Moving Beyond The Paradigm Wars To Design Effective Pedagogy
Reading Between the Lines
Selecting the Best Forms of Guidance for Intelligent Instruction

Table 1: How constructivist teaching is perceived from two distinct perspectives

Viewed from the Direct Instruction paradigm	As understood from within the constructivist paradigm
Vague learning goals	Teaching encompasses wider aims than very specific learning objectives, including transferable skills; some of the most valuable learning aims do not reduce to objectively testable elements
Unstructured lessons	Effective teaching is an interactive and dialogic process that builds upon students’ thinking, and so lesson plans have to include some flexibility
Open ended student activity	Learning of complex material, especially in less well structured domains, is supported by time spent exploring the ‘problem space’; allowing students to use and develop their imagination and creativity is an important aim of education
Minimal input from teachers	Teaching involves supporting students’ learning using a wide variety of strategies and tactics, including setting suitable problems, organising group work, providing learning resources, helping students make explicit and reflect on their current understanding etc, as well as being a direct source of information
Acceptance that each learner will come to their own unique take on the topic (which may not match canonical knowledge)	Research shows (a) that students will inevitably start from different sets of prior relevant knowledge, will therefore interpret teaching differently, and so will come to somewhat unique final knowledge states; and also (b) that significant conceptual change is often only achieved over extended periods (even if the final shift may appear to be sudden): given this, expecting students to acquire copies of the teacher’s or target knowledge is unrealistic, and the teacher’s role is to help channel developing thinking towards canonical knowledge: accepting that what can be considered a productive learning trajectory, and a what should be judged an acceptable ‘good enough’ current understanding at the end of a unit of teaching, will vary from student to student.

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