8 Direct Discovery
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Direct Instruction vs. Discovery Learning
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Learning Targets
The reader will…
•be able to identify the differences between discovery and direct learning and where each style stems from.
•be able to explain methods of teaching for both instruction types.
•be able to discuss the debate of which learning style is most efficient, and what educators and scholars think about each.
Introduction
Mrs. Smith escorts the students, in her kindergarten classroom, outside to the playground. She asks her students to take off their shoes; she wanted them to feel the grass between their toes, to walk on the rocks and cement, and all the things that had different textures. They spent a little time while outside, just taking in the air and observing things around them. Then she asked them to put their shoes back on and follow her in a line back into the building. On the way back into the school, Mrs. Smith asked her students questions like, “What do you see as we walk down the hall?” “What does it smell like?” “Do you hear anything?” When all of the students returned to their desks, their teacher continued asking questions for the students to brainstorm. She asked them “What color was the fence?” “Did they see any people?” Then she asked her students “what parts of your bodies did you use to get all of this information?”
Across the hall, another kindergarten teacher starts her class; she takes out a folder full of worksheets and distributes them around the classroom; on each worksheet are five square boxes, and in each square is a picture. One picture was a hand, representing touch; a nose was in another box, representing smell. The students study each box, trying to better understand what their teacher was going to teach them today. The teacher takes out some markers and begins to write and draw on the board; she explains to her students what each of the five senses is, and she has them write the words in the correct boxes as she writes them on the board. She explains in detail everything she can possibly think of that her students would need to know about the five senses, including what body parts each sense works with, what smells and tastes one may discover, and even ways some people do not have all of their senses. The teacher talks and explains as her students listen, draw and write the things she puts on the board.
Both of these teachers have taught their students the same information today, however, they each used a different method of teaching to do so. Teacher one, who took her students on a field trip, was performing discovery learning through exploration; whereas, the teacher across the hall was implementing direct instruction.
What is Direct Instruction?
Direct Instruction can also be referred to as explicit teaching; it occurs when educators teach using lectures, presentations and text books to demonstrate a lesson to their students. This type of teaching is the most common way of instruction, and includes direction by the teacher