Week 9

Annotated Article: Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constrctivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching

The Kirschner, Sweller, Clark article (that for simplicity, I will call the Kerschner article) describes the problems with minimal guidance during activity-based student practice. In short, the authors claim that without some direct instruction, scaffolding, and guidance along the way, students would not be able to commit their understanding into long term memory, which is one way to think about learning. It’s an interesting concept that reminds me of a neighbour who often reminded me that I had an easy job, got out of work at 3:00 and enjoyed extended holidays on top of two months off over the summer. Then her daughter Tara became a teacher. What she learned very quickly was that her daughter arrived at the school early and stayed late. She worked weekends and on her other days off. In July, Tara took Additional Qualification courses that she paid for herself, and then spent evenings and weekends studying and writing papers for them. By mid-August, Tara was back at the school setting up her classroom. Whatever was she doing during all those extra hours? Like the rest of the teachers, she was learning about, acquiring (at her own cost), and preparing the materials and space that her students would need, including writing detailed lessons of instruction, preparing guidance for the high and low kids, and developing ideas for scaffolding. It’s hard to know the educational background of Kirschner et al. and their experiences as learners. We do know that the article was written in 2006 when pedagogy and andragogy were at a state where the authors should have known these things are necessary, at a minimum, to ensure student success.

Annotated Article: Scaffolding and Achievement in Problem-Based and Inquiry Learning: A Response to Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark

The Kirschner article is refuted a year later by Hmelo-Silver, Golan Duncan, and Chinn in their article (that I will refer to as the Hmelo-Silver article). They discuss the empirical and extensive evidence that shows there is a need for direct instruction, scaffolding, and guidance. In the annotations I made in the articles, I point out that the two arguments appear to be an argument of academia. Teachers know that direct instruction is required to ensure that students learn what they need to know. Teachers understand the critical nature of scaffolding and the importance of mini lessons to guide the many levels of students in their rooms. Teaching is not like the infinite monkey theorem that, with infinity, probability, and time (mathematical concepts), presents the idea that a given text will be produced. This leaves us with an infinite number of teachers doing exactly what Tara does.