Direct Instruction vs Indirect Instruction

Direct vs Indirect Instruction

When doing our two day lesson plans for our 4th grade class in Bishop Dunn Memorial School we are suppose to focus the first day on direct instruction and the second day on indirect. This means that the first day should be just direct teaching. The teachers should not be asking the students any questions or giving them any hands on activities yet, just an independent practice, but nothing more. This direct instruction means you are teaching, you are giving your students new information and expecting them to listen and focus on the lesson. This first say should be teacher centered, meaning the students aren't doing much work, just listening and taking notes if possible. Direct instruction is straight forward, the teacher is standing at the front and presenting the information. This is a good method to use in the beginning stages of a lesson because its a starting point where the students don't have to worry too much, you are just introducing what you will be working on in the upcoming days.

For the second day of our lesson plans, it should be the opposite, indirect instruction. This method is student based, they are engaging in the conversation, asking questions and doing hands on activities related to the topic. The students are taking the information they learned from the direct instruction and applying it to the activities the teacher has planned. This is where the students have the opportunity to get highly involved in their learning and ask as many questions as possible. This is also the time where the teacher asks the students questions and starts to assess what the students have learned and what you further need to work on and discuss. Indirect instruction takes advantage of the student interests and their curiosity on the topic. Both direct and indirect instruction is very important because all students learn differently. Some will learn better on the first day and some will learn better on the second day. Although, it is important you save time to implement direct instruction into your lessons because you cannot always just jump right into activities and student involvement, first you need to subtly introduce the topic you will be working on to not overwhelm the students.