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Watch as this teacher does a first grade inquiry science lesson about air.

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Students in first-grade are struggling to meet the demands of the Next Generation Science Standards solely through direct instruction. Direct-instrction combined with inquiry-based instruction should help students meet the rigorous demands and foster an independent learning style which is becoming more predominant in today's classrooms.

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Students will best meet the Next Generation Science Standards when direct instruction and inquiry-based instruction are combined.

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Great article that answers many frequently asked questions about inquiry in science.

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Formative assessment is ongoing and helps inform teachers of students' process and acquisition of understanding. Formative assessment holds students accountable through the learning process. As you facilitate learning, you monitor the progress of the learner. Learning and assessing learning outcomes go hand-in-hand.

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This article gives some insight to the pros and cons of the direct instruction method of teaching.

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Although direct teaching is one of the most widely used teaching strategies, it has been criticized as ineffective and scorned as the teaching method chosen by teachers who are not prepared. However, I consider direct teaching a powerful teaching strategy that needs good preparation.

Brief History & Background

As a method of instruction in the classroom, direct teaching or direct instruction is probably the one that has the fewest flashes and sparkles. The students are not divided into groups. There are no experiments. And there is very little drama and student participation involved. But the effectiveness of direct teaching is evident. This is why the program called DISTAR or Direct Instruction System for Teaching Arithmetic and Reading was implemented by the US government for nearly three decades.

Direct instruction or direct teaching was first developed by Siegfried Engelmann and Wesley C. Becker. The purpose of the teaching method was to help the disadvantaged public schools. Then, direct teaching was espoused by Madeline Cheek Hunter, an American educator who created the Instructional Theory into Practice. It is a teaching model that is based on seven components of teaching, seven components of instruction, and seven components of behavioral objectives.

With its structure, direct teaching is considered one of the most powerful teaching methods. The procedure is systematic and grounded on sound teaching and learning principles. But direct teaching also has its disadvantages. There are situations that can make direct teaching ineffective.

The Disadvantages

The structure of direct teaching can be rigid enough to hinder the creativity of the teacher. There is very little room to improvise because this method follows a step-by-step procedure. The procedure usually starts with an introduction, followed by the rationale for the instruction, then by the instruction itself. The procedure ends with a summary and then followed by an assessment.

Direct teaching, if utilized by unprepared teachers, can be disastrous. For direct teaching or instruction to be effective, the teacher must have a mastery of the subject matter, must prepare a well-organized content, and must have excellent communication skills. Without these traits, a teacher could not effectively carry out direct teaching or direct instruction, nor could they develop higher order thinking skills in the students.

The Advantages

Direct teaching is best for learning specific concepts or skills. The specificity of the objectives or learning targets also makes it easier for teachers to create assessment tests of high validity and high reliability. Students, for their part, do not suffer much confusion in determining which part of the lesson is important and which part is not.

However, to take advantage of these benefits, the teacher must ensure that the contents of instruction are logically organized. The teacher must also ensure that the students already possess the prerequisite knowledge.

What is your opinion on direct teaching?

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advantages and disadvantages of using direct teaching or direct instruction in classroom instruction

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Some Advantages & Disadvantages of Direct Teaching

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Although direct teaching is one of the most widely used teaching strategies, it has been criticized as ineffective and scorned as the teaching method chosen by teachers who are not prepared. However, I consider direct teaching a powerful teaching strategy that needs good preparation.

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Direct Instruction is teacher centered while Inquiry-based teaching is mainly student led.

The role of the teacher during direct instruction is to provide students with the content specific information they are to know and follows the I do, we do, you do model.

The role of the teacher during inquiry-based instruction is to act as a facilitator; guiding students to ask questions/discover the information on their own.

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"Teaching Science is not about preparing students for a world that is static and fixed, but it concerns getting students ready to cope with changes and challenges in their lives" (Shamsudin, Abdullah, & Yaamat, 2013).

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Previously Science standards were centered around three disciplines:

1. Life Science

2. Physical Science

3. Earth Science

"NGSS adds engineering, technology, and applications of science" (Fink, 2018).

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PROS:
*students are directly told what information they are responsible for knowing
*"It maximizes effectiveness of the limited time you have with your students" (McGraw-Hill, 2016).
*appropriate for students with diverse learning needs

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CONS:

*students move at same rate/little room for differentiation
*teacher must have mastery of content knowledge
*limits students ability to use critical thinking skills

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1. Engage
2. Explore
3. Explain
4. Elaborate
5. Evaluate

This model allows students to gain an understanding of content through engagement and exploration. Often they discover the big idea before it is even presented to them.

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It is important to avoid front-loading and to instead allow students to develop an understanding through engagement and exploration. These experiences allow students to understand the concept, even define it, before a term is presented. This gives the students the opportunity to “discover” the co…

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"Learning by doing is at the heart of the new standards" (Fink, 2018).

If we strictly remain teaching science the way we've always taught, which is mainly through direct instruction & teacher facilitated experiments, then our students will be missing out on the very essence of the Next Generation Science Standards.

"Instead of stating what students should know, the Next Generation Science Standards state what students should be able to do" (Fink, 2018).

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One day last spring, a student in Allison Hogan's K-1 transition class at the Episcopal School of Dallas came in from recess and asked, "Why do birds have different beaks?" Hogan simply could have answered in a couple of short sentences. But instead, she engaged her class in a discussion about their observations of birds.

Soon after, her students were engrossed in an investigation of the question at hand. Hogan challenged them to think of everyday objects they could use to re-create birds' beaks. One student suggested tongue depressors; the class eventually settled on long cotton swabs from the nurse's office. The students broke the swabs into various lengths, secured them into "beak" form with adhesive tape and rubber bands, and then used the "beaks" to try to pick up different objects. The students eventually concluded that "birds have different beaks to eat different things," Hogan says.

This kind of science lesson wasn't the approach Hogan might have taken in the past, but she had been studying the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which strongly encourage observation and model making.

At first, says Hogan, "a lot of students 'failed'-their initial design didn't work. But they were resilient. When something didn't work, they reformulated their initial idea."

That, supporters say, is the whole point of the Next Generation Science Standards. Developed by science education groups, including the National Science Teachers Association, researchers, and individual science teachers, NGSS is the first major revision of school science standards in more than 15 years. Learning by doing is at the heart of the new standards.

"Science is really about taking an active role in the practices of science-engaging in arguments based on evidence, analyzing and interpreting data, obtaining and communicating information, asking questions, and developing and using models," says Kenneth Huff, a sixth-grade science teacher at Williamsville Central School District in New York and a member of the NGSS writing team.

Eight states (Rhode Island, Kentucky, California, Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, Vermont, and Washington) plus the District of Columbia have already adopted NGSS; more states are expected to follow.

Here's a look at some of the major changes under NGSS, as well as some ideas that may inspire you to tweak your science lessons.

Major Shift #1:

Emphasis on Scientific Practice
Instead of stating what students should know, the Next Generation Science Standards state what students should be able to do.

Under NGSS, "to demonstrate what they know, students will have to do something," says Rita Januszyk, an NGSS standards writer and a fourth-grade teacher at Gower District 62 in Willowbrook, Illinois. "They have to investigate. They have to ask questions. They have to construct explanations, develop a model, or argue with evidence."

That will mean a shift from teacher-centered learning to student-oriented learning.

"The role of the teacher is going to be a little different," says Donna Webb, an independent curriculum writer and a Ph.D. student in education at Portland State University in Oregon. "The teacher will no longer be the container of information who spreads information to students. The students will take on a more active role in their learning."

Huff offers his SSSNOW project (Students Synthesizing Snow data in Natural Objective Ways) with his middle school students as an example of student- and practice-oriented science education. "Traditionally, when students study weather, their study is limited to the collection of data one would see in a weather report," Huff says. "The SSSNOW project involves the collection and synthesis of authentic winter data."

"Students begin with a question and work like scientists," he explains. "They investigate questions such as how snow crystals change over time while they're on the ground, and they actually go out to the school courtyard, take measurements, and analyze and interpret the data."

Major Shift #2:

Emphasis on Engineering
Previous science standards centered around three disciplines: life, physical, and earth science. NGSS adds engineering, technology, and applications of science.

Some teachers are intimidated by the idea of teaching "engineering," but you may find that you're already using engineering practices in your classroom. "When you build a model, you're problem solving. You're trying to figure out which materials work best for the model," says Carolyn Higgins, a science teacher at Winman Junior High School in Warwick, Rhode Island, who recently challenged her students to build a model of the human respiratory system.

Engineering is all about application, experimentation, and learning to work within constraints. "As students build things, they see the limitations of their designs," Huff explains. "Then they have to ask, What can I do to make this better? How can I optimize my design so that it fulfills the task
or challenge?"

Higgins presented her students with soda bottles, balloons, and straws and set them off to create a model of the respiratory system. The effort involved much trial and error and integrated both engineering practices and scientific knowledge. "To build their models, my students had to understand the function of the parts of the respiratory system, as well as why and how the pieces work together," Higgins says.

Major Shift #3:

The Right Topic at the Right Time
Previous standards used grade-band expectations; NGSS is more precise, assigning standards to specific grade levels throughout the elementary grades. (After that, grades 6-8 is a grade band, as is grades 9-12.)

Why such specificity? Timing is everything when it comes to age-appropriate instruction. "Since the last standards came out, there has been a lot of research on cognitive development," says Januszyk. "We now have a better understanding of what an age-appropriate time is for certain concepts."

Currently, Januszyk and other Illinois teachers cover the phases of the moon, the seasons, and the planets in fourth grade. "But before you can really understand those topics, you have to have an idea of gravity. You also need to have the ability to visualize abstract models and understand huge distances. Cognitively, fourth graders are not ready for that. They memorize it, but they're not ready," Januszyk says. As a result, those concepts have been pushed back to fifth grade under NGSS.

It will, without a doubt, take teachers, schools, and students time to adjust to the new standards and adapt curriculum materials. Allison Hogan, the K-1 teacher who helped her students investigate bird beaks, believes the effort is well worth it.

"I don't think that lesson would have been nearly as meaningful to them if I'd just stood up and said, 'This is the way it is,'" Hogan says. "It takes a lot of patience to listen to kids and help them come up with ideas, but it's so worth it. It's like digging for treasure."
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Blast Off: The Next Generation Science Standards | Scholastic

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One day last spring, a student in Allison Hogan's K-1 transition class at the Episcopal School of Dallas came in from recess and asked, "Why do birds have different beaks?" Hogan simply could have answered in a couple of short sentences. But instead, she engaged her class in a discussion about their observations of birds.

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Mystery Science is a great online resource that helps students meet the NGSS through videos, discussion questions and a hands-on activity that accompany's each lesson.

"At Mystery Science, our mission is to help children stay curious"(2018).

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Open-and-go lessons that inspire kids to love science.

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PROS:
*invites students to learn new content through discovery
*students are more engaged
*important communicative and collaborative skills are learned through group work
*lends itself to higher order thinking
*5 E's of Science Instruction

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CONS:
*important facts may be missed
*teacher must have superior classroom management & not mind a noisy classroom
*teachers may not have training in this type of instruction
*hands-on lessons many be lengthy
*many materials, both consumable and not are needed