"DI works up to a point for appropriate subject matter. The point at which it fails to work adequately, regardless of subject matter, is in the development of the learner's ability to learn without further instruction."
Wow, do you have evidence of that? I mean, are you saying that Project Follow Through was a billion dollar scam with tens of thousands of unwitting students in the research group? To this day, I fight the myth that Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) creates robots when used with children with autism. Teachers look at my son and actually tell me to my face, wow, he certain doesn't have robot like issues. This is because in an early behavior program, youngsters with autism often don't even know how to copy your words or actions. But you build up from there. You move up to identifying things. Then identifying features and functions. Then answering and asking questions. Just because everything is broken down in DI (much like my ABA example above) doesn't mean that they can't be built up into very, very complex ideas, skills, and knowledge. With basic skills and knowledge, these kids now have the tools to generalize. In fact, if you look at kids with autism, they are a wonderful test group. They are often unmotivated to learn. Not succeeding really turns them off to learning. These kids aren't necessarily mentally retarded, just very unmotivated. Yet DI seems to work with them. I'm not the only one who thinks kids with autism are a good canary in the coal mine, so did BF Skinner when he wrote "Verbal Behavior" - essentially how to teach communication. Just because I use kids with autism as examples doesn't mean this information doesn't transfer to typical kids - it really does - just at an earlier age. -Kathy "I don't think so" Pusztavari -----Original Message----- From: Edward Cherlin [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 3:46 PM To: Albert Cahalan Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]; iaep Subject: Re: [IAEP] versus, not On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 2:31 AM, Albert Cahalan <[email protected]> wrote: > Around here > it often seems I'm the only person willing to accept that the > independently reviewed evidence favors Direct Instruction. It's like > some kind of idealistic reality denial is going on. By no means, Albert. You are the only person insisting that DI works, and everything else doesn't. It's like some kind of Nominalist reality denial is going on. ^_^ You argue in precisely the manner of the British ship captain who conducted the _second_ clinical trial of orange juice against scurvy, after the successful first trial. He had the juice boiled down "to concentrate the active ingredient" (thus decomposing all of the Vitamin C/ascorbic acid). His vigorous use of his tainted study held back adoption of citrus in the British Navy for years, and killed a significant number of sailors. The fact that _you_ don't know how to use a method fails to make that method worthless. DI works up to a point for appropriate subject matter. The point at which it fails to work adequately, regardless of subject matter, is in the development of the learner's ability to learn without further instruction. -- Silent Thunder (??/???????????????/????????????? ?) is my name And Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination. http://earthtreasury.org/worknet (Edward Mokurai Cherlin) _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
