{ "version": "1.0.0", "segments": [ { "speaker": "Narrator", "startTime": "3.36", "endTime": "14.554999", "body": "This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "16.395", "endTime": "21.835", "body": "Welcome to the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. My name is Jared Pyles. With me is Dr. Rob McDole." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "21.835", "endTime": "22.555", "body": "Hello." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "22.555", "endTime": "24.794998", "body": "It is July fourth week." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "25.275", "endTime": "25.994999", "body": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "25.994999", "endTime": "65.81", "body": "And we are celebrating our independence by rebelling against the tyrannical rule of our podcast leaders, Ryan and Jacob, by not doing an actual podcast episode. Instead, we're gonna throw it to one of our coffee drops that we've done. If you're new to the podcast, the coffee drops are little small little podcasts that when Rob and I have an urge to we read an article or we come across something we want to talk about or maybe even like a miniseries, we'll drop everything in the office, put on our Bluetooth microphones, and just talk, you know." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "65.97", "endTime": "78.805", "body": "So, they're usually shorter, ten to twelve minutes usually. And if you missed the one we did a couple weeks ago, we're doing a series on Building A Better. And the last one we did was Rubrics, and this one is on lecture or direct instruction." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "78.805", "endTime": "79.365005", "body": "Yes." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "79.44501", "endTime": "114.200005", "body": "And I think it's pretty good. We'll release a couple others this summer, but have a listen to this coffee drop called Building A Better Direct Instruction. It is time for another coffee drop. We are continuing our series, our mini series on building a better film of like, talking about those staples of higher education. We did one on rubrics earlier and today for this episode I should say, because these come out all at once." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "114.200005", "endTime": "126.064995", "body": "We don't know what we're going do yet with them. We're going to talk about direct instruction. And direct instruction is to define it, well, how would you define it, Rob?" }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "126.064995", "endTime": "162.58499", "body": "Well, I was curious about that, so I did some research. Most recent one that I've been able to find was by Stockard and all. The Effectiveness of Direct A Meta Analysis a Half Century of Research from 2018 out of the Review of Educational Research. And they define it as Direct Instruction as evidence based teaching method that involves explicitly teaching academic skills through structured lessons, guided practice, and active student engagement." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "162.58499", "endTime": "163.225", "body": "Okay." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "163.545", "endTime": "169.94499", "body": "And focuses on developing mastery through systematic instruction and regular review." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "170.93001", "endTime": "181.41", "body": "Okay, so a lot of professor talking. Not necessarily just talking, more it sounds like just they're the chief deliverer of the content." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "181.81", "endTime": "212.89", "body": "Yeah, what's interesting is when you go and you look at like HLC, so Higher Learning Commission, so I was curious because that's often one of these things that shows up for HLC and accreditation. And they define direct instruction because they also define it as a format where the teaching process is led explicitly by the instructor. Gotcha. It involves structured systematic teaching with clearly defined objectives and regular assessments." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "212.89", "endTime": "213.13", "body": "Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "213.705", "endTime": "231.50002", "body": "The instructors deliver content directly to students through lectures, demonstrations, and guided practice ensuring a clear understanding of the material being taught. Okay. There's so much there. Yes, there is. And lots of assumptions." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "232.06", "endTime": "236.62001", "body": "Yes, there are. So That we don't have time to go through." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "236.62001", "endTime": "269.5", "body": "And we don't have time to go through those, and I know that, but I just bring that up to say to those of who are listening, you should probably at least spend some time if you're if you're looking at providing any kind of instruction whatsoever Mhmm. You need to understand these things. And I do have best practices for it and shockingly they won't be too much different than than what we did." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "269.82", "endTime": "288.9", "body": "For rubrics? For rubrics. Okay. My first one is choosing your words carefully. In other words, if you're teaching new content, go slowly and eliminate all jargon that's in there as well." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "288.9", "endTime": "322.34", "body": "So choose your words carefully, speak slowly, especially if it's new content, don't rush everything at once, don't assume. This goes back to you know knowing your students as well. Know what's, you know, what they're probably gonna struggle with, go slower through those concepts, eliminate jargon. A good example of jargon that I remember from when I was a student when our good friend Jim Leitenheimer was my instructor for audio stuff. He had explained the term pot to us on a board, the potentiometer, the little thing you turn to have more or less volume." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "322.34", "endTime": "348.61002", "body": "They're called volume pots. And if you would have just gone in and said, you guys need to adjust the pots on the board, we'd be like, what are you talking about? So he had stop and define that pots and cans were the big thing. Cans were the headphones. So he made a point to, during his lecture when those terms first came up, to define them because they were necessary jargon that we would hear as audio editors and board operators in our field." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "348.93", "endTime": "370.455", "body": "So he made a point to, if he had to use jargon he would define it first. That's my number one. Slow down, choose your words carefully. So mine is kinda similar to that but it's built off of, again, clearly defined objectives. So the clearer those objectives can be, and I mean down to the module level of what you actually wanna do in" }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "370.455", "endTime": "392.535", "body": "that module that leads to your overall course objectives, then the better off you will be. So I think yours is more aimed at delivery speed, ensuring that and I can, I've got one that kinda goes alongside that but I'll leave that for my number two." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "392.535", "endTime": "439.26", "body": "Okay. My number two is kind of related number one but I put make new info manageable. Like I said before, it could require slowing down but the big thing I wanna focus on, and maybe this is the bigger point, bigger best practice for me is taking reflective breaks, taking frequent reflective breaks and allowing your students, goes back to the brain science thing, allowing them to process the new information that you're giving them, especially if it's a lot of new information. If it's the start of a new unit or you just took a big summative test and now you're in lecture the next day, have this whole broad new chapter of content that you're teaching. Take small breaks, take frequent reflective breaks, chunk the information the best you can." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "440.005", "endTime": "502.375", "body": "One of the things that Tracy Birdwell mentioned was that lecture attention is tied to expertise. She said, you know, if she's listening to someone lecture on something that she's passionate about or she is an expert in like online instruction or instructional design, she can listen for forty five minutes without having to take a break because she's able to make those connections of stuff she already knows in her brain with this new information to be able to reorganize however the speaker's talking about. But if it were in a field that she was not an expert in or something brand new to her, listening to a forty five minute lecture would be exhausting because it's all new information. So keep that in mind, maybe this is also where you're talking with your students about or realizing and being aware of their prior knowledge. You're making those connections, maybe you don't have to speed up but you should at least be cognizant of who your students are and if it's brand new information, take a lot of breaks, give them time to process." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "502.69498", "endTime": "503.41498", "body": "That's number two." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "505.59", "endTime": "532.5", "body": "So mine kinda goes alongside that, it's fairly similar and it's really, you know, it's not so much the break taking as much as it is. When you think about teaching, it kind of boils down to like three major things, at least in terms of content. Where are your students at? Where you want them to be, those are your objectives. And then the gap." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "532.5", "endTime": "554.655", "body": "And that's where instruction really comes into play, instruction, but not just instruction, assessment. So direct instruction really should go hand in hand with frequent assessment. So understanding, okay, have we made that next step? And that's the difficulty, right? Because not every student is in the same spot." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "554.735", "endTime": "555.295", "body": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "555.615", "endTime": "592.57", "body": "So when you think direct instruction, it doesn't necessarily mean putting everybody in the same room. Although I think that's what most people think of and talking to everybody with the same information assuming that they're all going to move along in the same pace. Direct instruction doesn't have to be continuous. It can be little pieces here but again always measuring where the student's at, measuring the gaps between your objective and where they're at. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "592.57", "endTime": "600.025", "body": "It's essentially what you as a teacher are doing. You're trying to move student from where they're at to where you want them to be." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "600.025", "endTime": "645.5", "body": "My number three is a little bit different. This is more of a tip more than as a best practice, but and this comes from my own teaching, using technology for Q and A. Google Slides has a feature where you have a presenter mode and students have a link they can follow to leave questions and they don't disrupt the lecture. You can keep going and you get a little pop up on your screen if you've got two screens going. If you have one screen it's harder to do that but if you've got two screens going where you have a presenter view on one on your projectors or whatever then you have a different view on your own laptop." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "645.58", "endTime": "685.995", "body": "You'll get questions that pop up on your computer on your monitor and you're able to address them without calling out the student, without having them raise their hand, without you having to stop the lecture, and you can continue lecturing but address the question whenever you want to at the end or if you can answer it really quick based on a point, you can do it then. Mentimeter is also a big one. I've always been a big fan of Mentimeter. It's a little more advanced but if you've got something like Google Slides that you're using, Google Slides is a great way to get that kind of Q and A. It doesn't disrupt the flow especially if you're in the middle of a huge concept and that student just raises their hand and you're like, I gotta address this." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "686.235", "endTime": "701.06006", "body": "It gives you an opportunity to just keep the flow going of your presentation of material. That's number three. So my last one is with direct instruction would be guided practice of some sort." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "701.38", "endTime": "744.39496", "body": "Whether that's through think pair share, whether that's through reflection, through say timed writing exercises, whether it's through like what you just said a moment ago. In terms of a technology that allows them to reflect and be able to interact with you, as well as of that kind of helps remove the barriers for some whose personalities aren't hey let me ask a question. Yeah. But the brains are moving so you're making, you're taking those barriers away. And it goes directly to that whole idea of frequent assessment and feedback." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "744.39496", "endTime": "762.63", "body": "And let me also just say feel free to remove formal grading from the idea of feedback and assessment. You don't always need to provide a formal grade to provide effective feedback and assessment." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "762.63", "endTime": "769.08966", "body": "That's good. So we both just gave three best practices for direct instruction." }, { "speaker": "Rob", "startTime": "769.08966", "endTime": "769.7297", "body": "Yep." }, { "speaker": "Jared", "startTime": "769.7297", "endTime": "770.6897", "body": "I think it's pretty good." } ] }