Direct instruction - Springer Link

Journal of Behavioral Education, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1991, pp. 193-213

Direct Instruction: What It Is and What It Is Becoming Diane Kinder, Ph.D., 1,3 and Douglas Carnine, Ph.D. 2

Accepted: December 11, 1990. Action Editor: R. Douglas Greer

This essay describes the principles of Direct instruction design and delivery used to establish clear, unambiguous communication and maximize student responding. Direct Instruction research findings are summarized: achievement of low-income students in Follow Through, longitudinal results, and the effectiveness of Direct Instruction for students with handicaps. Finally, new directions for Direct Instruction, technological applications and instruction of higher-order skills, are discussed KEY WORDS: direct instruction; follow through; instruction; higher-order skills.

INTRODUCTION This essay presents an analysis of research on Direct Instruction and explores Direct Instruction's contributions to the field of behavioral education. Several components of the Direct Instruction model (Engelmann & Carnine, 1982) are common to many behavioral education models: using reinforcement and mastery learning principles, assessing regularly and directly, breaking tasks into small components via task analysis, and teaching of prerequisite skills. Since these are familiar to most readers, they will not be discussed in detail. 1Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling and Special Education, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois. ZProfessor of Teacher Education, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. 3Correspondence should be directed to Diane Kinder, Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling and Special Education, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, 60115-2854. 193 1053-0819/91/0600-0193506.50/0 9 1991HumanSciencesPress, Inc.

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Direct Instruction differs from other behavioral education approaches in degree of emphasis on the antecedent stimuli-the precise nature of teacher wording, examples, how teachers present new material to students. Engelmann and Carnine (1982) see instruction in the same light as the problems of experimental control-environmental variables must be controlled leaving only one variable, the learner, in a pure state. Environmental variables are controlled though "faultless communication" (Engelmann & Carnine, 1982, p. 3); instructional materials and teachers' delivery must be clear and unambiguous for faultless communication to take place.

DIRECT INSTRUCTION PRINCIPLES Specific c u r r i c u l u m m a t e r i a l s have b e e n d e v e l o p e d u n d e r Engelmann's direction in reading, math, and language (e.g. Engelmann & Brunet, 1988; Engelmann & Carnine, 1981; Engelmann & Osborn, 1976). These curricular programs precisely identify both unambiguous plans for instructional design and procedures for teaching these lessons (delivery principles). The following is a script that could be used for initial instruction in how to spell words when adding suffixes. Ta begin, the teacher writes the following list of words and suffixes on the board, and then explains the rule for doubling the final consonant in words: snap + ing, snap + less, jump + ing, hot + er, big + est. TEACHER: Here is a rule: When a short word ends in consonantvovel-consonant (CVC) and the suffix begins with a vowel, you must double the final consonant. (Teacher points to "snap" on the board) Look at the last three letters in this short word. Does this short word end in CVC? STUDENTS: Yes. TEACHER: The suffix is "ing". What letter does "ing" begin with? STUDENTS: i TEACHER: So, soes "ing" begin with a vowel? STUDENTS: Yes. TEACHER: Does "snap" end CVC and "ing" begin with a vowel? STUDENTS: Yes. TEACHER: Yes, "snap" ends CVC and "ing" begins with a vowel, so we double the "p". I'll spell snapping, s-n-a-p-p-in-g. Spell snapping with me. Remember to double to final consonant. STUDENTS: S-n-a-p-p-i-n-g.

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The students would be asked the same questions for the remainder of the list of words and suffixes (Dixon, 1978). Later, the students would spell a few words from dictation without any prompts.

Instructional Design Principles The example above illustrated some of the principles for developing faultless c o m m u n i c a t i o n that are c o m m o n to all D i r e c t I n s t r u c t i o n materials: (a) explicit teaching of rules and strategies, (b) example selection, (c) example sequencing, and (d) covertization.

Explicit Teaching of Rules and Strategies In the initial stages of instruction, every step in applying rules and in problem solving is explicitly taught. In this example, the steps in an unobservable process (thinking) were temporarily made overt and observable. Rather than stating a rule or simply demonstrating the use of the rule or strategy, each of the steps in applying the rule or strategy was overtly demonstrated with precise explanations. Next, students were provided with a carefully sequenced series of examples and were guided through the steps in applying the rule or strategy. Carnine, Kameenui, and Maggs (1982) and Ross and Carnine (1982) have demonstrated that merely repeating a rule or the steps in a strategy does not guarantee that students will be able to apply the rule in learning situations; the guided practice component is also necessary.

Example Selection The series of examples used in guided practice of a rule or strategy are carefully selected to provide a wide variety of instances that vary on irrelevant attributes but maintain a common "sameness." In our example, a variety of words and suffixes were presented; the essential sameness students must attend to is the change required when words end in a consonant-vowel-consonant and the suffix begins with a vowel. The variety of examples allow the students to generalize the rule or strategy to future instances. The sequence included instances when the rule applied (snapping) and when it did not (jumping). In addition, matched nonexamples, those similar in all but the critical quality, aid in discrimination (in our example, snapless is a nonexample matched with snapping). The Direct Instruction design shares the use of a range of examples and matched non-

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examples with cognitive psychologists' current teaching suggestions (Gange, 1985).

Example Sequencing Students often learn concepts more quickly when examples and matched nonexamples are presented back-to-back creating minimally different pairs. For example, "snapping" followed by "snapless" forces the students to attend to the small change from one example to the next, because other features remained constant.

Covertization In the initial Direct Instruction sequence above, every step was made overt to ensure that students were immediately successful. However, use of these leading questions and overt steps every time students wrote a word would be time consuming. In order for students to apply this spelling rule in other situations they must be able to write "snapping" independently and automatically. To develop this independence, the overt steps are systematically faded in successive instruction. The number of leading questions is reduced so that the students' strategies become more covert. Soon students apply strategies silently and independently; for example, they write words from dictation without prompts.

Delivery Principles In addition to carefully designed instruction, "faultless communication" includes specific teaching procedures or delivery principles. Important features of Direct Instruction delivery include brisk pacing of questions and specific correction procedures.

Brisk Pacing Rapid pacing, that keeps students interested lows more material to be sity for students who are

is a quick sequence of questions and answers, during instructional groups. Brisk pacing also alcovered in a fixed time (Carnine, 1976); a necesacademically behind.

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Correction Procedures It is important that students receive consistent, immediate academically-oriented feedback (Brophy & Good, 1986). The nature of the teachers' feedback when students make errors is determined by the type of error, that is if the error is caused by lack of information or misapplication of a general-case strategy. Teachers provide the information to remedy lack of information errors. To remedy a strategy error, teachers prompt students to use the steps of the strategy by asking questions similar to the questions used during the initial strategy instruction (Carnine, 1980). Gersten, Carnine, and Williams (1982) found that when teachers do not respond to students' errors, gains in reading are not as rapid as when teachers offer clear feedback regarding the adequacy of students' responses. Two other features of Direct Instruction delivery are particularly beneficial when teaching students with mild handicaps. For students with mild handicaps, small group instruction has many advantages. Small group instruction is more efficient than one-on-one instruction and provides more adult direction. Small groups also provide an emphasis an oral communication which is often a weakness in students with handicaps. Finally, small group instruction allows the repetitious practice required to develop skills to the point of automaticity. Use of choral response is a second feature of Direct Instruction delivery that is beneficial to students with mild handicaps. Student achievement is associated with academic responding (Greenwood, Delquadri, & Hall, 1984); using choral responses increases students' opportunities to respond. Direct Instruction teachers signal students to respond in unison.

DIRECT INSTRUCTION RESEARCH The literature is replete with studies from within and outside the United States that have examined Direct Instruction with students of various ages and ability levels. These studies indicate that Direct Instruction tends to produce higher academic gains than forms of instruction with which it was compared. Early Direct Instruction research indicated the effectiveness of Direct Instruction math, reading, and language for low-income Follow Through students in primary grades (Becker, 1977; Becker & Carnine, 1980; Becker & Gersten, 1982) with continuing effects in middle school and high school. Later investigations examined the effectiveness of Direct Instruction within special education settings (Gersten, 1985; Horner & Albin, 1988; White, 1988).

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Follow Through Studies The Follow Through Project included a large-scale, national, longitudinal-evaluation study of over 20 different approaches to teaching economically disadvantaged students in kindergarten through third grade (Becker & Carnine, 1980). At the project's peak in the seventies, 7,500 low-income children from 170 communities participated. School districts involved in the project included those from rural areas such as Flippin, Arkansas, to inner-city districts in New York City and East St. Louis. Each school district aligned itself with a sponsor representing a specific educational philosophy or model. The models encompassed Piagetian approaches, open classroom models, parent-education approaches, discovery learning, and behavioral models. Although the Follow Though comparison was one of the largest and most extensive social experiments (McDaniels, 1975), it was not without controversy (cf. Becker, 1978; Haney, 1977; House, Glass, McLean, & Walker, 1978). Many of the expressed concerns were valid, particularly

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those related to the research designs in which students were not randomly assigned to groups. However, the major findings stand because of their consistency over time and across instructional settings.

Results The Abt reports (1976, 1977) provided median grade equivalent scores by site and by sponsor for four Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT) measures: Total Reading, Total Math, Spelling and Language. The means for these data, by model (converted to percentiles) for students entering kindergarten, are presented in Figure 1. Figure 1 displays percentiles on a one-fourth standard deviation scale. The 20th percentile, which represented the average expectation, at that time, for disadvantaged third graders without special help, was chosen for the baseline in Figure 1. The major objective of the Direct Instruction Follow Through Program was to bring the achievement levels of disadvantaged primary students up to the national median. Figure 1 indicates that Direct Instruction students were close to or at national norms on all measures. A second objective of Follow Through was to determine whether the particular approaches had differential effects or if providing extra funds and outside input from experts produced comparable results. Four sponsors had reading programs that made some headway toward average reading performance by the end of third grade (Direct Instruction, Behavior Analysis, Bank Street College, and Responsive Education). For Total Math, Direct Instruction was at least one-half of a standard deviation ahead of all others. For Spelling, the Behavior Analysis program was the only program, other than Direct Instruction, that approached national norms. For Language (usage, punctuation, and sentence types) the Direct Instruction program was three-fourths of a standard deviation ahead of all other programs. On all four measures, the approaches apparently differ substantially in effect.

Results from Direct Instruction Sponsors The individual Follow Through sites aligned with Direct Instruction collected data which supported the following conclusions: 1. A greater measurable and educationally significant benefit was present at the end of third grade for those who began Direct Instruction in kindergarten than for those who began in first grade (Becker & Engelmann, 1978; Gersten, Darch, & Gleason, 1988).

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Significant gains in IQ were found which were largely maintained through third grade. Students entering the program with IQs of more than 111 did not lose ground during the Follow Through years, though one might expect some regression phenomena. The low-IQ children, on the other hand, displayed appreciable gains, even after the entry IQ was "corrected". Students with IQs below 71 gained 17 points in the entering kindergarten sample and 9.4 points in the entering first-grade sample; gains for the children entering with IQs in the 71-90 range were 15.6 and 9.2 points, respectively (Gersten, Becker, Heiry, & White, 1984). 3. Studies of low-IQ students (under 80) showed that the Direct Instruction Follow Through Program was clearly effective with students who had a higher probability of failure. These students gained nearly as much each year in reading (decoding) and math, as the Direct Instruction students with higher IQs (Gersten, Becker, Heiry, & White, 1984). 4. Follow-up studies of fifth- and sixth-graders who received Direct Instruction in the primary grades showed that the former Follow Through students maintained their advantage over comparison groups from local schools. Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT) scores and Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) results of first-grade entering Follow Through students from five, urban and rural districts were compared to local peers. None of the 180 comparisons favored the comparison group, 56 favored the former Follow Through group (.05 level) with the strongest effects seen on the WRAT reading subtest and the MAT spelling and math-problem-solving subtests (Becket & Gersten, 1982). 5. Studies, also, demonstrated that junior-high and high-school students who received Direct Instruction in primary grades maint a i n e d their a d v a n t a g e c o m p a r e d to their local peers. Comparisons were based on math and reading achievement test results, graduation rates, college applications, and college acceptance. Differences in achievement test scores consistently favored the Direct Instruction group with the strongest long-term benefits in reading. In addition, college acceptance rates consistently favored the Follow Through group (Gersten & Keating, 1987). 6. The Direct Instruction model generalizes across both time and populations. The Department of Education has a Joint Dissemination Review Panel that validates educational programs as exemplary and qualifies them for national dissemination. During the 1980-1981 school year, the last of the 12 Direct Instruction Follow Through projects were submitted for validation. Of the 12 dis-

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tricts, 11 had 8 to 10 years of data on successive groups of children-replication over time. The schools sampled a full range of students, those from: large cities (New York, San Diego, Washington, DC), middle-sized cities (Flint, MI; Dayton, OH; E. St. Louis, IL); rural white communities (Flippin, AR; Smithville, TN); a rural black community (Williamsburg, SC); Hispanic communities (Uvalde, TX; E. Las Vegas, NM); and a Native American community (Cherokee, NC). One hundred percent of the projects were certified as exemplary in reading and mathematics for the primary grades, thus providing replication over 8 to 10 years in a dozen diverse communities. Special Education Studies

The initial success of Direct Instruction materials with economically disadvantaged students in Follow Through lead to studies with specialeducation populations. Early studies employed published Direct Instruction materials, for example, Distar Language (Engelmann & Osborn, 1976), Corrective Reading (Engelmann, Becker, Horner, & Johnson, 1979), Distar Reading (revised as Reading Mastery, Engelmann & Bruner, 1988). Later studies began exploring the use of Direct Instruction design principles to teach other skills including community-living skills.

Early Experimental Studies With the favorable Follow Through results, it is not surprising that the first Direct Instruction studies involving students with handicaps involved the published Direct Instruction materials developed for Follow Through. Maggs and Morath (1976) examined the effects of Distar Language (Engelmann & Osborn, 1976) on students with moderate to severe retardation (IQs between 20 and 45). Twenty-eight 6 to 14 year-old residents of a state institution were randomly assigned to receive either one hour daily of the Direct Instruction or an hour daily of instruction using the Peabody Language Development Kit (Dunn & Smith, 1966) supplemented with teacher designed instruction. After 24 months of instruction, the Direct Instruction group scored significantly higher on the StanfordBinet and produced gains that approximated normal growth (22.5 months in 24 months). Lloyd and his colleagues (Lloyd, Cullinan, Heins, & Epstein, 1980; Lloyd, Epstein, & Cullinan, 1981) examined the effects of Corrective Reading (Engelmann, Becket, Haner, & Johnson, 1979) on Direct Instruction

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decoding and comprehension programs for elementary-school students with learning disabilities. Twenty-three students were randomly assigned to one of three self-contained classrooms; two received Direct Instruction and one received the traditional instruction of that time. After eight months of instruction, students' achievement was assessed using the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT), Gilmore Oral Reading Test, and the Slossen Intelligence Test. Results indicated statistically significant differences between the Direct Instruction groups and the control group on the WRAT Reading, the Slosson and the Gilmore. This study is significant because it was one of the few early Direct Instruction studies using students with learning disabilities and because it is a well designed study implemented in natural settings with classroom teachers rather than researchers (Gersten, 1985).

Quasi-experimental Studies Random assignment of students to treatment groups is often logistically impossible in many schools and institutions; therefore, alternative quasi-experimental designs have been used to evaluate the effectiveness of Direct Instruction. Stein and Goldman (1980) examined the relative effectiveness of two phonetic-based primary reading programs, Distar and Palo Alto, for students with average IQs who were diagnosed as possessing "minimal brain dysfunction". Since random assignment to groups was not possible, the researchers pretested each group using the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) reading recognition and comprehension subtests and intelligence tests to ensure that the groups demonstrated no significant differences prior to instruction. Students were posttested using the same PIAT subtests and a significant difference was found between the two groups with the Distar group gaining over 15 months compared to approximately 7 months for the Palo Alto group.

White's Meta-analysis Recently, White (1988) employed meta-analysis techniques to examine the effects of Direct Instruction on achievement of special education students. The analysis included the three studies discussed above and an additional 22 studies. Approximately half of these studies were conference reports, ERIC reports, or unpublished manuscripts; 15 were experimental studies and 10 employed quasi-experimental procedures. Nearly half examined Direct Instruction reading. Twenty-one of the studies involved students with mild handicaps.

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White determined the effect size for each dependent measure and synthesized the effect sizes across all measures for each study. In addition, he computed the proportion of measures which significantly favored either the experimental (Direct Instruction) or comparison groups. The results of White's meta-analysis showed that no measure in any of the studies significantly favored the comparison group; over half of the measures significantly favored the Direct Instruction groups. The average effect size for reading studies, decoding and comprehension, was .85, well above the .25 to .33 standard White used for educational significance. Math studies' mean effect size was .50, lower than for reading but significant. There was no significant difference in the mean effect size between studies with students with mild handicaps and studies with students with moderate to severe handicaps, indicating effectiveness across a range of handicapping conditions. The data also showed that Direct Instruction was effective for a wide range of grades, elementary through secondary. White's meta-analysis showed strong and consistent effects of Direct Instruction.

Single-Subject Studies with Learners with More Severe D&abilities Recently Horner and his colleagues (Day & Homer, 1986; Horner, Albin, & Ralph, 1986; Homer & McDonald, 1982; Sprague & Homer, 1984) have applied instructional design principles to teaching functional skills to adolescents and adults with moderate to severe retardation. Homer's studies examined the effects of multiple-positive examples (Day & Homer, 1986; Homer & McDonald, 1982), a range of examples (Sprague & Horner, 1984), and negative examples (Homer, Albin, & Ralph, 1986). Homer and McDonald (1982) compared the use of single- and multiple-positive examples to teach adolescents with severe mental retardation the vocational skills of crimping and cutting capacitor leads. Individuals who had been trained using single examples were very accurate at crimping and cutting similar capacitors but made many errors when working with different capacitors. After individuals were trained with multiple examples, they crimped and cut the full range of capacitors accurately. Day and Homer (1986) found similar results with adolescents and adults learning to put on pull-over shirts. Sprague and Homer (1984) compared strategies for teaching the use of vending machines that included a limited range of examples to a strategy that included an extensive range of examples. High school students with moderate to severe retardation were trained to use four highly-similar vending machines. When tested, these students did not perform successfully beyond this limited range of vending machines. Students were then taught

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to use vending machines that varied in the amount of money required, where and how money was inserted, and activation responses. After this training, students were successful on tests with a range of vending machines. Horner, Albin, and Ralph (1986) examined the use of negative examples in teaching difficult discriminations in grocery shopping to high school students with moderate to severe mental retardation. The task required students to determine if they should buy specified grocery items when presented with a picture card and various items on the grocery-store shelf. Students were trained using the picture cards with positive examples and very different negative examples (e.g., shampoo and cereal). When probed on their ability to accept items that matched the pictures and reject items that did not match, students were no more accurate than they had been prior to training. Next, training included matched nonexamples (minimally different pairs), items like tuna cans and cat-food tins. After training, all students achieved a high level of success in accepting appropriate grocery items and rejecting inappropriate items. Horner and Albin (1988) found that Direct Instruction design principles including careful selection and sequencing examples were important for applying general-case procedures with learners with severe disabilities. They believed that Direct Instruction principles will contribute significantly to functional-skills instruction in the future.

NEW DIRECTIONS Since the mid-eighties, Direct Instruction research and instructional design has expanded beyond the examination of traditional teacher delivery systems and basic-skills instructional design to consider technological delivery systems and instructional design for higher-order skills. New technological applications have been developed to make the role of the teacher more manageable. These new technological applications include computer-assisted instruction, low-cost networking, and videodisc courseware and are described below. Technological Applications

Computer-Assisted Instruction Recently, two studies have examined the use of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) to deliver health instruction (Woodward, Carnine, & Gersten, 1988) and to teach reasoning skills (Collins, Carnine, & Gersten, 1987).

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Woodward et al. taught high-school students with learning disabilities problem-solving strategies for health profiles including facts concerning heredity, disease, nutrition, exercise, stress management, drinking, smoking, life styles, and so on by means of a computer simulation. The problem-solving strategy required students to prioritize and change undesirable health habits, check stress levels, and maintain health habit changes over time. The mastery learning procedure required students to successfully apply the strategy to similar profiles before more complex profiles were introduced. The careful teaching of prerequisite content, combined with instruction on explicit problem-solving strategies, produced proficiency in health promotion analysis in more than two-thirds of the 15 students with learning disabilities who received instruction. Only 2 of the 15 students without handicaps in the senior health class exhibited this level of problem-solving sophistication. Collins, Carnine, and Gersten (1987) employed computer-assisted instruction to give extensive individualized feedback to students when they made errors. This extensive feedback related student errors to previously taught rules. The computer-assisted instruction program taught individual students in remedial and learning disabilities classes to draw syllogistic conclusions and to critique arguments. Students learned step-by-step procedures for constructing and criticizing arguments. The process feedback led to significantly higher scores on the posttest and a transfer test, yet the students did not take significantly more time to complete the program. In a later study (Collins & Carnine, 1988), the performance of four groups of students was compared: (a) high-school students with learning disabilities, (b) general education high-school students, (c) college students in an introductory logic class, and (d) college preservice education students. After CAI with the reasoning-skills program described above, the high school students with learning disabilities were comparable to their general education peers and to the logic students on a test of argument construction. The college preservice education students scored significantly lower than the other three groups. A final study (Grossen & Carnine, 1990) demonstrated that reasoning skills transferred to textbook content.

Low-Cost Networking Other research has focused on a low-cost networking system as a means of increasing the teacher's efficiency. The technology, the Classroom Assistant, is a system that instantly gives both teachers and students feedback on performance by networking eight or more keyboards to a single IBM computer (Carnine, 1984). In a study by Woodward, Carnine, Gersten, Moore, and Golden (1987), secondary students with learning disabilities

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responded on their own keypads to questions interspersed throughout a series of instructional sessions on reading comprehension. Responses were immediately scored and summarized by the Classroom Assistant for the teacher. Consequently, the teacher was able to immediately adjust her class presentation to address the difficulties experienced by individual students. These students received higher posttest scores than comparison students taught the same comprehension curriculum without Classroom Assistant. Other studies using Classroom Assistant have found comparable time savings in providing computer-assisted video instruction, test administration, scoring of independent work, and calculating grades (Hayden, Wheeler, & Carnine, 1989; Moore, Carnine, Stepnoski, & Woodward, 1987).

Videodisc Courseware Videodisc technology allows an interactive format that is not possible with conventional audiovisual materials. The teacher can advance the videodisc to a particular demonstration within a few seconds. After showing a dynamic demonstration, the disc stops automatically, with a series of questions for the students to answer. The question screen remains frozen until the teacher determines that the students have had time to formulate their answers. Videodisc technology also enables the teacher to dynamically present experiments and demonstrations that are difficult or expensive to conduct in the classroom. Vivid visual demonstrations are associated with nearly every concept that is presented, rendering them easily understood. Computer graphics, sound effects, brisk pacing, highlights, and other techniques also help maintain the students' attention. Each videodisc course published by Systems Impact (1985-1987) is presented to an entire class of students on a large monitor. The courseware has a specific system for helping teachers diagnose and remedy students' learning difficulties. This system is incorporated in six steps that are utilized in connection with all concepts introduced in the programs: 1. During the initial explanation of a concept, the narrator on the videodisc asks questions that students answer orally. 2. Immediately following the initial explanation students write answers to a series of problems. Students get feedback after working each problem. The last problem serves as an informal test. If more that 20% of the students miss it, the teacher plays an explanation from the disc. This pattern of demonstration followed by practice is repeated for each concept presented in the lesson.

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Students do homework without supervision. The next lesson begins with a quiz covering the one or two major concepts introduced in the previous lesson. A message on the screen provides the "address" for a remediation if the teacher needs to play this information for students. 5. Every fifth lesson is a test. Again, teachers diagnose student errors and select remedies from the disk on the basis of student performance. 6. After being tested, a concept is reviewed every few lessons. The instructional design, videodisc technology, and six-step masterylearning procedure make it easier for the teacher to present essential content in a visually compelling manner. Current research with special education teachers is finding that the videodisc courseware is easy to use and a very effective instructional tool (Hofmeister, Engelmann, & Carnine, 1989; Kelly, Carnine, Gersten, & Grossen, 1986; Moore & Carnine, 1989; Niedelman, in press; Woodward & Noell, in press). Courses like "Understanding Chemistry and Energy" are particularly helpful to less confident teachers, since the academic content is presented in a clear fashion. Moreover, the course provides an in-class, daily model of effective teaching practice. These new directions in technology, computer-assisted instruction, low-cost networking, and videodisc courseware, have a common themehelping teachers become better professionals. The applications encompass clerical, supportive, and stand-alone instruction. All of these roles are necessary and technology can help with each.

Higher-Order Skills Although from the early 1900s the challenge of integrating thinking and content area knowledge was a concern for elite education, currently it is expected that thinking, problem solving, and reasoning be included in all students' education (Resnick, 1987). One aspect of higher-order skills, as Prawat (1989) pointed out in his superb review of current findings from cognitive psychology, has to do with the organization of knowledge to show connections. "The ability to access knowledge varies dramatically as a function of how well linked the knowledge is" (Prawat, 1989, p. 4). However, most instruction does not provide indications, let alone specific instruction, to facilitate the linkage of knowledge. Direct Instruction principles, as discussed previously, endeavor to deal with both delivery of instruction and curriculum design or organization (linkage) of content. A program of research has addressed a variety of subject areas that involve higher order skills: literary analysis (Dimino, Gersten, Car-

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nine, & Blake, in press; Gurney, Gersten, Dimino, & Carnine, 1990), chemistry (Hofmeister, Engelmann, & Carnine, 1989), critical reading (Patching, Kameenui, Carnine, Gersten, & Colvin, 1983), critical reading (Patching, Kameenui, Carnine, Gersten, & Colvin, 1983), and social studies (Darch & Carnine, 1986; Darch, Carnine, & Kameenui, 1986; Kinder & Bursuck, in press). In every study, the primary objective was to create a model of how to link knowledge. Demonstrations of sameness, how knowledge is linked, can guide the development of curricular materials that model higher order thinking. For example, the analysis below from geometry is used in the series Connecting Math Concepts (Englemann & Carnine, 1991).

Geometry In geometry, students learn equations, first for surface area and later for volume of various figures. Students are typically expected to learn seven equations to calculate the volume of three-dimensional figures (see rows A and C in Figure 2). The sameness analysis reduces the number of equations students must learn from seven to slight variations of a single equa-

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tion; area of the base times the height (B x h). Of course, students would be expected to know the equations for the area of common two-dimensional figures, referred to as area of the base, B, in rows B and D of Figure 2. For the regular figures-rectangular prism (box), wedge, cylinder-the equation is B x h. For figures that come to a point (pyramid with a rectangular base, pyramid with a triangular base, and a cone), the volume is not the base times the height, but rather the base times 1/3 of the height. The sphere is a special case-the base times 2/3 of the height-where the base is the area of a circle that passes through the center of the sphere, and the height is the diameter. The sameness analysis makes explicit the relationships that are obscured by the seven different equations typically presented in textbooks. Presenting simple variations of B • h in graphic form makes remembering the equations easier and calculating volume more comprehensible (Systems Impact, 1991). Such "relational learning" is also more lasting and accessible (Skemp, 1978).

United States History Learning samenesses is particularly crucial in social science and science where students are inundated with a great number of seemingly unrelated facts and concepts. Kinder and Bursuck (in press) employed the sameness analysis to make the relationship between events in United States history explicit. Students with mild handicaps were taught to apply a problem-solution-effect analysis to a history textbook. As an illustration of this problem-solution-effect analysis, consider the invention of the cotton gin. Generally, the isolated fact that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin is taught; however, the need for the cotton gin and the historical effects of its invention usually are not made explicit. The problem-solution-effect shows these causal connections. Unlike the cotton grown in Egypt, most of the cotton grown in the Southern United States was short-staple cotton. The short fibers made it difficult and expensive to remove the seeds. The solution was Eli Whitney's invention of a machine to remove the seeds. The effects were that much more cotton could be cleaned in a day. Thus, farmers could sell more cotton and were motivated to grow more cotton, which increased the need for slaves. Students learned to apply this analysis to the events in their history text, to take notes using the problem-solution-effect analysis, and to study those notes. Kinder and Bursuck (in press) evaluated the effectiveness of this problem-solution-effect analysis in a multiple-baseline study. During baseline the students' average scores on history tests were less than sixty percent. All three groups of students' scores immediately and dramatically

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improved and approached or exceeded the 80% mastery level. The use of Direct Instruction design principles, as exemplified in the sameness analysis, clearly has promise for future research and development of instructional packages for higher-order learning.

CONCLUSION The findings presented here establish a strong case both for the use of Direct Instruction and for the application of Direct Instruction principles in teaching basic and higher-order skills. The Follow Through studies demonstrated that low-income students, who were taught with materials carefully designed to present information, made statistically and educationally significant gains when their test scores were compared to students' in the other Follow Through models. These initial effects endured with fifth-and sixth-graders maintaining their academic advantages and high-school students not only maintaining academic advantages but also achieving higher college acceptance rates than comparison groups. Experimental and quasi-experimental studies have strongly supported the use of Direct Instruction with special education populations. Direct Instruction materials and approaches have been shown effective for individuals with mild to severe handicaps in language, reading, math, and community-living skills. Perhaps most exciting are the new directions which Direct Instruction has taken, employing technology to assist instruction and emphasizing Direct Instruction principles in higher-order instruction. Computer-assisted instruction, low-cost networking, and videodisc courseware have been effective in a range of applications from clerical to stand-alone instruction. Direct Instruction principles have also been applied to literature, critical reading, higher math skills, and social studies. In each of these, the linkage of knowledge was clearly demonstrated. Students with mild handicaps have learned higher-order skills at levels beyond those achieved using traditional approaches. This essay provided an overview of Direct Instruction, what it is and what it is becoming. It is clearly a behavioral approach with a precise analysis of the behavior of the teacher and instructional stimuli. The goal of Direct Instruction is to develop faultless communications with students without regard to the method of delivery, teacher or computer, or the content of instruction, basic skills or higher-order skills.

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