Discovery Learning in Special Needs Education
With the push for special needs students to take part in the general education curriculum, prominent researchers in the field doubt if general education classes rooted in discovery based learning can provide an adequate learning environment for special needs students. Kauffman has related his concerns over the use of discovery based learning as opposed to direct instruction. Kauffman comments, to be highly successful in learning the facts and skills they need, these facts and skills are taught directly rather than indirectly. That is the teacher is in control of instruction, not the student, and information is given to students (2002).
This view is exceptionally strong when focusing on students with math disabilities and math instruction. Fuchs et al. (2008) comment,
Typically developing students profit from the general education mathematics program, which relies, at least in part, on a constructivist, inductive instructional style. Students who accrue serious mathematics deficits, however, fail to profit from those programs in a way that produces understanding of the structure, meaning, and operational requirements of mathematics… Effective intervention for students with a math disability requires an explicit, didactic form of instruction…
Fuchs et al. go on to note that explicit or direct instruction should be followed up with instruction that anticipates misunderstanding and counters it with precise explanations.
However, few studies focus on the long-term results for direct instruction. Long-term studies may find that direct instruction is not superior to other instructional methods. For instance, a study found that in a group of fourth graders that were instructed for 10 weeks and measured for 17 weeks direct instruction did not lead to any stronger results in the long term than did practice alone (Dean & Kuhn, 2006). Other researchers note that there is promising work being done in the field to incorporate constructivism and cooperative grouping so that curriculum and pedagogy can meet the needs of diverse learners in an inclusion setting (Brantlinger, 1997). However, it is questionable how successful these developed strategies are for student outcomes both initially and in the long term.
Read more about this topic: Discovery Learning
Famous quotes containing the words discovery, learning, special and/or education:
“I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn’t love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country ...”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)
“Without our being especially conscious of the transition, the word “parent” has gradually come to be used as much as a verb as a noun. Whereas we formerly thought mainly about “being a parent,” we now find ourselves talking about learning how “to parent.” . . . It suggests that we may now be concentrating on action rather than status, on what we do rather than what or who we are.”
—Bettye M. Caldwell (20th century)
“Mr. Christian, it is about time for many people to begin to come to the White House to discuss different phases of the coal strike. When anybody comes, if his special problem concerns the state, refer him to the governor of Pennsylvania. If his problem has a national phase, refer him to the United States Coal Commission. In no event bring him to me.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man’s training begins, its probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)