Summary Content: Integrating Pedagogy

Integrating pedagogy is the focus of this book. You are no doubt already sensing what this means. This second to last comment provides the essence of what integrating pedagogy means to us. It refers to the ways in which teachers combine instructional concepts, organizers, strategies, tactics, and skills in their instructional planning and teaching. We know that this occurs, although as indicated in our overview of the literature, no existing body of research exists that specifically examines the processes and effects of instructional integration in teacher planning and practice. Instructional integration may occur in the context of, but should not be confused with the widely discussed concepts and practices associated with curriculum integration (Fogerty, 1991; Beane, 1995).

From our own work in this area, we suggest two broad approaches, 'integrating' and 'stacking' pedagogy. Integrating is like intertwining threads of skills, tactics, and strategies, shaped in part by some key concepts or organizers -- there is a simultaneity in their application. Stacking is like placing blocks one-after-the-other to form a structure. Here one idea is applied after another while still maintaining a sense of connectedness and flow.

Other organizers that we do not deal with in this book relate to one's beliefs and values, often part of one or more particular philosophies of learning. Those philosophies often balkanize educators. This is seen as critics and supporters argue for and against Direct Instruction; Phonetics, Whole Language, and Outcome Based Instruction etc. Perhaps the best book we know of that pushes educator to consider the theoretical base behind the decision they make is Research on Educational Innovations (1997) by Arthur Ellis and Jeffrey Fouts. That said, we also sense these authors have to become wiser in understanding the essence behind these programs; although they cite research, we do not get the feeling they deeply understand nor have they applied or worked with the programs they are investigating.

Component Seven: Instructional Power is based on the term 'power' employed in statistics that refers to the size of the effects we can expect for the use of a particular practice. Cooperative learning, for example, when compared to a more stand-up recitation/teacher talk form of pedagogy, produces an effect size (power) of 1.25 standard deviations in favour of cooperative learning. The first deviation represents approximately 34%, the second approximately 12%. This means that for higher level thinking, the mean for the students in the teacher talk group is at the 50th percentile, while the mean for students in the cooperative learning group is at the 87th percentile (50% + 34% + 3% = 87%). We can now state that one approach (in this example of cooperative learning) is more powerful than the other more traditional teacher talk (for research on effect sizes on cooperative learning see Rolheiser-Bennett, 1987; Johnson & Johnson, 1989). While instructional skills are not as powerful as instructional strategies in terms of their effects on student learning, they are critical to effectively implementing strategies. More specifically, from our classroom experience and observations, the instructional skills increase the power of the strategies; although, we know of no research that explains this 'skill/strategy interdependence'.

This takes us back to some of the unintentionally unwise comments by researchers such as Robert Slavin and Thomas Gusky who unwittingly communicated that Madeline Hunters [instructional skills and instructional concept program - known as Instructional Theory Into Practice] was not worthy in that it did not produce a large effect on student learning.

This is also mentioned in Ellis and Fouts' (1997) work in the book Research on Educational Innovations. Their comment re their summary of Hunter's work is "One more such victory and we are undone" (p., 16). Yet, the components of Hunter's program are substantiated in the research - that is acknowledged by Ellis and Fouts. The components of the Hunter approach are historically aligned with direct instruction - why? For better or worse - that was where education was in the 70's an early 80's.

The reality is that Madeline Hunter's program was not designed to make a big difference in student learning; that is not the role of concepts and skills. Yet those skills and concepts mentioned above are useful - the authors would argue 'critical' in the effective implementation of other more powerful instructional processes. Arguing against those instructional components, as part of the teaching and learning process, is akin to arguing for the table saw over sandpaper in the process of woodworking because it takes more wood off a plank. As woodworkers know, when sandpaper is integrated with a power sander it has wondrous effects. Try running a power-sander without sandpaper. Yet we encourage students to engage themselves in the Concept Attainment process when we as teachers do not have the related instructional skills to support the students' thinking. The effect is that Concept Attainment does not have the effect it could have if the less complex and powerful support processes were in place.

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