Coaching is an essential element to achieving high levels of success with a schoolwide implementation of Direct Instruction (DI). Coaching improves teachers’ mastery of DI techniques at the same time that it builds teachers’ confidence in their abilities to effect positive changes in student performance.
Schools that have already received extensive on-site support can benefit by arranging remote coaching over the Internet with a consultant from the National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI). With the proper hardware and software requirements in place, NIFDI consultants can observe teachers instructing groups remotely and provide specific feedback on what they observe. Except for demonstrating lessons or parts of lessons, these “virtual visits” can provide full coaching support to teachers.
Virtual visits can be used to target specific instructional problems, student behavior problems, or specific classrooms. A virtual visit for as short a time as 15 minutes can be effective and far less costly than bringing in a consultant.
In addition to hardware and software requirements, virtual visits require a peer coach or building coordinator to operate the laptop and position it where the presentation book, the teacher, and most of the children’s faces are visible. With remarkable clarity, the technology enables the NIFDI consultant to provide feedback to the coach through audio and text messages in real time!
Virtual visits cost $165 per hour.
IMPORTANT: In times of budgetary constraints, school leaders are forced to make difficult choices. Decreasing external support for a DI implementation before the school and district have developed the capacity to maintain program fidelity at a high level can have negative effects on student performance. Faced with tough budgetary decisions, schools should consider employing virtual visits to maintain external support at a fraction of the cost of on-site visits.
The National Institute for Direct Instruction is a non-profit organization dedicated to...
1. Providing continuous administrative and curricular support to schools and districts as they implement Direct Instruction (DI) programs.
2. Conducting, promoting and publicizing high-quality research on the effects of DI implementations.
NIFDI is uniquely qualified for these tasks as its founding members include the creators of DI. NIFDI's implementation support consultants are experienced teachers with advanced degrees and 5 to 25 years teaching experience in DI. Many of the senior consultants are co-authors of the DI programs. NIFDI's leaders have more than 30 years experience with school and district implementations of DI in all types of environments.
NIFDI has extensive experience providing support for implementing DI in a wide variety of settings. NIFDI has its roots in the University of Oregon Direct Instruction Follow Through model, which was conceived at the University of Illinois in the late 1960's and implemented in schools around the country from 1967 to 1995. NIFDI began as the Accelerated Student Achievement Project (ASAP) in 1993. ASAP negotiated with the state of Utah's State Department of Education and the Utah Learning Resource Center to implement DI in four elementary schools. The positive acceleration of student achievement as a result of the ASAP implementations led to its adoption in Baltimore and elsewhere.
Since its formal creation in 1997, NIFDI has supported DI implementations in 18 states (California, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin), the territory of Guam and Cape York Australia. In Guam, NIFDI implemented the comprehensive Direct Instruction model in 24 elementary schools and all middle schools for several years. In Texas, NIFDI works with IDEA Schools, Inc. to implement the comprehensive Direct Instruction model in 10 elementary schools and a Special Education DI intervention in IDEA high schools.
The National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) is a non-profit organization dedicated to:
NIFDI is uniquely qualified for these tasks as its founding members include the creators of DI. NIFDI's implementation support consultants are experienced teachers with advanced degrees and 5 to 25 years teaching experience in DI. Many of the senior consultants are co-authors of the DI programs. NIFDI's leaders have more than 30 years experience with school and district implementations of DI in all types of environments.
NIFDI has extensive experience providing support for implementing DI in a wide variety of settings. NIFDI has its roots in the University of Oregon Direct Instruction Follow Through model, which was conceived at the University of Illinois in the late 1960s and implemented in schools around the country from 1967 to 1995. NIFDI began as the Accelerated Student Achievement Project (ASAP) in 1993. ASAP negotiated with the state of Utah's State Department of Education and the Utah Learning Resource Center to implement DI in four elementary schools. The positive acceleration of student achievement as a result of the ASAP implementations led to its adoption in Baltimore and elsewhere.
Since its formal creation in 1997, NIFDI has supported DI implementations in 22 states (Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin), the territory of Guam, and Australia. In Guam, NIFDI implemented the comprehensive Direct Instruction model in 24 elementary schools and all middle schools for several years. In Texas, NIFDI works with IDEA Schools, Inc. to implement the comprehensive Direct Instruction model in 22 elementary schools and a Special Education DI intervention in IDEA secondary schools. In Australia, NIFDI partnered with Good to Great Schools Australia (GGSA), a non-profit organization that supports the implementation of DI in 24 schools in Queensland, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia. NIFDI has supported DI implementations in different parts of England and has provided remote training to teachers in India.
NIFDI offers open enrollment training throughout the year. The National DI Conference (Eugene, Oregon) is held annually in the summer and has been attended by educators from around the world. During the school year, NIFDI also conducts Leadership and Coaching Academies. These events have been held in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, and North Carolina. NIFDI open enrollment training helps develop the skills of over 600 educators annually.
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Siegfried Engelmann
What is DI?
Direct Instruction (DI) is a model for teaching that emphasizes well-developed and carefully planned lessons designed around small learning increments and clearly defined and prescribed teaching tasks. It is based on the theory that clear instruction eliminating misinterpretations can greatly improve and accelerate learning.
Its creators, Siegfried Engelmann and Dr. Wesley Becker, and their colleagues believe, and have proved, that correctly applied DI can improve academic performance as well as certain affective behaviors. It is currently in use in thousands of schools across the nation as well as in Canada, the UK and Australia. Schools using DI accept a vision that actually delivers many outcomes only promised by other models.
Direct Instruction operates on five key philosophical principles:
Why does DI work?
There are four main features of DI that ensure students learn faster and more efficiently than any other program or technique available:
Students are placed in instruction at their skill level.
When students begin the program, each student is tested to find out which skills they have already mastered and which ones they need to work on. From this, students are grouped together with other students needing to work on the same skills. These groups are organized by the level of the program that is appropriate for students, rather than the grade level the students are in.
The program’s structure is designed to ensure mastery of the content.
The program is organized so that skills are introduced gradually, giving children a chance to learn those skills and apply them before being required to learn another new set of skills. Only 10% of each lesson is new material. The remaining 90% of each lesson’s content is review and application of skills students have already learned but need practice with in order to master. Skills and concepts are taught in isolation and then integrated with other skills into more sophisticated, higher-level applications. All details of instruction are controlled to minimize the chance of students' misinterpreting the information being taught and to maximize the reinforcing effect of instruction.
Instruction is modified to accommodate each student’s rate of learning.
A particularly wonderful part about DI is that students are retaught or accelerated at the rate at which they learn. If they need more practice with a specific skill, teachers can provide the additional instruction within the program to ensure students master the skill. Conversely, if a student is easily acquiring the new skills and needs to advance to the next level, students can be moved to a new placement so that they may continue adding to the skills they already possess.
Programs are field tested and revised before publication.
DI programs are very unique in the way they are written and revised before publication. All DI programs are field tested with real students and revised based on those tests before they are ever published. This means that the program your student is receiving has already been proven to work.
The implementation of Direct Instruction and the five key philosophical principles will introduce a crucial element in the school system: change. Teachers will generally be required to behave differently than before and schools may need an entirely different organization than they previously employed. Even staff members will be called upon to alter some operations. The popular valuing of teacher creativity and autonomy as high priorities must give way to a willingness to follow certain carefully prescribed instructional practices. Remaining the same, however, are the importance of hard work, dedication and commitment to students. And, it is crucial that all concerned adopt and internalize the belief that all students, if properly taught, can learn.
