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What Ferris Forgot

 Ask someone outside of education what high school classrooms look like and various visions of Ferris Bueller fill our heads: Apathetic students, out-of-touch teachers, and droning lectures with echos of "Bueller, Bueller." The film is a cult classic, but it doesn't paint an overly engaged classroom portrait.

Lecture, or in educationese, direct instruction, is common and vital in many secondary classrooms. However, there's an awful lot of side-eye from professional developers when we talk about it. Why would we provide direct instruction when we could use inquiry or projects or cooperative learning? Direct instruction has become the black sheep of the teaching toolbox, but it doesn't have to be.

Ferris Bueller style droning lectures that go on for hours are no longer in vogue. However, according to all the research, direct instruction is absolutely essential. As a matter of fact, a recent science study in Educational Research Review corroborates that a combination of direct instruction and more creative measures, like inquiry-based instruction, is necessary. The question is, how do we do it effectively and keep students engaged?

Luckily, Zaretta Hammond and Robert Marzano have some answers for us. First, Hammond tells us in Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain that an engaging lesson format has four components: Ignite, Chunk, Chew, Review. When we consider direct instruction, the chunking and chewing stages move you from the Charlie Brown and Ferris Bueller media images into substantive learning and engagement. Secondary students cannot process information for more than about fifteen minutes. Direct instruction fails when we do not chunk it appropriately and provide students quick, low-stress opportunities to chew on the information. 

Marano's research affirms the need for processing time in between chunks of content. All that is required is planning for meaningful stopping places in your direct instruction and a quick activity that allows students to talk and retrieve information. We have already talked about quick retrieval practices that use brain science to process information more effectively, as well as strategies for breaking up content with effective questioning techniques. There are also strategies on this blog for quick protocols that continually increase response rates and class participation. Any of these strategies could be used to chunk and chew during direct instruction.

The real tipping point is to remember to stop talking and do one about every fifteen minutes. 

So, place a post-it note on your computer with a few quick chunking and chewing strategies or put a sign up in the back of your classroom that is always staring you down and reminding you to give students a chance to process the content you just discussed. 

If you are looking for more creative ideas to help students process and chew on content, try one of these:
1. Edward de Bono's Thinking Hats
2. Julie Stern's Learning That Transfers Acquire Strategies
3. Brave New Teaching's Sesame Street Quizzes

Life in classrooms moves pretty fast. If you don't chunk and chew on information during direct instruction, you could miss it.




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