Theory of Instruction: Principles and Applications

Rating:
Summary: Awesome book - ahead of it's time
Review: The main theme of this book is that a teacher's presentation must be consistent with one and only one interpretation - the correct one for the concept you're trying to teach. If there is more than one interpretation, then some students will learn the incorrect one making re-teaching a necessity.

This guy saw that some student's mis-interpretations were justified given the teacher's presentation. Intuitively this makes sense but Engelmann goes further and shows how good presentations should be constructed. In doing so the author becomes an advocate of the student by showing how teachers can do their jobs better.

As you might expect, this may not be the most popular approach around education circles. But if you're a parent and you want your kid taught, aside from local politics and national popular trends, this is where you need to be. The movement behind all this is called Direct Instruction and take it from me: it works.

I taught my 4 year old to read with his other book (Teach Your Child to Read In 100 Easy Lessons) which arises from the theory in this text. During this process I knew where my kid was at performance-wise and what to do next.

The co-author, Douglas Carnine, has authored methods texts that are phenominal - one for reading and one for math. A language methods text is sorely needed before these movement creaters retire.

The art of instruction is becoming a technology. One hundred years from now smart people will be teaching with Engelmann's methods. The chaff in current theory will be gone and student performance will be so advanced you won't know it by today's standards.

This text is comparable to Alan Cooper's "About Face: Essentials of User Interface Design." Some designers stand far above the rest. I recommend you take a look.