Principles of Engelmann's Direct Instruction: Lesson structure and Schemes of Work

This post is part of a series where I go in to detail on some of the main aspects of Direct Instruction as laid out by Siegfried Engelmann in this book.

Below are links to the other posts in this series. Scroll past them to read the article.

• Atomisation
• Overtisation
• Expansion and Context Shaping
• Cognitive load
• Review
• Lesson structure and schemes of work
• Speed principle
• Difficulty and Motivation
• Defining range/scope
• Categories for different types of knowledge
• Instruction for basic types of knowledge
• Instruction for linked types of knowledge
• Instruction for routines
• Instruction for problem solving techniques
• "Real world" maths
• Prompts and scaffolding
• Correcting mistakes
• My take on the strengths and weaknesses of Direct Instruction

Lesson Structure

Due to atomisation and the speed principle, the lesson can be split in to 3-5 minute activities (in practice I find this hard to achieve with expansion and cumulative review activities).

These activities should be mix of 15% initial instruction on new material and 85% review (including a combination of the different types of review listed here.

Here is an example lesson plan:

1. Starter: review of two recent topics, prompted by pre-written worked examples with similar features (this task needs to be doable without prompting from me as I need to be settling the class and taking register)
2. Prompted review of an older topic (I will pick either one that students have previously struggled with, or one that will be required for the topics to be learnt in coming lessons).
3. Initial teaching of a new topic, blocked practice followed by an expansion activity.
4. Re-teaching of last lessons new topic, alternating question practice followed by expansion.
5. Context-shaping or question discrimination activity on the new topics.
6. Cumulative review including the topics used in activities 2, 3, and 4.

Scheme of Work

A track is collection of skills grouped not by topic, but by similarity of the required student response. For example, ratio sharing, fraction of an amount, percentages of an amount and pie charts may all be taught in a single track. Each of these skills should be taught using highly similar language and highly similar overt responses. The aim is to reduce teaching time by making the connections in maths (that teachers often take for granted) as clear to students as possible.

Three or four of these tracks should be taught in parallel. That way, the interleaving of topics is woven right in to initial instruction. This is very unlike most teaching models, where interleaving, if used at all, is employed only during topic review/revision.

Each track chosen should be highly different (both visually and in terms of required student response) to avoid blending/confusion.