Direct instruction is a common teacher-centered approach. According to Guzmán & Payá (2020), with an emphasis on the interactions between instructors and students, its main goal is to encourage student on-task behavior via specific teaching, continual support, and student involvement in effective practice. Modeling, reinforcement, feedback, and repeated approximations are some of its essential elements. Direct instruction seems to have a certain connection with Behaviorism. They have very similar components and they both get reaction from students by stimulating. According to Louden (2014), I learnt about the direct instruction is based on Behaviorism, and “Direct Instruction breaks each learning task down into its smallest component and requires mastery of simpler skills before proceeding to more difficult skills”. Students must understand the current knowledge before learning new knowledge.

I believe direct instruction is an appropriate teaching approach for our topic Chinese history. We are mainly taking about the history of Chinese dynasties. For the learning design, it is necessary to pre-assess students how much they know about the dynasties and their histories in order to help instructor determine the starting point of instruction. Then we need to guide students in our study environment. To provide syllabus as behavioral objectives, like to memorize some important events and key characters of each dynasty. And to provide relative assessments, like quizzes or presentation, to test their extent of grasping the knowledge as intended reaction. Next, it is important to provide informative feedback on assessments. It is also important to provide rewards and penalties, like a bonus mark on their grade, and they need to stay after class or use their free time to catch up on their missing knowledge, to stimulate students to their intended reaction. Every student must pass their assessments for entering next chapter of teaching. I believe the direct teaching method will be applicable to our students to learn Chinese history better.

Guzmán, J. F., & Payá, E. (2020). Direct instruction vs. cooperative learning in physical education: Effects on student learning, behaviors, and subjective experience. Sustainability, 12(12). https://doi.org/10.3390/su12124893 

Louden, B. (2014, July 17). Direct instruction and the teaching of reading. The Conversation. Retrieved October 7, 2022, from https://theconversation.com/direct-instruction-and-the-teaching-of-reading-29157