MISCONCEPTION ALERT!
One of the most common and predictable misconceptions in teaching for
understanding concerns direct instruction or lecturing. Many educators
believe that we (and others) are suggesting that direct instruction or lecturing
is bad and “discovery learning” is good. The myopic corollary is
that if lecturing is bad and discovery is good, then more discovery learning
is better and giving fewer lectures is less bad. We are neither saying
nor implying any such thing. Backward design dictates the answers based
on the logic of your aims: what teaching approaches make the most sense
given the learning goals, the assessments, and the experiences necessary
to make the big ideas real?
All coaches lecture; not even a passionate devotee of the Socratic seminar
avoids providing explicit instruction or feedback. When lecturing is
properly criticized, it is usually because the goals call for more attempts by
learners to play with, test, and apply ideas (to “make meaning”) than the
lectures allow for.