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Glossary

Child-centered Learning: "Student-centered learning, or learner-centeredness, is a learning model which places the student (learner) in the center of the learning process. It is distinguished from teacher-centered learning or instruction, which is characterized by the transmission of information from a knowledge expert (teacher) to a relatively passive recipient (student/learner) or consumer."  Definition of John Sener.  More information available at his website.

Constructivism:  "Based on the premise that cognition (learning) is the result of "mental construction." In other words, students learn by fitting new information together with what they already know.  Also referred to as: "student-centered,""child-centered," "learner-centered," "discovery-based," "self-directed."  From EdInformatics

Core Knowledge: A curriculum developed by E.D. Hirsch, the University of Virginia professor who wrote the popular book "Cultural Literacy".  The focus of the Core Knowledge approach is on teaching a common core of concepts, skills, and knowledge that characterize a “culturally literate” and educated individual. A detailed description of this and other reform models can be found at  The Catalog of School Reform Models.

Developmentally Appropriate Practices:   "Developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) describes an approach to education that focuses on the child as a developing human being and life long learner. This approach recognized the child as an active participant in the learning process; a participant who constructs meaning and knowledge through interaction with others, friends and family, materials and environment. The teacher is an active facilitator who helps the child make meaning of the various activities and interactions encountered throughout the day."  Definition of Danielle Houser and Cathy Osborne.

Direct Instruction:  A specific instructivist curriculum developed by Siegfried Englemann at the University of Oregon, found to be the most effective teaching method in the billion dollar Project Follow Through study.  Children receiving Direct Instruction were found to outperform controls on all scales, including achievement, basic skills, and self-esteem.  Developed originally for disadvantaged children, it has been tested in all groups, including rural, urban, disadvantaged, working and middle class, and gifted children, showing success in all groups.  See the Catalog of Schoolwide Reforms.

Instructivism:  "Direct instruction by a teacher employing objectives and lesson plans related to an overall curriculum guide in order to teach specific content, customarily using the lecture method. Knowledge is in possession of the instructor.explicit teaching  Also referred to as: "direct instruction," "mastery learning," "explicit teaching," or "precision teaching.""  From  EdInformatics

Implicit Phonics:  "...the most widely used form of phonics taught in schools today. Implicit phonics is moving from the whole to the smallest parts; "blending-and-building" is not usually taught. Approximately 300 words a year are taught as whole words. The student must make her "best guess" as to what the word is by its shape, beginning and ending letters, any context clues from the rest of the sentence or any accompanying pictures."  Find an excellent article at The National Right to Read Foundation.

Explicit Phonics:  Decoding taught by "...moving from the smallest parts to the whole. Students first learn letters and their sounds, and then build and recombine them into syllables and words. With explicit phonics, "lobotomy" and "laparoscopy" would be read by syllables: lo-bo-to-my and la-pa-ros-co-py. When read by syllables, there is no chance of ever confusing one with the other."  The vast majority of mainstream, quality research on how children learn to read has found that children learn best when taught systematic, explicit phonics.   Find an excellent article at The National Right to Read Foundation.

Project Follow Through:  The largest educational study ever performed, costing over 1 billion dollars and lasting over twenty years.  It compared a variety of teaching methods, and concluded that Direct Instruction showed the most significant positive results.  Every constructivist method studied performed worse than the control groups.  A complete description of the study and it's findings by Gary Adams.

Whole Language:  "A whole-language approach represents a philosophy about reading rather than any one instructional method. According to this philosophy, language is a natural phenomenon and literacy is promoted through natural, purposeful language function. It has as its foundation current knowledge about language development as a constructive, meaning-oriented process in which language is viewed as an authentic, natural, real-world experience, and language learning is perceived as taking place through functional reading and writing situations." (p. 458) (Lapp, D. & Flood, J. (1992). Teaching reading to every child. (3rd ed.). New York: Macmilliam Publishing Company.)  Although the  whole language philosophy has merit, the difficulty lies in the loss of the systematic teaching of explicit phonics. Find an excellent article about the impact of whole language at the Arizona Parents for Traditional Education site.

Whole Math:  Also called New-New Math and Fuzzy Math.  "The current revolution in mathematics curriculum, akin to the Whole Language experiment, that emphasizes group discussion, essays, calculators and guessing and de-emphasizes basic skills and direct instruction."  Fuzzy math grew out of the 1989 NCTM standards.  Much more information at the outstanding Mathematically Correct site.