DISCOVERY LEARNING: THE PARALLELOGRAM Ask the child to find the area b h Give the child scissors and a paper cutout of a parallelogram Insight: All parallelograms can be changed into rectangles

DISCOVERY LEARNING: THE PARALLELOGRAM Transfer to novel problems

DISCOVERY METHODS Pure Discovery student receives problems to solve minimal guidance Guided Discovery student receives hints & direction along with problems Expository Method final answer or rule is presented to the student

COMPARING DISCOVERY METHODS Study: Students are given set of five words and asked to identify the word that doesn’t belong. There are groups of three sets which the principle that you use to find the odd word is the same. Then the principle changes for the next three sets. E.g., GONE START GO STOP COME principle - form two pairs of opposites Pure Discovery - students receive no direction Guided Discovery - students are told the principle Expository - students are told the principle and the answer for each set of five words

COMPARING DISCOVERY METHODS Immediate Delayed Transfer Retention PERFORMANCE Worse Better Pure Discovery Expository Guided Discovery

WHY IS GUIDED DISCOVERY BEST? assures learning of the rule/principle/concept (pure discovery does not, expository does) encourages student to search for and activate relevant knowledge (pure discovery does, expository does not) teaches student about the art of discovery (pure discovery does, expository does not) Note: see earlier slide for the effects on retention & transfer

A CASE OF DISCOVERY LEARNING? LOGO Many classrooms introduced Logo programming within a “pure” discovery format (11-12 year olds). The actual results in the classroom were: - children generally had a great deal of difficulty learning the fundamentals of Logo - children had developed misconceptions about how programs operated, couldn’t describe the steps of the programs correctly - children did not plan, and did not debug their programs. If the program didn’t work, they would just start over

CAN WE HELP STUDENTS LEARN LOGO? Study : computer-naïve college students, guided discovery techniques improved learning and transfer Recommendations: - encourage students to reflect on program design (perhaps have students take the role of program designer for peer audiences) - focus on helping students build generalizable principles and strategies (guide students through component processes of planning, executing, identifying errors, and debugging errors)