A detente in the pedagogy wars? Let's hope so.

When I was growing up, one of my favorite games was Gauntlet:

It was pretty simple - you wandered around dungeons, etc., collected treasure, and killed bad guys. There were four characters to play, each with different combinations of strengths and weaknesses, and you had to choose which to play - that was the cool part. The Warrior was strong but slow with no magic. The Wizard was weak and slow but with strong magic. The Elf was weak but fast with pretty good magic. My favorite was the Valkyrie because she was pretty strong, pretty fast, and pretty good at magic. I’ve always been prone to choosing the middle of extremes, which is perhaps why I’ve never liked the pedagogy wars.

For a while now, there’s been a bit of a pedagogy war (let’s be kind and call it a debate) about the best ways to teach: direct instruction (just tell students what you want them to learn) v. guided-discovery learning (let students discover ideas, with teacher assistance when needed). The proponents of the former have really doubled-down on it (see here and here) whereas advocates of the latter have long-prioritized a guided-discovery learning or inquiry approach with direct instruction applied as needed. This “both/and” approach appeals to me - just as the Valkyrie did. Perhaps that’s why I liked de Jong and colleagues’ (2023) article so much. It elaborates on the evidence for a both/and, inquiry approach to pedagogy, with direct instruction warranted in some cases, in some contexts, for some students. They identified a number of moderators (e.g., students’ prior knowledge, the complexity of the content taught) that help instructors determine when to lean more toward inquiry and when to do more direct instruction. It makes sense to me and is worth a read. And as they mention at the end of the article: it’s tough to imagine students persisting through, and loving, a curriculum with nothing but direct instruction pedagogies. At some point, people need the room to explore and think on their own. Even for those students who need direct instruction in the moment, our goal should be to educate them to the point where they will thrive in inquiry.