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The Minimal guided approach during instruction, also referred to as the constructivist
approach, can be critically discussed as to whether or not this is a road to failure, or can if it
can actually be a successful way to teach students and assist them in learning. There is much
dispute regarding the educational issue of minimal guidance, and the impact that
instructional and minimal guidance can have, as there are various outcomes that differ for
each individual. There are several recommendations addressed which have been assessed in
Kirschner, Sweller and Clark’s (2006) literature review, Why Minimal Guidance During
Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-
Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching, which will be further discussed throughout
this essay, and whether or not implementing these recommendations will positively impact
teaching practice in regards to the key learning area (KLA) of History. Human cognitive
architecture, expert-novice and cognitive load are significant parts of constructivism which
will be critically analysed along with other parts of constructivism such as characteristics and
functions regarding working and long-term memory, experiential learning, and problem-
based learning (PBL), which have also been addressed in this literature review, which will be
Human cognition has developed to assimilate, process and use information, or knowledge,
to direct human action. The educational issue of minimal guidance is a controversial issue
that can be further explored through human cognitive architecture, which is the idea of how
the structures of one’s working and long-term memory are organised. In regards to what
one remembers and how, it can be argued that many individuals learn best when they are in
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Researching Teaching & Learning (102096) Gabriella Talarico (17992262)
long-term memory, where what one sees, hears, and thinks is critically dependant on and
influenced by long-term memory (Tobias and Duffy, p.13, 2009). The development of
exemplary strategies in targeted mainstream curriculum areas, such as, for example,
English, History, and Social Science is important so that students are able to understand a
great depth of concepts and procedures from being guided, rather than suffering in a
independently and can gain great confidence while doing this. They also become confident
in solving problems as they have understood how to construct their own solutions which
can lead to one of the most effective learning experiences. These strengths are examples of
why individuals learn best with minimal guidance. However, with evident research from
Kirschner, Sweller and Clark’s literature review, it is disputed that minimal guidance is in fact
ineffective, and constructivism has the ability to overwhelm students as they are expected
to guide their selves. Another weakness with minimal guidance includes the lack of direction
students have, especially those who do not speak English, and have English as a Second
Language (ESL). These students would include refugee students, who are attempting to
understand content, however, cannot due to the lack of instruction. Refugee students with
ESL will struggle with cognitive overload as they do not have experience with the content,
experienced. They will lack the guidance they need to be able to grasp an understanding,
which shows that guidance and instruction is needed. Refugee students would be
considered as novice learners, whereas other students with more knowledge would be
referred to as experts.
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Researching Teaching & Learning (102096) Gabriella Talarico (17992262)
Experts can be defined as individuals who have a great understanding and the ability to
to their knowledge and how they are able to quickly grasp understandings due to previous
situations given to them, such as a minimal guided environment, and would be able to work
independently. Novices on the other hand, are quite the opposite as they do not have the
causes their performance to be inflexible and limited as they lack an in depth understanding
due to lack of experience, as summarised by Ross, Phillips, Klein and Cohn (2005). Therefore,
experts and novices differ drastically in various ways. According to Ross et al. (2005), some
differences identified through research that experts are capable of that novices are not
include the following; noticing patterns and characteristics of information which is not seen
by novices, spending more time analysing a situation and less time deliberating what action
to take, having better metacognitive skills enabling them to monitor their own performance,
and, detecting problems and spotting atypicicalities as a situation progresses. This evidently
explains how experts and novices differ, and why it is important that novices should be
provided with direct instructional guidance on the concepts and procedures required by a
particular discipline, and should not be left to discover those procedures on their own. It is
also important to understand that novices may not only include refugee students, it could
be any students that are behind and struggling due to lack of direction. Therefore, minimal
guidance is ineffective, and direction is necessary so that students are able to grasp an in
depth understanding of concepts and procedures with the help of direction. Otherwise,
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Researching Teaching & Learning (102096) Gabriella Talarico (17992262)
students will suffer consequences such as cognitive overload, due to of lack of direction,
understood, it is unclear why some believe that minimal guided can be successful as it has
shown that when students learn with minimal guidance, and minimal feedback, they
become frustrated and disengaged, resulting to them not doing their work (Hardiman,
Pollastek, and Weil, 1968; Brown, 1994). However, when provided with extensive feedback,
and direction, or, guidance, during instruction, they become deeply engaged and learn
more. Therefore, it is evidently shown through strong research that minimal guidance is
ineffective and will result to less work being done – less guidance, less work.
overload to no longer be an issue. Worked examples and process worksheets are also ways
in which research has determined whether or not minimal guidance is effective, with
outcomes showing that both these activities result to the conclusion that students showed
superior quality of learning when guided and instructed, opposed to those who received
minimal guidance. Minimally guided instruction appears to proceed with no reference to the
them. This is a series of recommendations that most educators find almost impossible to
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Researching Teaching & Learning (102096) Gabriella Talarico (17992262)
As shown above, the time from 20-25 minutes gives a total of five minutes to complete this
Concept Map Classroom activity. Five minutes to do this concept map classroom activity is
not a sufficient amount of time for students to grasp an in depth understanding of this
classroom activity. It is clear that cognitive overload would occur for English speaking
students, and have an immense effect on non-English speaking students. Less guided
approaches fail to explain content to students, which also reflects on the lack of pedagogical
skill a teacher may have. Therefore, the lesson plan must be modified so that all students
have equal opportunity to grasp an understanding. In order to improve this lesson plan,
time management is crucial and essential. Allowing more time, such as fifteen minutes to do
this would be appropriate. That way, the ‘Words that should be included” will not be
rushed, as it would be in the original five minutes. Giving definitions of these words would
also be essential, so that students not only learn the words, but learn the further
understanding of what these words mean which relate to the topic being learned, Ancient
Egypt. These words are likely to be stored in students’ long-term memory, whereas the
definitions will be part of their working memory. For students struggling, such as refugee
students who have ESL, a holistic approach could also have an effective impact. For
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Researching Teaching & Learning (102096) Gabriella Talarico (17992262)
example, bringing in props regarding the topic of Ancient History, so they can physically
touch and feel objects is another way of assisting them in learning which will also positively
reflect their long-term memory and allow them to remember and learn the content. Giving
feedback will also help improve students and whether or not they choose to stay engaged,
as feedback has the ability to indicate a student’s success (Moran and Malott, p.367, 2004).
Asking questions is also important as it allows students to interact with each other, and with
the teacher, allowing them to pursue investigation (Orlich et al, p.292, 2018)It is clear that
throughout the literature review written by Kirschner et al (2006), have been implemented,
as minimal guidance is ineffective, and guidance during instruction is what is needed for
In regards to the literature review written by Kirschner et al (2006), it was quite shambolic
as there was no clear inscription of what recommendations were, there were no evidence of
methods that occurred and there were parts all over the place, making it difficult to read,
and difficult to understand. This article does argue that minimal guidance during instruction
is in fact a road to failure, which is evidently shown to be true; however, there were many
statements made without evidence to back up the claim. Overall, the article did provide
some great evidence, some of which I was able to cite due to the relevance.
To conclude, it is clearly evident that the minimal guided approach during instruction is
ineffective, and students must receive guidance during instruction so that they can grasp an
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Researching Teaching & Learning (102096) Gabriella Talarico (17992262)
overload. Regardless of whether or not a student is an expert or novice, they should feel
that they will receive the guidance and instruction they need in order to not only learn, but
understand. The modified lesson plan shows recommendations that have been put into
place to allow students to further understand, opposed to the original lesson plan. The
original lesson plan did not have a sufficient, or appropriate time frame for the activity, and
it is important that when teaching content, the information to be learned is not rushed, so
that it can assist in being stored in a students’ long-term memory. The modifications are
therefore better than the minimal guidance that was provided in the original lesson plan, as
students receive further information that allows an in depth understanding, which is always
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Researching Teaching & Learning (102096) Gabriella Talarico (17992262)
References:
Brown, A., & Campione, J. (1994). Guided discovery in a community of learners. In K. McGilly (Ed.),
Classroom lessons: Integrating cognitive theory and classroom practice (pp. 229–270).
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.].
Hardiman, P., Pollatsek, A., & Weil, A. (1986). Learning to understand the balance beam. Cognition
and Instruction, 3, 1–30.
Kirschner, P., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. (2006). Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not
Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential,
and Inquiry-Based Teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75-86. doi:
10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1.
Moran, D., & Malott, R. (2004). Evidence-based educational methods. San Diego, CA: Elsevier
Academic Press
Orlich, D., Harder, R., Brown, A., Trevisan, M., & Miller, D. Teaching strategies.
Ross, K. G., Phillips, J. K., Klein, G., & Cohn, J. (2005). Creating expertise: A framework to guide
technology-based training. (Final Technical Report for Contract #M67854-04-C-8035 for the
Marine Corps Systems Command/Program Manager for Training Systems). Fairborn, OH:
Klein Associates.
Tobias, S., & Duffy, T. (2009). Constructivist theory applied to instruction. London: Routledge.