Zig is branching out into social media! You can find Zig on Facebook, posting his paintings, papers, and any other musings he comes up with and feels like sharing. Check it out now at www.facebook.com/ZigEngelmann.

Recently, 4,000 participants from across the US attended the National Charter Schools Conference in Washington, D.C. This event, sponsored by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, offered sessions for those involved in Governance, Leadership, Operations, Policy and Instruction. Kathy Madigan from NIFDI and Dolores Gonzales from IDEA Schools presented a session Using Direct Instruction to Improve Student Achievement: The Partnership between IDEA Schools and NIFDI. Participants learned about the progress students at schools partnering with NIFDI were making and NIFDI's support for the Full Immersion Model for implementing Direct Instruction. Additionally, the session covered the technical aspects of a DI implementation, including management, staff development and supervision issues.

LINKS

Learn more about the conference at: http://www.publiccharters.org/Conference/2013/Home.aspx

More information about IDEA Public Schools is available at: http://www.ideapublicschools.org

Download the PowerPoint Presentation: IDEA_NIFDI_NationalCharterSchoolPresentation.pptx

Direct Instruction got its start at the University of Illinois when Siegfried "Zig" Engelmann -- creator of Direct Instruction and Senior Author of the DI programs -- debuted DI, teaching at-risk preschoolers at the Institute for Research on Exceptional Children. Students in the preschool learned remarkable skills, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, basic algebra, fractions and how to solve area problems. These students, some who attended the preschool for two years and others who only attended for one year, are shown demonstrating their skills in a video available on Zig's site.

The National Institute for Direct Instruction has developed a guide for the video that is free for download.

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The following is a summary with selected quotes from Controversial teaching method brings hope and social change to Cape York published in The Australian in May of 2013. Note that the schools profiled in the article have been implementing the full immersion Direct Instruction model with guidance and support from the National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI). For more information on implementing Direct Instruction, contact NIFDI at 877.485.1973 or info@nifdi.org. 

In his May 11, 2013 article, Controversial teaching method brings hope and social change to Cape York published in The Australian, author Nicolas Rothwell captures the social reform efforts in Aboriginal communities of Cape York Australia, including the remarkable educational reforms in Queensland using none other than Direct Instruction (DI). Noel Pearson – a primary leader in the reform efforts – is seeing his vision for creating a successful remote-area indigenous school come to fruition with the partnership of Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy (CYAAA) and the National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) working to implement DI successfully for all students.

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