The Facts

Recently, my grade 9 Locally Developed Class studied Elements of Fiction and Literary Terms.  As an experiment I decided to teach this unit the 'old way' with no DI. My intention was to compare the results of the Mythology unit which employed the Choice Board each and every day.  After every class I made flash cards with words, definitions and facts from the Mythology Unit and we began class the next day with a quick review game.  The students really looked forward to seeing which new cards were added each day. To them, this was a fun game that sometimes even had prizes.  To me, it was a daily drill of the unit.  The final test average for Mythology was 71.5%.  The final test average for Elements of Fiction was 57.5%.  Quite frankly, I was very surprised that the difference was so great.  One small change, probably 5 extra minutes of work each day and it made a world of difference in the end.  So, the facts here are that DI really does work.