The
Unit Study
Homeschooler
Jessica Hulcy
5 Ds of Learning for
All: Gifted, Special
Needs, and Average
Do
Discover
Dramatize
Dialogue
Drill
Graduating college in 1970, I found myself teaching Physi- cal Science in a school loca- ted near Dallas’s public housing projects. The school’s book room
refused to issue textbooks for each student; however, I could have thirty textbooks for my room! What? I quickly
resorted to doing experiments that the
textbook only showed in pictures. No
matter that many of the experiments
were failures. Failed experiments gave
students the opportunity to discover
something on their own. Since many of
the ninth-graders did not read, we
dramatized concepts such as Brownian motion, the random collision of particles
Hands-on activities
literally bombard
the brain with the
same information
from every sense,
keeping the most
inattentive focused.
in a gas/liquid, using kids as moving
molecules. Afterwards, we would talk
about what we had done . . . dialogue,
and finally, we reviewed what we had
covered, which was drill. Do, Discover,
Dramatize, Dialogue, and Drill are the
KONOS 5 Ds of Learning. I was practicing them the first year I taught in public
school and did not even know what I
was doing . . . but I knew it worked!
KONOS 5 Ds of Learning
•;Do . . . to capture attention. In the “Re-
sourcefulness” unit, physically setting
up an electric circuit captures the child’s
attention unlike merely reading about
electricity. Greater understanding and
retention happen, because more than the
sense of sight is used to collect informa-
tion. Hands-on activities literally bom-
bard the brain with the same information
from every sense, keeping the most inat-
tentive focused.
