1 of 11 Research Report STRONG EVIDENCE SHOWS SEVERE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF ROTEISM INSTRUCTION AND LEARNING PRACTICE ON TEACHER EDUCATORS, SCHOOL AND COLLEGE FACULTY, AND STUDENTS By Victor P. Maiorana November 2017 Revised, March 2018 Subject-Matter Objective: Strong evidence of the severe damage to teacher educator practice and to school and college teaching and learning practice wrought by roteism instruction and learning has meaning because it lays bare the profession’s long-standing need for a core body of conceptual, declarative, and procedural knowledge for critical instruction and critical learning. Main Headings - Abstract - Introduction - What is Critical Instruction and Learning? - Lack of Critical Instruction on the Part of Teacher Educators and College Faculty - Lack of Critical Instruction on The Part of School Faculty - Lack of Literacy Skills Achievement on the Part of High-School and College Students - Summary of Evidence - Conclusion - Critical Operations In and Out of the Classroom - Why Teacher Education Programs Make Little Difference in the Effectiveness of Classroom Instruction - Evidence Consequences - Resources - Bibliography ABSTRACT Roteism practice treats all subject matter as just a collection of facts and ideas to be memorized. This instigates rote learning because a given topic’s facts and ideas are viewed mentally at the same serial, static, crystallized, and one-dimensional level. This makes roteism inherently incapable of connecting and integrating critically the multi-dimensions of objectives, processes, and consequences that exist within all subject matter topics. Seeing no critical pattern or process, school and college students including teacher-candidates and inservice teachers attending professional development programs, are induced to learn by rote. “When the world is presented to us sequentially…we see more isolated facts [and ideas] and fewer relationships… [the training they receive causes] our teachers [to shape] young minds to think in train” (Bailey, 1996, p. 9). According to Vygotsky, describing subject matter in train is not explaining it because “mere description does not reveal the actual dynamic relations [e.g., effect–cause, end-in-view–means, intent–activities–consequences] that underlie phenomena” (1976, p. 62). This research report provides strong evidence of how ages-old roteism practice continues to fail teacher educators, school and college faculty, and school and college students. In today’s fast-moving information-based, digital, and complex world there may be a place for roteism instruction, but it can no longer be the primary means by which teachers lead students. Instead,