The rationale for this article, and the Orbit issue, stems from my experience with educators from around the world. We simply do not have a common way of thinking about instruction and how it plays out in the classroom. Jerome Bruner's comment is apt, that what we lack in education is a clearly articulated theory of instruction.

Any artist can go to an art store and purchase paints; any teacher can attend a workshop to acquire additional instructional processes. The artists can say they are cubists; the teachers can say they are constructivists. That does not make those people artists or teachers. Having a repertoire and philosophy are insufficient necessities in becoming artistically or instructionally intelligent.

Effective teachers, like effective employees in all occupations, have ways of thinking about what they do and a corresponding repertoire of ways to do things. Hundreds of books on education contain hundreds of methods on how and what to teach. Yet we take for granted that teachers are instructionally skilled.

Some of you would no doubt appreciate a clear definition of instructional intelligence. I can't provide that. But I can tell you that a number of areas must be integrated in order for an educator to demonstrate instructional intelligence:

• having a rich and meaningful repertoire of ways to assess learning
• having a deep knowledge and ability to intersect multiple content areas-
  
• having an extensive understanding of how students learn
  
• having an extensive repertoire of instructional methods that you can integrate in a variety of ways
  
• having the ability to wisely go about the process of educational change;
  
• having a personality that encourages students to walk into your room.

Perhaps you can list others.

THE QUESTION
What are you thinking about when you decide to give a mini-lecture or assign group work or a Venn Diagram? Perhaps you decide to use Reading Recovery or a process as simple as Think Pair Share. What leads you to these decisions?

Consider the Think Pair Share tactic which is one of the least complex of approximately 300 co-operative learning tactics. Think about all the things the teacher could or should consider if Think Pair Share is going to be applied effectively. If we employed a rubric, what would Level Four look like for the teacher who employed this process in the classroom? Before I respond to this question, I would like to illustrate why I believe instructional integration is worth considering.

DEVELOPING A PERSPECTIVE ON INSTRUCTIONAL INTEGRATION
In a playful way this article is working at illustrating the unlimited and delightful possibilities that exist in the design of powerful learning environments. I am arguing for a more integrationist position; one that realistically reflects how experienced and effective teachers create learning environments … and create those environments in the moment as they sense, select, integrate, and respond to the endless classroom pressures and possibilities.

At the simplest level, what the public asks of teachers is to demonstrate expert behaviour in the classroom-to do the best for kids. Also at the simplest level, expert behaviour is what we expect of someone who rebuilds the engine of a car or repairs a washing machine or rebuilds a hip or operates on our eyes. So, to expect expert behaviour from teachers seems reasonable. Of course when we step back and consider that teachers are spending five to six hours a day for approximately 200 days a year with approximately 25 to 30 students, it may appear to be more akin to being reasonably impossible.Teachers are not simply one-on-one with a piece of technology or with the needs or problems of one or two clients-as in banking or medicine or law.

So, what is expert behaviour? At the broadest level, expert behaviour is what one person does as the result of intense and thoughtful effort over time; about ten years of intense effort (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1992). Para-lleling that literature, the research on intelligence reports that one's IQ is not a trustworthy factor in predicting success. The better predictor is intelligent behaviour. Perkins (1995) in his book Outsmarting IQ: The Art of Learnable Intelligence reports that intelligence is predicated on a combination of deep knowledge within multiple domains, the ability to recognize patterns, the ability to thoughtfully access an extensive repertoire of strategies, and taking time to reflect. I see "intelligent behaviour" as synonymous with expert behaviour.

What might some of the components of expert teaching behaviour be? We have asked that question of teachers and read the literature for the last 25 years. It seems that what we are asking of teachers is to take the influence of their personality and to integrate their understanding of content, of instructional processes, of assessment, and their understanding of the learner-to do it collectively (within the school and within the district) and be simultaneously empathetic, caring, enthusiastic, polite, humourous, organized, fair, with-it, and assertive.

What we are after is supporting teachers on a journey to become experts. We want expert teachers who collectively demonstrate intelligent behaviour in the design of powerful learning environments. And we want all the players in this process to become key players in the design and support of that journey. They must collectively have the ability to initiate, implement, and sustain educational change.
Currently, too much instructional information is raining down on teachers' heads. Perhaps it is time to consider the whether; whether or not teachers can meaningfully implement everything they are being asked to implement. Below I present an organizer that attempts to make some sense of all these instructional methods.

Organizer
So how do you make sense of all the instructional possibilities? Here's a list of instructional "stuff" that you as a teacher have as resourses. How would you invite them to play out in the design of a learning environment in your classroom?

Let's return to the question asked earlier: "What are you thinking about when you decide to give a mini-lecture or assign group work or a Venn Diagram? Perhaps you decide to use Reading Recovery or a process as simple as Think Pair Share. What leads you to these decisions? Which items in the above list can be linked to Think Pair Share? "

To initiate Think Pair Share, the teacher has to consider whether or not the students feel safe sharing with one another. The brain research informs us that the "brain" needs to feel safe. If it does not feel safe, then the student is not going to willingly engage in a paired discussion. You might also consider whether or not your students have the collaborative skills of "actively listening" and "paraphrasing" (cooperative learning) … what if they put each other down? In a parallel vein, consider whether or not they are ready to have "boys" talking to "girls" (gender) and will students talk with students who are not that popular (two other versions of safety). What if you have English as Second Language students (multiculturalism) or a student with autism or Downes Syndrome or a Learning Disability; what adaptations need to occur so that they can participate or not feel left out?

In order to get your students talking, one option you have is to frame a request or question. That implies a sensitivity to clearly framing questions or requests. What level of concern will you invoke; will they only share with each other or will some be randomly selected to share with the class? What if you simply ask them to share; how do you know they will both talk-what if one person is more talkative, the other quieter? What level of thinking (say from Bloom's or Aschner's Taxonomy) will you select in the design of the question? Will it be a convergent or divergent question (we know they serve different purposes)? Depending on the complexity of the question or the uncertainty of the question you must decide how much wait time to provide. We know that wait time increases success by allowing students to work in their heads first (covert thinking) before sharing their thinking (overt action).

Once they have shared, they are obviously going to do something-or else why invoke Think Pair Share? You must have had an objective or outcome. If not, why did you select it? Now, in deciding to randomly call on several students to respond, you must consider that you are asking students to succeed or fail publicly. How will you respond to their response? What if they give you a correct, incorrect, partially correct response, or a silly response, a guess, a convoluted response or even a no response? Should you suspend judgement or judge their responses? What effect will it have if you select one of those two judgement options? How will you make sure they save face?

Last, consider how you can integrate Think Pair Share with more complex instructional processes. What if you attempt to employ Jigsaw and the students cannot do Think Pair Share; even though Jigsaw demands they be skilled at Think Pair Share? What if you are involving students in Taba's Inductive Thinking strategy, Bruner's Concept Attainment Strategy, or the Johnsons' Academic Controversy. How can you actively involve all students in sharing their thinking and hypotheses if you do not activate something similar to Think Pair Share?
We have seen Think Pair Share fail on a number of occasions; and for good reason-it's easy to understand its structure, it's difficult to implement the process.
What follows is an attempt to explain the elegance that belies instructional simplicity-a way to group all the instruction "stuff' presented above. The groups have been created using "Hilda Taba's Inductive thinking strategy" and labelled according to the literature or instruction.

AN IDEA FOR INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
David Perkins (1986) in his book Knowledge as Design argues that our thinking and actions are often limited because we lack understanding of the concepts that guide our thinking and actions. He contrasts having "knowledge as information" with "knowledge as design."

In our work over the last 15 years (Rolheiser, 1986; Bennett, Rolheiser, & Stephan, 1992; Rolheiser, 1997; Bennett, Anderson, & Evans 1997)we have employed Perkins' four questions to facilitate understanding:

1. What is the structure of the concept?
2. What are the purposes of the concept?
3. What are the model cases of the concept?
4. What are the arguments supporting or not supporting it?

For example, if the concept were screwdriver we would respond with:

1. Structure: a handle, a shaft and a shape on the end that fits into screws
2. Purpose: it assists us in putting screws into objects
3. Model Cases: Flat Head, Robertson and Phillips
4. Argument: It gives us mechanical advantage

We apply these four questions to clarify the concepts of Pedagogy, Instructional Organizers, Instructional Strategies, Instructional Tactics, Instructional Skills, Instructional Concepts, Integration and Stacking Instructional Processes, and Instructional Power. Obviously, Monet did not paint with one colour. Nor do master chefs limit themselves to one salad. Hair stylists, dentists, contractors all have an extensive repertoire of responses to respond to different situations. What is your repertoire, how do you integrate it, and how powerful is it in meeting the diverse needs of the learners?