Summer Institute Session 1: Explicit Teaching
Explicit Teaching is “Instruction that does not leave anything to chance and does not make assumptions about skills and knowledge that children will acquire on their own.” -Torgesen, 2004
In the kick-off session for Summer Institute 2022, participants had the opportunity to learn how to utilize the concept of Explicit Teaching for developing content and activities for online, face-to-face, and blended courses.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, explicit means stating clearly and in detail leaving no room for confusion or doubt. This definition points to the heart of Explicit Teaching. Explicit Teaching is a systematic method of teaching with an emphasis on proceeding in small steps, checking for understanding, and achieving active and successful participation by all students. (Rosenshine, 1987)
The session began with establishing a foundation of understanding by exploring a few non-examples of explicit teaching. From there we got to work learning the Explicit Teaching Format. This format includes six components that form the framework of a well-formed, explicit lesson, module, unit, project, or course. The six components of the Explicit Teaching Framework are Rationale, Verbalize, Model, Practice, Feedback, and Revisit.
The Explicit Teaching Framework
- Rationale: From the student perspective, clearly explain the objectives or competencies the learners will be able to do upon completion of the exercise.
- Verbalize: Give a clear, concise, and correct explanation of the skill that includes transparent success criteria i.e., rubrics, grading criteria, etc.
- Model: Explain or demonstrate the skill in the same way students will practice it. Provide visual, auditory, kinesthetic (movement), and tactile means for illustrating metacognition, and important aspects of the concept/skill (e.g. visually display word problem and equation, orally cue students by varying vocal intonations, point, circle, highlight computation signs or important information in story problems). Be sure to “Think aloud” as you perform each step of the skill, show multiple examples, and include all steps.
- Practice: Provide opportunities for guided practice and independent practice. Be sure to check for understanding in multiple ways.
- Feedback: Observe student work and deliver timely and specific feedback that measures against success criteria (rubric, grading criteria). It is important to collect student data to make decisions about the next steps for instruction.
- Revisit: Do a cumulative review of old and new skills and revisit what was covered. Tie the learning to past learning and make a connection to what the students will be learning next.
Attendees then had an opportunity to work in collaborative groups to apply the framework as they built a lesson together and then shared their plans back with the entire group.
The session culminated with a presentation from Faculty Member David Allen on how he uses Explicit Teaching Strategies to help his statistics students find a deeper understanding of the course content.
Download the Explicit Teaching Framework Checklist to guide updates to your current content.
View the recording of the Explicit Teaching presentation.
For more assistance, contact the IDEAS team: IDEAS@spcollege.edu
Resources provided during the presentation:
- Explicit instruction and teaching (Atomi, 2019)
- Explicit Instruction Checklist by Understood for All, Inc., 2019
- How to teach using explicit instruction (Greene, n.d.)
- Rosenshine, B. (1987). Explicit teaching and teacher training. Journal of Teacher Education, 38(3), 34-36
- Teachers Make a Difference, What is the research evidence? (Hattie, 2003):
- Torgesen, J.K. (2004). Lessons learned from research on interventions for students who have difficulty learning to read. In P. McCardle & V. Chhabra (Eds.), The voice of evidence in reading research (pg. 355-382). Baltimore, Brookes.
- What is Explicit Instruction? (Vanderbilt University, n.d.)
- SPC’s Explicit Instruction Checklist
