Explicit Teaching

Hey 👋

Welcome to February (following the longest January on record). Today, our final Snack in this series…

Big idea 🍉

Our students tend to learn best when we provide them with highly structured, interactive, and step-by-step experiences—even though it might not always feel like this is the most effective method.

This ‘explicit teaching’ approach is effective largely because it optimises for the limited cognitive capacity of novices. When we are unfamiliar with a domain, we are only able to think about a very few number of relevant things and once, not always able to direct our attention to the right things at the right times, and often at risk of coming to wonky conclusions.

As we develop expertise in a domain, we start to benefit from less guidance, but until this point, the less we leave it up to our students to join the dots, the quicker and more likely they are to build robust understanding (and associated confidence).

At its heart, explicit teaching involves:

• Content clarity: Being crystal clear what students need to know and in what order.

• Decomposition: Breaking down ideas and teaching them in step-by-step, bite-sized chunks, with lots of rehearsal, before building them back up again.

• Modelling: Providing students with lots of (worked) examples and non-examples.

• Faded guidance: Slowly getting students to do more themselves as they develop competence (aka ‘I-We-You’).

• Responsive teaching: Checking understanding and adjusting teaching throughout.

Explicit teaching is sometimes misconstrued of as ‘dry lecturing’ that stifles creativity. In reality, it’s a highly interactive and engaging approach that secures the foundational knowledge needed for deeper thinking and academic success—something particularly appreciated by our most vulnerable students.

🎥 Here’s a clip of explicit teaching in action from the new Steplab docco.

🎓 For more, check out this chapter on the foundations of explicit teaching, and Zach’s fab new (& highly practical) book on the topic.

Summary

• Explicit teaching is a highly effective approach, even though it doesn’t always feel like it should be.

• It entails taking a highly structured and interactive approach which leaves little up to chance when it comes to learning.

• This approach works for all novices but is particularly powerful for our most vulnerable students.

Little updates 🥕

• Study on teacher enthusiasm → finds that teachers who see themselves as enthusiastic use more positive lingo, but students don’t always pick up on this.

• Pre-print from one of biggest brains in cogsci → explains how intentional learning drives intelligence & culture, and implications for teaching as a result.

• Analysis of teacher wellbeing interventions → suggests that mindfulness, effective PD, and even therapy can help (NOTE: this stuff is no replacement for securing great student behaviour and reasonable teacher workload).

• Study on ace math(s) game [building houses with side views] → finds it boosts accuracy in mental rotation (with no gender diff as previously assumed).

• Free teaching clip analysis webinar with Josh Goodrich, Neena Sharma & moi next Thursday 13th Feb 16:00-17:00 (UK time).

Access the full image library (so you can make your slides look extra smart) & much more → Show me Snacks PRO