Teach explicitly: Secondary

[On-screen text]: Teach explicitly: What it is 

• Teaching new information explicitly and at an appropriate pace. 
• Moving on to the next chunk of new information once students have mastered component tasks. 
• Demonstrating and modelling how to complete a task, with appropriate scaffolding. 
• Providing regular opportunities for students to practice what they’re learning.  

[On-screen text]: This video demonstrates examples of the following techniques to teach explicitly: 

• Sequence the chunks of learning 
• Move between guided and independent practice 
• Explain new information clearly and concisely  
• Use an appropriate pace 
• Demonstrate and think aloud 
• Model using worked examples.  
   

Greg Ashman, Deputy Principal, Year 8 Teacher, Ballarat Clarendon College: So, explicit teaching to me is a whole system. It's not just the moment when you stand up in class and explain something. It's the whole process of going from I do, to we do, to you do. So, eventually we want our students to be able to solve quite complex mathematical problems on their own. But we have to scaffold their way to that, so you start by fully explaining any concepts, fully demonstrating any procedures before you ask the students to apply those concepts or procedures. But gradually you're releasing control to them. 

[On-screen text] Explain new information clearly 

Greg Ashman: How do we know the y-intercept? Because x is zero. When x is zero, it's the y-intercept. So, this is a special point. This is the y-intercept. Okay, so I've labelled my co-ordinates x1, y1 and x2, y2. Done that. Okay, now use the gradient formula to find m.  
So, m is – now, I've got that there, so I'm not going to copy that out again: y2 minus y1, so I'm just going to substitute them straight in. So, y2, that's that, which is 9, minus y₁, that's 5 over x2, that's that, 2 minus x1, which is zero. Notice that I've done zero thinking. That's great. We try and reduce the amount of thinking we have to do as much as we can because there's plenty enough to think about in maths as it is.  

I've already done the hard work. We did the hard work a few moments ago when we derived this formula.  
Now we have it. We know that that's how we can find the gradient. We just identify the points, whack them in. So, what's 9 minus 5? That was 4, isn't it? Yeah. This is the bit I’m not good at. Check me in case I go wrong. Two minus zero, I’m right with that, it’s 2. Four divided by 2 is 2. Am I done? No, I’m not. I need to put my final answer m = 2 and maybe put it in a box or something, yes. So, has everyone got that down? Okay, now, on your mini whiteboard, please do the ‘you do’ for me, please. 

[On-screen text] Move between guided and independent practice  

Greg Ashman: And can I see some full workings, please? I don’t want – I don't want just the answer m equals something. I feel short-changed if that's all I get. 

Jess Lacey, Year 12 Chemistry teacher, Merici College: When you're giving a lot of information to students, particularly in the form of a lot of text, it can be quite overwhelming. So, by breaking it down, we are sort of reducing their cognitive loads. So, we can use examples and we can underline keywords and paraphrase certain parts or make connections between the text and either a visual, a diagram, a mechanism or an example, so that they're not just reading a big block of text. They're actually breaking that text down into meaning, and you're helping them with that process. 

So, the partial positive carbon atom in the halogenoalkane attracts a nucleophile. So it's attracting a nucleophile. And when we draw arrows – curly arrows in the mechanism – we go from the electrons to the place it's moving, so I'm going to go from these electrons here to the carbon that it's attracted to. Since the halogen atom is highly electronegative in the presence of a nucleophile, heterolytic fission will occur, okay? Where both electrons in the covalent bond will go with the halogen to form a halide ion. So, here's the covalent bond. Heterolytic fission means both electrons go to one part. Okay? We've covered homolytic fission before, where each of them get one electron. Heterolytic fission: only one takes both of the electrons. So, I'm going to draw an arrow to show that both of these electrons here are going to go with the chloride – with a chlorine atom to form a chloride ion. 

Chloe Rees, Year 11 Visual Communication Design teacher, Ballarat Clarendon College: So, when we're planning for instruction, we're thinking about what that desired outcome is at the end, and then thinking about the manageable steps for students, especially in terms of the I do, the we do and the you do, and what each of those steps looks like in terms of that gradual release to independent practice. In visual arts, independent practice is really important because that's where you see the individual creativity come out. But really preparing the students for having the skills and techniques to be able to implement that into their independent practice is really important in that planning. 

We're going to look at a slightly different jersey design and we're going to use PMI.  

[On-screen text] PMI (plus minus interesting) is a framework for evaluating ideas 

Chloe Rees: If I'm thinking about the positives of this design. I'm going to link back to what Layla was saying earlier and we're going to go back to colour, that the colour is working well because of the use of the block colours. 

[On-screen text] Demonstrate and think aloud 

Chloe Rees: So, I've got a block colour here of a yellow stripe and I've got a block colour here of a yellow stripe. They're 2 things that are working really positively in my design. Knowing that my design is to represent my cultural heritage of Australia. That's what I'm thinking about when I'm making those critical decisions. 

[On-screen text] Move between guided and independent practice 

Chloe Rees: On your page, I want you to now write one positive that you can see in this work. What's one positive that you can see in this work?  

As I start to cold call people to share their responses, if you don't have it down, I'd like you to add it down to your page as well. Soph, on your page, I could see that you spoke about line. Can you – the design element of line. Can you please tell me what you spoke about in terms of the positive in respect to the line?  

Student: Well, I said that it's been used effectively because it creates continuity from the back and the front. So it creates a cohesive design on both sides. 

Chloe Rees: And that's really important when we're thinking about a jersey because it works as a whole design, but we've got a front and a back. So Soph has spoken about here that this line is continuously going across and it's making that cohesive design. So let's capture that down if we don't have that down. So design line has been used to create consistency in the work.  

Layla, you had something different down, but another really great example. What was something positive in your work that you could see? 

Toni Beckett, Year 8 Mathematics teacher, Wilsonton State High School: If I know they need one skill first, I'll start with that, break it down, make sure they've got that, before moving on to building on that skill. Okay, so we've already done the step where we can calculate 10%. So it's very similar to what we did in the warm-up, but the extra part we're going to do is now add that back to the original amount. So, to calculate GST, we are going to use the pre-GST price. So before GST is added. And we're going to times it by our 10%. Okay, that's how we calculate GST. Then to get our GST-included price, we're going to add the answer we just calculated back to that pre-GST price. Okay, so you can see clearly we're going to do 2 lines of working if we're going to find the GST-included price, and one line of working if we're just calculating GST. 

So I think it's really important to give students opportunities to practise once they've learnt content, just because I want them to use those skills straight away. 

They also get a chance at the end of the lesson to have a bit of a mixed variety of questions, but I think it's important to do it along the way. And they're getting that immediate feedback as to whether they can understand it. And it also tells me, as a teacher, whether I can move forward in the lesson or whether I need to go back and do another example or offer more help.  

And this time we're going to practice questions on finding how much GST was already included and what the price was before GST was added. Okay, so here are our costs. Again, 4 questions. And let’s start with just under 4 minutes, this time: 3:35. How many lines of working should I expect for each question? 

Class: Two.  

Toni Beckett: Excellent.  

Sue Hartshorne, Learning Specialist, Lake Colac School: It's right across the school, that explicit structure. So, they know exactly what's coming. They're not having to use that cognitive demand on wondering what I'm going to do, how it's going to happen, what's going to happen next. Because, yeah, they're very, very aware of the structure, the routine of the lesson: that I will model, they will respond, we'll have a go together and then there’ll be some independent practice. So there's, yeah, very very clear structured routines with that gradual release. 

[On-screen text] Use an appropriate pace 

Sue Hartshorne: A number line can be used to solve addition equations. We put the 53, which is our largest addend – our largest number – on the left side, because that's where we're going to start counting from. Then, we're going to partition 15 into 10 and 5, and we're going to jump by 10 first – we jump by our tens – and then we're going to jump by our 5 ones. And our answer is 68. All right, let's have a go at this one together.  

[On-screen text] Model using worked examples 

Sue Hartshorne: So, largest number goes to the left. Tom, have a go.  

And then we're going to partition into 20 and 4. We're going to jump by 20 this time, so 54, let's jump by 20, 54, 64, 74. So, we jump to the 74 and then we're going to jump our 4 ones.  

Greg Ashman: I think it's a bit of a misconception that it's just like a lecture: I'm going to explain loads of different things. If you can involve the students, that helps. It also helps with them with their attention. It might mean that they're following what you're doing. And it means as well that you're not trying to kind of communicate too many things at once because you're constantly checking the temperature. And if you're losing students, you can back up and you can go again.