Explicit Teaching

The term explicit teaching refers to a method of instruction in which the teacher, who serves as a provider of knowledge, presents skills and concepts in a clear, systematic, and direct way that promotes student mastery. Explicit teaching refers to the type of direct, teacher-led instructional explanation a teacher employs when describing curricular content and procedures, strategy instructions, skills and concepts, and rules for memorization through verbally detailed explanations and examples. Explanations may include the teacher modeling a skill or concept, followed by the teacher guiding and providing feedback as the student practices applying the skill or concept. Students are provided many opportunities to apply, independently, the skill or concept so as to ensure their mastery and generalization of the skill. Explicit teaching methods include the teacher reviewing previous material, describing procedures, highlighting, modeling skills using cues and prompts, questioning students directly to ensure understanding, providing feedback and progress monitoring while presenting multiple opportunities for students to practice the skill to mastery, and providing opportunities for students to apply the new skill. During the modeling process, the teacher uses ‘thinkalouds’; that is, the teacher talks aloud about what he or she is thinking. The teacher provides specific examples of the sequence broken into small steps and the mental processes that occur as the teacher thinks aloud through the procedure, thereby modeling the incremental mental steps for the student. Think-alouds provide the student with detailed sequential step-by-step information which the student uses as an example when he or she goes through the mental process of solving the problem. Explicit teaching prevents confusion on the part of the student by always describing each step and by not assuming that a student should be able to [Page 385]combine steps. Explicit explanations assist the student in knowing how and when to use the skill or concept. To retain student attention and focus, instructional procedures are presented at a brisk pace.

Explicit teaching is appropriate when the student must demonstrate a high level of mastery of a task-specific strategy, when student acquisition of skills or factual content is essential before further skills or concepts can be acquired, when the student has little or no background knowledge of concepts, or when the student experienced initial failure with content. When the complexity of the task is reduced by breaking the procedure into smaller steps, student mastery improves. With small specific steps, opportunities for student error are reduced. An explicit approach is appropriate when limited time is available, mastery is essential, or the task is complex or potentially hazardous.