Explicit Direct Instruction

Chelsea PS 'signature pedagogy' of explicit instruction - an approach that involves teachers clearly showing students what to do and how to do it, rather than asking students to discover or construct information for themselves.

Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI) encompasses research-based instructional practices explored by cognitive and educational researchers. Explicit instruction is characterised by carefully planned and sequenced lessons, clear and detailed instructions and modelling, and frequent and systematic monitoring of student progress and feedback to students.

Learning Objective
Activating Prior Knowledge
Concept Development
Skill Development
Guided Practice
Relevance
Closure
Periodic reviews

During EDI lessons, teachers utilise ‘engagement norms’ (TAPPLE) to motivate students and hold them accountable for their learning. Engagement Norms ensure children are doing something every minute, whether it be a discussion with a partner, reading text aloud, showing responses on a whiteboard or gesturing. These norms are designed to keep students actively engaged in their learning.

Examples of engagement norms include:

Series of higher-order questions posed throughout the lesson;
Students ‘pair sharing their responses to organising ideas and allowing all students to actively participate;
Calling on non-volunteers to check for understanding;
Use of individual mini-whiteboards for immediate teacher feedback;
Students justifying their responses using academic language;
Teachers correcting responses at point of need;
Re-teaching concepts if 80% mastery has not been achieved;
Reading and tracking the text with the teacher;
Adding actions or gestures to assist with the retention of definitions.

CPS Explicit Teaching Model

The aspect of Lesson	Brief Overview
Warm-Up/Review	Review concepts and skills of previous lessons and build automaticity.
Learning Objective (WALT)	Made clear to student
Activate Prior Knowledge	Use something students are familiar with to link to new knowledge.
Concept Development	Concept, Rule or Content taught. Examples and non-examples are used to highlight.
Development Model	Model the process to students.
Guided Practice	Practice with students
Relevance	Make links to the real world or future learning.
Closure	Students prove to the teacher with a worked example or question, they are ready for independent practice.
Independent Practice	80% of the class should demonstrate they are ready for independent Practice.