The Issue with "We Do" in Explicit Instruction

In this solo episode, Gene Tavernetti breaks down why most "we do" approaches to guided practice don't work. Using decimal addition as a teaching example, he shows how to isolate and pre-teach the key concept before practice even starts. He exposes three common but ineffective guided practice patterns and offers a step-by-step alternative that gets better student repetitions and real formative data. Strategies are drawn from his book Teach Fast.

Links:
Gene's Books:
Teach Fast
Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles
Digital Captives

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www.tesscg.com

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What is Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works?

Descriptions of effective teaching often depict an idealized form of "perfect" instruction. Yet, pursuing perfection in teaching, which depends on children's behavior, is ultimately futile. To be effective, lessons and educators need to operate with about 75% efficiency. The remaining 25% can be impactful, but expecting it in every lesson, every day, is unrealistic. Perfection in teaching may be unattainable, but progress is not. Whether you are aiming for the 75% effectiveness mark or striving for continuous improvement, this podcast will guide you in that endeavor.

Gene Tavernetti: Welcome to Better Teaching, Only Stuff That Works, a podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else who supports teachers in the classroom.

This show is a proud member of the BE Podcast Network shows that help you go beyond education.

Find all our [e-mail].

I Am Gene Tavernetti the host for this podcast.

And my goal for this episode, like all episodes, is that you laugh at least once and that you leave with an actionable idea for better teaching.

A quick reminder, no cliches, no buzzwords.

Only stuff that works.

Hi, everybody.

I'm excited to be back again to do another episode that's just me, just me talking about instruction today.

And those of you who follow me or who have read my book, "Teach Fast," you know that I am an explicit instruction advocate.

And I think it's one of those things that, uh, everybody talks about, "Oh, we do explicit instruction," but we never get down to the part about how to design a lesson and how to deliver a lesson.

Usually, when we hear about explicit instruction, we hear about, uh, techniques like, um, turn and talks, choral response, I say, you say, mini whiteboards, all of those things which are important, uh,
when you are delivering a lesson, but there's that design component that, that is so important, and that's what I wanna talk about today, a design and delivery component of, and specifically the we do.

And as I thought about discussing the we do, the reason that I wanted to talk about it is that I see so much written, um, about it and, uh, people talk about it on Twitter, and it's part of that explicit instruction continuum, right?

It's the I do, we do, you do.

And I see so many things that, based on my research over the last twenty-plus years on, uh, explicit instruction, working in classrooms with teachers, that I see there are some things that are just not effective that people continue to do.

So I wanted to focus on the we do today, uh, and I'm gonna try to stop using that term we do and, and instead call it facilitated practice or guided practice.

Uh, and, uh, you'll learn more why I do not like the term we do as we go along.

So that was my goal.

My goal today was to talk about the we do, and then as I began to think about it, I realized that because of the connectedness and the coherence of well-designed lessons, I couldn't just start there.

I couldn't just start with, "This is how we're gonna do the facilitated practice after you've modeled." We need to talk about some things you need to do well before you get to the practice because
there are th- some things that are important to include in the lesson that if you didn't include them, that guided practice, that facilitated practice is not gonna go as well as you hoped it would.

Anyway, so let's talk about a, a, a lesson of explicit instruction and how it might be designed.

And one of the things that we need to think about is that, you know, why am I teaching this lesson?

Why does this lesson in particular need to be taught?

And I think the best way to do this is with a, a math concept that I think everybody is familiar with that, uh, not only you're familiar with it, but I think you can actually visualize it.

If you're not able to, to get a pencil out and pencil it out as I'm talking, I think, I think it is, clear enough and common enough that you will be able just to do it in your head.

So let's, let's assume that, that our learning objective for the day is to add, uh, numbers with decimals through the hundredths, hundredths.

so that would be our objective, so that's what the kids were, are going to do, to add fractions, to add decimal fractions, you know, uh, through the hundredths.

So, before we even think about what the practice would be, we need to teach and practice and check for understanding in the most important part of this lesson.

Now, what's the most important part of this lesson?

What's the concept that we wanna focus on?

The idea that to add decimal fractions, we need to be sure that they are lined up properly so that we are adding tenths, we are adding hundredths, et cetera.

So we would need to, uh, explain that to the kids.

We would need to give some examples.

We would need to give some igno- non-examples, and we would have the kids practice lining up problems in the proper way, in, lined up properly with regards to their place value to get them ready to do the addition.

So how might we do that?

We could give horizontal, we could have horizontal problems, and then they rewrite vertically.

Uh, we would want to include problems in there where they would have to identify if they were, lined up properly.

For example, uh, what if you had, two point o five Plus 7.1.

How would they rewrite that?

How would they rewrite that so that it's lined up properly so that they are ready to do the addition?

So that's something that you would practice with the students, and just imagine how many variations and, different examples that students could do in five minutes to make sure that they understood that and that they were facile in doing that.

Now, in that five minutes with lots of practice using whiteboards, again, they could have, uh, you could have, uh, you could put examples on the board and have them tell you whether it was ready or not, whether it was correct.

If it wasn't correct, they could fix it.

Lots of reps. You know what I'm, you know what I'm saying.

There, there are lots of ways that you could ask this, and then they could have lots of reps. And then once they know that, once they understand
that, which is the most important concept, the most important condition for adding, decimal fractions, if they can do that, the rest is gonna be easy.

The rest is gonna be easy.

But that's the most important part.

That's what the lesson is about.

So many times I see, teachers just provide, problems where, you know, 2.1 plus 3.7, and the kids just do the addition.

They don't even have to think about what the most important part is because the most important part is already done for them.

There's no cognitive engagement necessary.

So during that, that first part, during the I do, when the teacher is explaining the new content, checking for understanding to see
that the kids understand the new content, the new concept And then that's when the teacher will actually model how to do a problem.

So you can imagine what the steps might be to do a problem like this.

the first would be what we just talked about.

The first step would be, is the problem aligned in such a way so that we are ready to do the addition?

Do the place values lined up?

And how might we check that?

We could check it the exact same way that we checked it earlier in the lesson.

So that would be the first step, just to check to see that it was in the proper order.

And then, uh, rewrite it.

If it's not, uh, if it's not in the proper, the way that it should be written with all the, with all the place values lined up, the students would rewrite it.

And then finally, they would just do the addition or subtraction, whichever you're doing.

In this case, we're doing, we're doing addition.

So when we think about when it's time to model, that first step, they've already practiced it.

The second step, they've already practiced it.

That's what the lesson is about.

The lesson isn't about can they do the addition once it's lined up.

It's nice that they could do it, but that's not what the new lesson is.

The new lesson is really do they understand what the conditions are necessary to be able to do this problem?

We've done, we've talked about the I do, so we know that there's a new concept.

It's lining up the place values.

they understand that, they practiced it, and now we're gonna start doing the, facilitated practice.

one of the main problems that I see in teachers teaching something like this, uh, and in this case, this, this particular objective, is they don't do what I just suggested.

They don't do all that practicing about the concept, about the main idea of the lesson before they start to have the kids do the practice.

So what happens during the practice?

They try to teach how to do the procedure at the same time they're trying to teach the concept.

And so what happens is they don't have the flow of the lesson.

They don't have a, a script down in their head.

They don't have the best way to proceed, uh, in a sequence.

And what do they do instead?

And I've seen teachers do this over and over again.

They'll start to, uh, they'll start to model, or they'll start to do the guided practice, they'll say, "Oh, wait, I forgot to tell you something," and then they have to go back and do what I just said.

Always do that first piece first.

So We've done that.

We've got three steps that we're gonna use to solve these problems.

Again, the first step is to ask ourselves, is it ready?

Is it in the proper form?

Are the, uh, place values lined up properly?

That's yes or no.

Thumbs up, thumbs down.

Y or no on your, on your whiteboard.

Second step is to rewrite it if necessary, and the third step is to solve.

So now that we have what the I do should be, and we've got our procedure ready, and now we're finally gonna talk about that facilitated practice.

So now we have to think about what is the reason for the guided practice?

First of all, what's the purpose?

And I say that there are two reasons to do guided practice with the, with the students.

The first one is the students need to practice.

You only learn something when you're doing it.

You don't learn it watching the teacher model.

You don't learn it, uh, until you are actually doing it.

So we need the kids to do the, to do the problems.

And then the other thing, and very critical, and I don't know which is more important when we're teaching, but we also need to be able to use for- that formative data as the kids are working to be responsive, uh, to the kids' needs.

If they're getting it, great.

If they're not getting it, we need to provide some sort of, uh, new information, maybe reteach something.

But at any rate, those are the two, those are the two reasons, to gain formative data and for the kids to have practice.

So let's talk about some of the things that, interfere in those two, in those two things when you're doing, uh, teacher-facilitated practice.

The first thing that happens many times frequently I see, and not only, uh, do I see it in classrooms, I know where it comes from.

I know people who write about explicit instruction will say, in your procedure, you are going to do… explain what they're gonna do in that step.

So I say the step should say Check for alignment, or you could say check for place value, however you wanna say it, but that's all I would say.

Check for place value, and that's a yes or no question.

What many people will do with those procedures is they will go way beyond that.

I think that is just a cue for the kids.

Many people, what they will do is they will write sentence after sentence after sentence explaining, okay, check to see if it's lined up.

You know, uh, is the decimal lined up right after the ones?

Is it have a… Is there any, uh, numbers that you need to add?

You know, it's just everything that might happen.

That's way too much.

That's way too much.

Just ask them, "Is it lined up? Yes or no?" Step two, line it up.

Write it properly.

Now, because I don't want an explanation yet.

At some point, I want them to verbalize why that's important, but right now, what I want from them, I wanna see if they can do it.

And so that second step, I'm not gonna say, "Remember, make sure it's lined up.

Check again.

Check your tenths.

Check your hundreds.

Are they in the right place?

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Just write a couple words to cue them.

Remember, there's a worked example on the board.

There's a worked example that they can see, that they can reference, and that you're gonna reference yourself.

And then the third step, solve.

Guess what?

It's just addition.

It's just addition.

And you know what?

I didn't mention it earlier, but you know what we did for our do now?

You know what we did for retrieval practice?

We just did addition.

Because once it's lined up, all those same rules apply, don't they?

If you're over… You have more than 10, we're gonna regroup.

we have too many hundreds, we're gonna regroup to tenths, et cetera, et cetera.

So everything is lined up.

So when the kids get to that procedure, they have either s- practiced it already during the I do, because that's what the lesson was about, or they've practiced it as a retrieval practice.

So now when they're putting the, the procedure together, it's just almost an abbreviation of what we've already done.

We can go through it more quickly.

So that's the first thing I see, that, that s- that teachers will give way too much information.

So what does that mean if you give way too much information, You don't know if they're able to do it because they can do it, or they're able to do it because of all the information that you gave them just prior to doing it.

So that's a big thing that I see.

Another thing that I see that is not what I see, uh, optimal and detrimental, in fact, is the notion of the we do.

I see so many teachers think that the we do is, okay, we means the teacher and the students are gonna do this together at the same time.

So what do I see?

What, what's something common that I see?

Is a teacher will say, "Okay, I've modeled a couple problems. Now let's do a couple together." And they will have a problem at the board.

The teacher says, "Okay, the first step is, is it lined up properly?

Do we have the values lined up properly?

I don't think so.

What about you guys?

Do you think it's lined up properly?

I don't think so.

Let's say no, it's not.

All right.

So let's do step two.

Let's rewrite it in the proper form.

I'm gonna rewrite it, and you guys copy down what I have And the teacher waits.

"All right, show me on your whiteboards. Let's see what you have." And all the kids did was copy.

What kind of data are you getting there?

None.

You're getting no data other than the fact that, uh, the kids are complying, and they know how to copy, which they learned how to do several years ago.

And then the last step, solve it.

The teacher will say, "Okay. Okay, I'm gonna add my hundreds first. Oh, there is zero and one," and go through this, this thing pretending they don't know how to do it.

And then, "Okay, get-- Be sure you have that on your whiteboards.

Let me see what you have, and h- show me your whiteboards.

Oh, good.

Everybody's got it."

What do they have?

They have that they copied.

So what did we do?

We went through a whole example, and the kids-- We w- we didn't accomplish either of the goals for our guided practice.

We did not give them an opportunity to do a repetition on their own, and we did not get any formative data.

What did we get?

We know that the kids, we know that the kids can copy.

So that's one thing that I see.

Not effective.

If that's something that you do, well, just stop doing it Another thing that I see is I see that, uh, the we do, the teacher models a couple and say, "Okay, I've modeled a couple problems for you.

Now get with your partner.

I'm gonna give you a problem.

You guys solve this one together." And they just have them go solve using all the steps.

And again, you don't have to have much experience in the classroom to know There's no we in a cognitive task.

There's no we do.

It is one person doing it, the other person copying, or both p- persons doing it individually and copying.

In either case, we're just wasting time.

Again, why are we wasting time?

We haven't ensured that each student has an opportunity to do a repetition on their own.

It's a waste of time because whatever data we get from those students, we don't know who doesn't know it, because that's why we check for understanding.

We check for understanding not just to see who knows it, but we check for understanding to see who doesn't know it.

If you have a we do, okay, let's do the first one together because you mistakenly think that's how I gradually release this.

You j- it's just not effective.

You're just waste, you're just wasting time.

I see that.

So here's another, uh, something else that I see.

So there's two things not to do.

Don't have them copy.

Don't make the we do, the teacher and the students.

Second thing, don't make the we do initially with two students doing it together.

Another thing that we see is that I modeled.

Teacher says, I modeled twice.

Here's a problem.

Go ahead and do it.

Go ahead and do this one on your own now, and I'll walk around and check your whiteboards.

Here's the problem When you're collecting data, when you are collecting, uh, formative data to see who knows it, one of the most important things that you need to know about who doesn't know it is what don't they know?

Not only that they don't know it, not only who doesn't know it, but what don't they know?

And if they do the entire problem and they don't have it correct at the end… And let me tell you something about your kids if you don't know it.

Unless you have trained them to do each step, to make sure that they understand each step and can show you each step on a whiteboard, all they wanna do is the answer.

All they wanna do is the answer.

think about the answer in this case.

The answer isn't what the lesson is.

The lesson is about lining up those place values.

don't do that.

So that's all great, Gene, that, you know, you tell us what not to do.

What should we do?

Here we go.

Here's what to do instead.

And again, this is all in Teach Fast!

And, uh, I recommend that, I recommend that you have that for more information.

Can't tell you everything in a half-hour, uh, podcast, but this is where it's from.

So what do we do instead?

We've got the steps.

Just a quick reminder, the steps are to ask the kids to determine is it in the proper form?

Is it ready to be added?

Step two is to, uh, rewrite it, line it up correctly.

Step three is to solve.

So have the teacher say.

Okay, everybody, do step one And you might have them, "Tell your partner what is step one?" And then they r- they just say the couple words that you have.

"All right, do step one."

Remember, what are we asking them?

We're asking them if this problem that they have is lined up in the proper form.

Now, I'll ask, I'll ask teachers, I say, "How long do you think it should take for them to be able to determine whether it's in the proper
form?" And the first time I work with a teacher, they might say something like, "Oh, I don't think it's gonna take more than a minute."

And I'm thinking, "More than a minute?

You practiced this before.

If they can't do it in five seconds… You know what?

Okay, give them a little bit more time.

Maybe they have a processing issue.

Give them 10 seconds.

If they can't do this in 10 seconds to determine if it's lined up properly, they don't need more time, they need more practice, they need more instruction.

But don't give them more than, don't give them more than, whatever you think they need, and then add a few more seconds.

So that's the, that's the first step.

So go ahead and do that.

Okay, whiteboards, yes or no, are we good?

Yes or no?

You take a look, and then what you do after you gather that data, you say, "You're correct.

It is not ready in that form.

So let's do step two.

Tell your partner what's step two.

That's right.

Put it in proper form.

What's step two, everybody?

Put it in proper form.

All right, go ahead.

You've got 10 seconds." Why 10 seconds?

Again, they know how to do it.

You practiced it before in the first part of the lesson, so they can do it.

And then you, "Okay, show me your white- show me your whiteboards." They show you your

whiteboards.

"Great. This is what I saw." And then you remodel on the board or visualizer, doc cam, uh, say, "This is what I saw. Now, if you don't have that, change it now." And you give them a few seconds to change it now.

So what did we do?

And then step three, step three is solve.

"Guys, go ahead and solve it. Go ahead and do the addition." And they do it.

So in each step, you have collected data about how the kids are doing Second problem now.

Second problem.

We're gonna put another problem on the board.

I'm gonna say, Guys, this time I want you to do steps one and two and stop.

That's all I want you to do, steps one and two and stop." How long should it take them to do w- steps one and two and stop?

Okay, we're adding, we're adding the determination in step one of five seconds, and then 10 seconds.

I'm gonna give you 20 seconds.

And you know what the kids do?

They rise to the occasion.

And then you might say, "I'm gonna do it at the same time you're doing it in case you're having trouble." And do you know who looks up to see how to do it, that you're doing it at the same time?

Only the kids that need help.

And you say, "Okay, guys, go ahead and do step three and stop." So what's happening here?

We, in the course of just a couple minutes, we've already done two problems, and we've got practice, and then we have gotten feedback.

And then the third repetition, you might say, "Okay, I want you to do, I want you to do this all by yourself." Now, here's the thing.

One of the things you did not hear me say was about how you were gonna give individual feedback to students.

I don't know about you, but my experience is if you take time to explain an issue to a student

Who knows what the rest of the class is doing is all I wanna say.

All right?

You're better off giving feedback to the entire class and noting who doesn't get it And so, and what you're gonna find is if you design the lesson in
the manner that I just described, where it is, talk about atomized, I mean, we kind of split this atom with regards to, to adding, uh, decimal fractions.

So I'm gonna know not only what they don't know, I'm gonna know what they, um, is it conceptual?

Is it procedural?

Is it computational?

I'm gonna know what the kids can't do, and these are the, a few kids that aren't able to do it.

So, all the feedback is given to the entire class, and this is very high accountability.

That's why I say, "If your board doesn't look like mine, change it," and then they change it, and you check to be sure that they changed it.

but it is only after you have asked them to do it themselves, and you have gotten that formative data, and you've seen the whiteboards to see who got it and who didn't get it.

Now, I know people talk about clicks and checks and, you know, however you wanna do that.

If you have a system for that, go ahead and do that.

What I found is that most teachers know, most teachers know, they have a kind of an idea of, of which kids are gonna struggle, and so they keep an extra eye on them.

You know that there are kids in your class, they hold up their whiteboards, you know they're gonna have it.

So you don't really pay as much attention to them as you do those kids who might have… Sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't.

so those, those are the kids that, that you're, that you're paying attention to.

But at the end of that third practice problem, if you go through this quickly, as I've described, in this case, you could probably do three practice problems in seven to eight minutes.

You do a closure at that point.

You do a closure, and then we're gonna separate the class.

The kids who got it, we're gonna send them off to independent practice.

The kids who struggled a little bit, we're gonna pull a small group, and you know what we're gonna focus on?

Those things that they didn't get correct.

We're not gonna teach the entire lesson from the beginning.

We are gonna focus on those things that they got incorrect.

So for example, in this lesson, you may ask, "Is this lined up properly?"

And everybody can say, uh, "No, it's not lined up properly." Okay, now we're gonna rewrite it.

What might be an issue that they have?

Well, it might be that they didn't line up two point oh five plus 4.1 that they didn't know what to do.

You know, should I put a zero here?

Should I not put a zero here?

The point is you're gonna know what it is.

And they're-- you know, teachers are gonna say, "Can't I help them during the lesson?" Here, the reality is, there's nothing that you can do in thirty seconds that's going to, uh, change a misperception.

There's nothing you can do in thirty seconds that's going to allow them to practice what it is that you're attempting to teach them.

You're better off just waiting, uh, until you have pulled that small group.

But the reality is, in many times between the first repetition and the third repetition, a lot of kids get it.

A lot of kids get it.

So the kids that-- the, the number of kids who don't get it is gonna be very small.

All right.

Couple, couple issues that always come up.

why can't I help them?

I just said, because you've got two groups of kids in there.

You've got the kids who get it and can't wait for you to get out of their way, and the ones who need your help.

You need to let them know ahead of time.

It's gotta be an expectation in your class from the beginning of the year, is that I know when you're having trouble during a lesson, and I am gonna get to you, and I'm gonna give you all the help you need.

But I'm not gonna give it during the lesson because I can't give you my full attention.

I can't give you what you need.

And implicit in this deal is, and you probably should make it explicit, is I think the kids who are getting it, you want to get to them as-- you want them to be released as soon as you can.

So this giving a feedback to the entire class, making them accountable, making them change their boards, allows you to get that guided practice, that facilitated
practice done as quickly as possible so kids can either get the help they need or they can go on and work independently So let's wrap up a little bit.

God, I could talk about this for a while.

But a couple things to, to keep in mind.

uh, when you're creating your procedure, just do cues, and be sure that those cues are… stay visible during the lesson.

This isn't a memory test yet.

Uh, just the repetitions will help them remember it.

So we don't need real long explanations.

And remember, we have a worked example on the board as well.

So there will always be a worked example, and there will always be some abbreviated types of cues in that procedure for the students.

Second thing is, be sure to release them.

That make sure that they are doing one hundred percent of the work from the very beginning.

Oh gosh, a hundred percent of the work from the very beginning.

Yes.

You know why they can do it?

Is because you're only asking them to do one little piece.

And what's the thing about that piece?

They've already practiced it.

So you're just gonna do that one piece.

And then they're gonna do the next piece.

And then don't give them too much time to do it, and make sure they are allowed to do it on their own.

And part of the culture that you've created in the class is that it's okay that you can't do it on the first repetition.

When do they need to know it?

During independent practice.

Later.

At some point later.

Not in the first try, not in the second try, not even in the third try.

But you've gotta let them know that.

So there are a lot of things that we can do in the design and the delivery of the lessons to accomplish what we want to accomplish during that facilitated practice,
which is opportunities to practice, and at the same time, we've designed that practice so that the teacher can get good formative assessment on what the kids can't do.

Is this conceptual?

Is it procedural?

Is it something else?

But you're gonna know that if you do it in the manner that I suggested.

I appreciate you, I appreciate you listening to this podcast, and I want you to know that we have a new sponsor, and, uh, the sponsor is Cognoscente Books.

And it's a new publisher in the publishing world, but not staffed by people new to the educational publishing community.

the people in charge there have worked with such authors as Doug Lemov, Zach Rochelle, and my book, Maximizing the, the Impact of Coaching Cycles, was just re-released under the Cognoscente, uh, family of books.

So I hope you take a, a look for them in the future, and you're gonna find that they're, uh, who they have chosen to publish keep teachers in mind.

They wanna be sure that they are providing the best information for you, the best research-based, evidence-based, uh, books, and they're not gonna… And if you're an author, you may wanna talk to them because they're not gonna publish 100 books a year.

They wanna do good books, good for teachers, and good for authors.

Have a great week, and I hope you can use some of this information, uh, as you prepare for next year.

If you have any questions, as always, you can contact me through my website.

And thanks again for listening.

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Tesscg.

com, that's T E S S C G dot com, where you will also find information about ordering my books, Teach Fast, Focus Adaptable Structure Teaching, and Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles.