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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.
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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 shows at bepodcastnetwork.
com. I am Gene Tabernetti, 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. Quick reminder, we will only be sharing stuff that works. No cliches, no buzzwords. Today, I am welcoming you to Thinking Out Loud, a joint feature of Progressively Incorrect and Better Teaching Only Stuff That Works.
Thinking Out Loud will feature conversations between Dr. Zach Groeschel and me. Dr. Zach [00:01:00] Groeschel, for those who don't know him, is the author of the new book, Just Tell Them, The Power of Explanations and Explicit Instruction. He is also the host of the popular podcast, Progressively Incorrect. Topics for Thinking Out Loud will come from a variety of sources.
Research we may have read and its implications for coaching. It may be a further discussion about ideas presented in a recent podcast and its implications for coaching. It may be a discussion about our recent consulting experiences and its implications for coaching. Our premier episode is Going to feature Zach and I discussing a little bit further some of the ideas that were presented in a recent podcast of Progressively Incorrect on direct instruction.
And so without further ado, here is Zach and me discussing direct instruction and its implications for coaching
And one of the things that I wanted to [00:02:00] ask Zach about was his latest podcast.
And that was a DI podcast. And when I say DI, I mean Engelman DI. I just had some questions, some further questions for him, and wanted to see what he had to say and one of the questions that I have, because you've done several episodes now, what have you done, five episodes on
Six, yeah, but who's counting?
six, okay, maybe I missed one, at any rate do you get any feedback from your listeners on the DI podcasts?
I
Yeah, well, first, if anyone's listening and is going, what is DI? I mean, just very quickly, it's a set of commercial programs, like actual curriculum programs that schools use that employ explicit instruction but also like a sophisticated design theory that theory is called the theory of instruction.
And so, and it was developed by Engelman and Becker and colleagues [00:03:00] back in the 70s and it Remains today a program that lots of teachers use, especially in early reading and math, but there are middle school programs that and even an algebra program, but you know, you're a question is, do people, you know, what do people say about them when they do they like them?
Are they interested? There's certainly a lot of interest from schools that use the programs, right? If they have the programs, they're like, wow, I've been waiting for someone to talk about this. And, you know, I've just been kind of using this at my school, told to use this, and I've kind of found, you know, my way around it.
I didn't really know the philosophy behind it or the history, and I didn't really understand its importance, I think, in the education conversation. So it's wildly popular there. But a lot of people are tuning in because they want to know more about Zig Engleman. They want to know more about, like, options for their schools.
They want to know what does explicit instruction look like when it's formalized into an [00:04:00] actual set of programs. they do well. I mean, I'm double posting them and all the DI folks, there's a lot of DI nerds out there sending it around and people often contact me about it and, you know, and really want to know, more about it after listening to it.
mean, when you promote these, when you promote these podcasts, you are promoting it on your platform, your Zach Rochelle platform, but You are also saying this is another one of the DI episodes in a series. How does the, how many downloads do you get on DI compared to, I mean actually for a number, but how does it do comparatively to your regular progressively incorrect episodes?
Yeah, well, like the project follow through episode, which project follow through for people who are listening or don't know about it was the largest, most extensive education study. In the history of education, and it was, you know, hugely influential on my sort of journey, because to think that such a [00:05:00] huge longitudinal study that was conceived of to eradicate poverty, that the results could be so clear cut in the direction of only one program that was analyzed, and that was direct instruction, and afterwards that, you know, People didn't really care to learn about it, or there was not, there was nothing that the U.
S. government did to sort of follow up and support direct instruction in more schools, that it was just largely swept under the rug. That episode is one of my top three episodes people contacted me asking, like, They were like, you're the Emily Hanford of DI, you know, kind of thing, right?
Because I was telling a story that resonated with people, I think beyond the programs, beyond the, and just went into like, even beyond the instruction wars, and more into the world of government, and just bureaucrats and partisanship and just the failure sometimes of our system to address problems that everybody wants to [00:06:00] solve.
But there's a few episodes, you know, that like the newest one we're going to talk about today in depth that I'm very proud of and You know, I don't know, maybe it's pretty niche and all, but I think it's cool, so, maybe not as many downloads, but definitely I'm proud of having made that, those episodes.
when I was excited about the episode, when I was listening to it not so much about the what DI is, because I've heard you describe it before, but there were some other things that happened in, in the production of that podcast that was different and that, that really brought DI to me. to life, I think, for a lot of people.
I had an opportunity, I mean, I was in education, you know, close to 40 years, and I only saw two schools, in that time that used a DI program and it was very successful in both of those schools. But when you talk about it, it's like when you talk about anything is what [00:07:00] does it look like?
But in this episode, there was actually a recording of you teaching the lesson. were your thoughts about that, about putting that in? How did you come about that?
Well, I guess I, a lot, I mean, some people that have listened to it have said, like, how brave that was, or whatever. That didn't cross my mind, actually. My worry was more about the listening experience, right? You're watching a video, and you get, you pick up on a lot of information. And I have those videos, personally, I think I've shared a couple of them with you.
Where, watching me, you can see how much eye contact I make, you can see you know, sort of the persona, the teaching persona that I bring a little bit more, my personality comes through. You put it in a recording, what do you get? You get You just get the voice and you don't really even get it here.
The students that well, Mike doesn't pick up on the students, so you didn't really hear that all of them were responding at the end compared at the beginning, only one or two were responding at a time, right? [00:08:00] So I was concerned about the listening experience, but I want to use podcasting as a way to explore teaching maybe even more in depth than the interview format.
So. I tried it out kinda like a before and after format or the before you can listen to an early DI lesson that I taught and then you gotta listen to it like six, seven months later after I received like full di training and coaching.
The the reason that I thought it was so important, whether or not people become Engelman acolytes and they went to program or not, but just listening to the the lesson and how you were working with the students and how they were responding It became, you know, evident, you know, how close DI, big DI, and explicit instruction, all the components, are there, and you know, in both the design of the lesson, and the delivery of the lesson, and, do you know which came [00:09:00] first?
I mean, was Engelman first? You do know what comfort, what came first.
Yeah, there's a great article it's called Critique of lowercase di by Zig Engelman and you can find it online. And he, he talks about how at the very beginning, initial days of Big DI, Direct Instruction, his program that there were no scripts, right? There were no meticulously designed sort of like programs, physical programs that you held in your hand and used.
It was a method, right? And the method was designed around faultless communication, around brisk pacing, around you know, you give an example and you give a non example and so on. All the principles of explicit instruction. Were developed in the early days in the preschool he was involved in and so on.
But over time what they found, and this article explains it in, in very good detail they would try to coach people to use these methods [00:10:00] and the coachees the teachers would really struggle to come up with their own examples that made sense. One example he gives of a poor example is the teacher's supposed to teach these preschoolers to raise their right hand and then raise their left hand.
Of course, you're facing the children, and so it was mirror opposite, right? And so, Zig was there coaching and he comes up to each child and he presses into the palm of each child's right hand. And he says, this is your right hand now raise it. And then he has everyone turn around and he says, now raise your right hand, turning around.
And they all raise it. Right? And so that's sort of a demonstration of like, they found over a long period, decades of dealing with trying to scale up explicit instruction that there needed to be more structure. And so they needed to have examples designed by designers and they needed to have these programs formalized.
So that's the whole, that's the whole reason why. So really, yeah the delivery came first, the design came second. Tamra,
Okay. All right. Well, I [00:11:00] want to go back to something that you said at the very beginning of our little chat here. You mentioned that people said, Oh how brave of you to be coached to present these tapes online. Did you feel any vulnerability when you, not to post it, not to post it as a podcast, but just while it was happening?
What were your feelings being coached by the DI coach? I don't remember her name, but
Tamra Bressi is her name, and I'll definitely send this to her afterwards, so, hey Tamra. And she is one of the best, I would say the best coach I've ever personally had coach me. Right? Excellent. And so maybe that's part of it, is her making me feel comfortable. Making me feel like, you know, that teaching was going to be safe.
But it's never really been my style to be worried about what a coaches, like a coach's judgment of my teaching. Maybe that comes from the fact that when I started coach teaching the [00:12:00] first, second, Third week, I had a coach in my classroom and he immediately, his name's Pat McGregor, he immediately came in and he said, I'd like to talk to you about how we teach math better.
And we co taught lessons, he modeled lessons, he worked with me, rehearsed different techniques outside, you know. My big, my biggest thing I remember was he would use large gestures with his arms, he would gesticulate and he would look around and he made himself like very big and he had a large presence and he would say, and he'd say, yeah, you, you know, Craig and you, Sally.
And he always was getting kids involved with very brisk paced teaching. That was right away. And That didn't offend me then, and I've always expected, as part of my entitlement as a teacher, to be involved in a professional development that challenges me.
You know, well, this was totally optional. This you chose, what motivated you to seek out coaching for this? When you didn't have to do it at all.[00:13:00]
So, you know, it's funny, I found the direct instruction books, in a closet that were collecting dust and I was looking for an intervention program and I found the program and I started to teach it. I taught eight lessons of it and I was feeling pretty good about it and I sent it to NIFTI, the National Institute for Direct Instruction.
I sent it over them. I said, hey, you know, come check this out. I think I sent it to you. I'm trying my best, right? And they said, Excellent, you know, we're proud of you, but you know, uh, we do coaching here and would you like to do it? Would you like to do it with us?
It's a, it's an intense process. And of course, you know, why did I say yes? I want to be the best freaking teacher I can be. I don't know. I, you know, I knew it would be a good experience.
Well, you know, so you got the coaching and it's interesting. You said it was the best you thought that it was the best coaching that you ever got, that [00:14:00] you've ever received. And what's interesting about that. listening to the to the feedback that you got and the coaching suggestions that you got, she was very directive and very clear.
Uh, did that hurt your feelings?
I mean, It's awkward to do something wrong after it's been modeled to you and you try it and you don't do it as well as you should have. And you know it, right? And the person but on the other side of the end says, I'll try it again. It's an awkward. thing, you know, but it seems like we accept that a lot more in other domains than teaching.
We accept if you're learning, you know, to play golf, and you've never swung a golf club, and you're standing opposite, you're holding it with opposite hands with a baseball swing that they're gonna, you know, Take the club out of your hands, tell you to turn around and put it in and then help you with your grip, right?
With, you know, with swimming, you know, we the teacher holds your belly while you're, you know, or makes [00:15:00] you sit on the wall and wait and lots of other things we're used to seeing as part of the grammar of learning other domains. But when it comes to teaching we tell ourselves, that the way to get better is to spend 20 years in the classroom and that at that point in time you are untouchable and that, right, it's all about experience and experience does not have a one to one correlation with expertise.
You can become very good at teaching with great coaching and great PD in a matter of years, three years, five years, and you can spend 20, 30 years. In your thoughts and doing trial and error teaching and not get as good as that. So, you know, I just think coaching is the bomb. I think it's really important to have it.
So even though it's awkward sometimes doing it, I know it's good for me, and I'm saying that as a coach, I guess, but I felt that way as a teacher, too.
Yeah. [00:16:00] Well, I think one of the things that she did that I think is very powerful. And I think she was asking you your thoughts about something, and you acknowledged an area where you thought you could do better, and you recognized it before she even talked about it, and she praised your error, and this was calling the student's name first in a check for understanding, versus asking the entire class, and I think what was so powerful, what was a powerful coaching moment is that she's coached enough people to know what's normal, to know what's usual as you develop this process, and to congratulate you for trying it and recognizing that wasn't the best way.
So even, I just thought I agreed with you. I thought she did a really good job of coaching you. I just, you know, I just got a lot out of this episode. And.
And actually, when she came over to see me I didn't, at the time, I was [00:17:00] coaching other teachers, so really, she didn't have a full day's worth of lessons to watch. So our agreement was for me to find other lessons for her to watch and we would you know, partner with other teachers and she would essentially coach me how to coach them.
And we got to a classroom where the teacher was using a DI program for spelling called Spelling Mastery. And he was just getting up to speed on how to use the program, like a brand new teacher to the school, and he wasn't doing several things that I that I knew he should be doing and, it, the finesse that she had to in the moment prompt him to do something differently and then how they kind of smiled at each other and how she gently like, you know, said, Hey, let me show you this.
And she didn't like take over the lesson, but she did. She started modeling, she started co teaching, but she slid in and just such a tactical way. It was, it's fantastic. I think more coaches need to see other coaches coaching and [00:18:00] not just be doing discovery coaching all the time, you know?
Oh, that's well, we may have to copyright that term because I think that happens a lot. But like I say, this episode, Zach just, of the direct instruction episodes, I really got a lot out of this one. (transition)
So now we're to you, Zach. So what did I get out of it?
So, I mean, you enjoyed listening to the podcast and you listen to a lot of the podcasts I do. Some of them are, you know, more creative than others. This is on the more creative end, right? Because I had to insert, you know, audio clips and stuff. What did what did you get out of it in terms of specific you know, techniques or moves, maybe relating it to what you understand to be good teaching?
Well, I think the pace of the questions, and not just the pace of the questions, I mean, I've always advocated that we're way too slow, that we need to go more quickly, but what was the most interesting piece of information about the pace is [00:19:00] that when the students responded more quickly, You got more data with regards to their knowledge of the content because it's not only the content, but the fluency.
And so that the quickness, which is counter to what we hear so much, Oh, you know, give a think time, give a more think time, give a more think time. And I always say, if it's taking them longer to learn, You know, a lot longer than it should. They don't need more think time, they need more instruction.
And I like the way that, that was made clear, that the rapid questions are not a detriment to their learning, they are actually the road to their learning, the path.
Yeah, it is counterintuitive because even, and even I'll talk about think time and wait time, and all of a sudden folks will ask that question right? I think a lot of times when we think of think time or wait time, we're thinking of content where the student needs to [00:20:00] mentally construct like a large number of items in mind like a Just, I just showed you this diagram, you know, yesterday.
I would like you to all close your eyes and mentally put together, you know, all the different items that we talked about. And now turn to your partner and talk about what we did, you know, yesterday. And maybe that kind of exercise, an imagination exercise, they say in the research deserves a little more time, lots of items to sort of mentally sequence.
These turn and talks, or these quick questions you have sitting in your thoughts like that, it's just an invitation to tune out, and it's more behavioral for me, it more involves getting kids to pay attention, involves a quick pace, and the questions you ask should not be for the most part, asking them to generate something new, construct a new type of response.
For the most part, these type of questions that are fast paced questions are just recall questions of [00:21:00] small, smaller problems, smaller elements within More complex material. You check that they can, that they're listening, you check that they understand elements of it, then you have them do larger, you know, larger amounts of work in their notebooks, in writing or together.
It, it is counterintuitive, but God, if we could just pick up the pace in a lot of lessons, you'd see the difference.
And you can see it and even if they don't have it, and I think this was, again, something that, that struck me. Even if they don't have it, because the structure of the class is by nature smaller groups, the teacher realizes that the student didn't get it, but there's also an element of rehearsal for that kid who didn't get it, and now you're going to go back again, and you're going to go back again, and it's going to be repetitive.
I just had this funny notion as I was You know, as I watch DI lessons and hear you talk about it, again, the capital, the Engelmann DI, that somewhere Anita Archer [00:22:00] was watching and somebody, some colleague asked her about, you know, are your lessons fast paced enough? And she said, hold my beer, watch this.
I mean, it is just, you know, it's very similar type things, you know, she has hand signals, but again, very quick paced. Choral response, repetition, retrieval, I mean, just all of that. And so again, you see, even if you're not a, an Engleman fan, a D, a big DI fan, as you're doing your explicit instruction, you see all these techniques and strategies that are going to be effective in any lesson that you teach.
Well, there's a reason Anita Archer's been asked back, I believe a few times to the Direct Instruction Conference. The Nifty Conference, right. She's keynoted there several times. Right. I hear from a lot of people that there is a conflict or there's the, that it's implied that there's a conflict between Big DI and explicit instruction or little [00:23:00] di it's not true.
The conflict exists between. DI and Explicit Instruction, which I think are the same, except for the commercial program part, the design of the materials and the homogeneous groupings and all that stuff. The conflict exists between these methods and a type of so called direct instruction, which is just the teacher talking without checking for understanding.
If you look at explicit instruction like a Needed Archer style, or you look at an Engleman style lesson, and you just look at the delivery, It's the same stuff, right? We are talking about loads of whole group responses. We're talking about brisk pace. We're talking about examples and non examples.
Comparing things with minimally different examples. Teacher orchestrating the learning. no difference in terms of delivery between the two. Maybe some, some sort of Little interesting kind of tweaks or maybe more emphasis and D and big DI around Certain things and in an explicit [00:24:00] instruction you have a little more freedom to explore other techniques But there's no conflict between the two in my mind.
Well, there's no conflict, but you kind of touched on one of the big issues. but we haven't said it yet. And that is that it's scripted. And you know, how do I feel about, you know, a scripted program? Initially, until I saw this work, I would be one of those teachers, you know, sitting in the back of the room with my, you know, with my arms folded and said, no I'm not doing a script.
And then as I thought about it, I use scripts all the time. You know, when I train coaches, I tell them about these are the scripts I use. And in the beginning, I recommend they use my scripts until they come up with their own scripts. So it's a little bit hypocritical. But again, the only difference is I wrote my scripts. And so,
What do you think about that then? What if? You had that taken away from you that you could [00:25:00] not Write your own script. However, the caveat is in this question, right, in this thought experiment that the script you receive was designed by really smart people and Tested with children before you receive the script.
So it's not a crummy script. It's a good script What about taking away your so called right to to write your own script?
Well, as we said previously, what happens in the Big D. I. is the same thing that happens in explicit instruction. And what's interesting about the script is that it's about precision of language. It's about not extra verbiage to confuse kids. You're saying the exact thing the same way every time.
So they get to hear it. They get to hear it the same way. And that is something that, that you, well, you talked about that in your book. You know, like you should practice what you're going to, what you're going to tell the [00:26:00] students. When I've coached teachers, you know, we have wordsmithed some of the things that they were going to say so that they could get it just right and say it again the next time.
And it's written down so that they don't get it. And all of that was not in to deliver a big, a capital D I lesson. That was done. For explicit instruction I had a fellow on my podcast, Randy Palasok, who wrote a math curriculum, and the focus of the math curriculum was the use of language.
And it was very precise. And the language was precise throughout the grade levels, so that the students could understand and it was, the articulation was very close. And what was interesting I asked Dr. Palisok, I said, What advice would you give a new teacher? And this is a guy who wrote the curriculum.
He's a, that he's teaching. [00:27:00] A 25 year veteran, and he said, Every morning when I'm driving to work, I practice what I'm going to say so that I can say it exactly. All of that, to answer your question, to be now what I know about explicit instruction, what I know that what's important. Now I could take a look at a DI lesson.
Wow. This is good. I'm going to do this. Before I would have thought it was an imposition. So maybe the, You know, the selling of the program, I guess, so that more teachers would want to do a scripted program is to have uh, more knowledge about why it's effective. And I'm not sure they even need to know the research but if they have been teaching a certain way and they say, okay, I'm going to have my objective and we're going to do some retrieval.
We're going to do some new content, and we're going to correspond, and we're going to do this, and this lesson is going to rock and roll, and then they're going to do some independent practice at the end. I think they [00:28:00] would be more open to it. Versus just, here's your script, partner.
Here's a, this is interesting. This is kind of, this is kind of, developing as we speak, but I'll just mention it. And it's interesting you say that as I'm developing a workshop series, perhaps for the National Institute for Direct Instruction around the principles, the cognitive science principles that underlie really effective materials, right?
And that's, I totally think that's. It's probably the case, right? I come into these the scripts and I read them and I chuckle. I go, wow, that, that was smooth. Whoever wrote that part, that was nice, right? I don't think I would have written it that way or I wouldn't have thought to use that example or use that analogy or use that image in that that certain way.
That they did and then slowly faded out in the way they did it. But, you know, I'm an instruction nerd and I'm the person who's, to, who, you know, I went to school [00:29:00] again and went back for five more years and got this big degree so that I could study this stuff. And, you know, what is it like, what's the difference in the feeling between that And maybe a teacher who has their program changed to a scripted program and it can't see what it is the designer is doing.
So it's hard for them to partner with the designer, partner with the materials when they don't see the underlying theory or understand the cognitive principles. I,
and again, just, I was just reminded of the similarity between DI and explicit instruction. Clear goal, we're going to move fast, lots of opportunities to respond, retrieval practice, feedback based on the data I'm getting from the kids, I'm going to reteach, but I'm not going to go on forever in the reteach.
The reteach is at the same pace. And I think that's one of the biggest things that I've seen, you know, in the past 20 [00:30:00] years when I've worked in all the schools that I've worked in, is that the pace gets so slow because you think you need to go slow, but it's actually distracting. It's like, it's too much time.
It's too much time. Let's move on. Let's go. I'm going to, I'm going to give you another, I'm going to give you another chance. So,
I one time coached a teacher and, you know, you and me kind of agree that modeling lessons for teachers is not the best, is not the first method you use. I think there's a dozen other strategies that would come
Well, well, well, not to interrupt you, but what you said that your coach did you know, she just, you know, very smoothly co taught for just a moment, got the guy back on track, and now I'm off stage.
I'm just getting you back on track, so I'm sorry, I interrupted you,
yeah, but they compare it to compare that to like the full modeled lesson where essentially the teacher says, okay you do it I'm gonna watch and you're in the position of having to put together a [00:31:00] Dog and pony show and impress everybody and do it. You know, you don't know the kids You know, you're coming in there swinging in there on Wednesday at, you know, 2.
30 so I'm not a big modeled lesson fan, but the, it's funny you say that. What were you saying about the, oh,
just for a short period of time, there's a rocky part of the lesson, and so you step in just to model that piece, the teacher sees it, and
Oh, this is right. This is where I remember it, right, and if someone edits it, that's fine, but I don't care. The, one of the things that I did one time is I did one of these modelled lessons, and it failed in this very way. I stood in front of everybody in their class, and I taught at a much faster pace than this teacher was teaching.
Their main problem was that they were covering too little content in an hour they were really probably a tenth of what needed to be said or needed to be practiced was delivered. A lot of downtime, a lot of [00:32:00] thinking, a lot of, ah, I'll give you guys a little more time on that. So I went up there and I just did my thing, teaching quickly, fast, responses, mini whiteboards.
And at the end, we talked about how these things can backfire. It backfired. She said this very thing. She said, You know, I noticed that Johnny in the corner over there, he told me that he had a headache. And I think it was because of, you know, how fast he was. You know, and demanding you were as the teacher and I was like, oh my goodness gracious.
But yeah,
Well, and the other thing to keep in mind, this isn't, let's say you've got a 90 minute, Language Arts Block. This rapid pace, this isn't going on for 90 minutes. I mean, it's a small piece of that. Nobody could go on, you know, at that pace. Adults would be walking out of a room, you know. They would vote with their feet, and the kids can't, so they just vote with their attention, or with their misbehavior.
[00:33:00] But no I,
I mean, you're gonna alternate between a teacher led component and a student initiated component for just a bit and that's fast. But You're going to be fading out your support so the students are practicing and practice doesn't have, I think, the same impact as as a choral response or a mini whiteboard type of segment when they're acquiring the skill, right?
Practice is, but you're going to be, you're going to be circulating. But students have to initiate their own response and they're working quietly and or silently. And so you're, the break is in the mental work that's private, the private mental work they get while you're circulating. And the fast paced part is definitely the teacher, kind of the we do, the I do in the we do
Yeah. Well, I just wanted to say one more thing about the similarities between the D. I. lesson and the explicit instruction lesson. And this came from the feedback you were getting from your coach. It was the exact feedback that an explicit [00:34:00] instruction teacher would get. You know, are you checking for understanding frequently?
Does everybody have an opportunity to respond? Did all students achieve the learning goal? Who did it? How do you know? What don't they know? They're all the same. And so I don't have an answer. I don't have an answer to how to get more teachers on board. You know, with the DI, and I don't know what the what the administrative or legal hang ups are, you know, about buying other programs, if they're, you know, if they're authorized in all states, because that's a big, that's a big political, economic thing in every state, but in the schools where I saw it, it worked. You know, it worked. It was one school they did a K 3, they started a kindergarten, and I was new to the school, and I asked my vice principal, I said, how many students can't can't read by the end of third grade? And he said, well, none.
I said, [00:35:00] what? He said, none. I said, no. He goes, well, decode. Every one of those kids can decode at the end of third grade. So, I would say, That's pretty successful.
I think that's a great summary, you know, and, you know, some people might list be listening to this and be like, you know, there's no way we're gonna. We're going to get the, you know, the materials or we're going to go down that path. You know, you can contact the NIFTI, which is the National Institute for Direct Instruction, and you can talk to them.
You can see all these resources. You can just learn about, kind of, the DI approach and its intersection with direct instruction. That's what I love to embed direct instruction into my training so that people can have, you know, another source to to rely on. We have Cognitive Load Theory, we have Rosenshines, we have Engelmann's DI.
these are things that should be part of our Professional [00:36:00] discourse so that we can understand a little bit about what people before us have learned when it comes to teaching. We're not just constantly reinventing the wheel and making things up. I think it's an important part and that's why I started a little, that's this little side project for the DI podcast.
Ha
The way you described it as a side project. As much as I like the DI, I am not going to advocate for it. You know, when I go do work, because I'm trying to get them to understand all those principles that you just talked about. You know, inexplicit instruction, all of Rosenstein's principles, all of the science of learning stuff, and then at some point in the future, if they happen to run into it, they're ready for it but doing both, in my mind, and it must be in your mind, too, because you don't spend a lot of time talking about it when you're working with teachers, but you got this sideline that, you know, like, when you're ready, grasshopper, come over here.
And this might be [00:37:00] something that you would want to do.
ha, perfect.
Yeah. Zach, thanks. Thanks for that episode. And it was great. Going a little deeper, going a little deeper in, in the content. So, we'll be talking to you.
Yeah. Oh, it was great. I love talking to Eugene. Uh, Yeah I can't wait to keep coming back and we'll keep on looking at different you know, different things we've been reading or different things we've been doing and just keep discussing education. And I appreciate all the listeners who've tuned in today.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And as we continue to talk, it will be about instruction, and it will be about instructional coaching. All right, Zach, have a good one.
If you are enjoying these podcasts, please give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts, and you can find me on Twitter, x at G Tabernetti, and on my website, tesscg. com, that's T E S S C G dot com, [00:38:00] where you'll get information about how to order my books, teach fast, focused, adaptable, structured teaching, and maximizing the impact of coaching cycles.
Thank you for listening. We'll talk to you soon