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Modeling

The purpose of explicit teacher modeling is to provide students with a clear, multi-sensory model of a skill or concept.  The teacher is the person best equipped to provide such a model.

Guidelines

What does it look like in implementation?
  • Teacher both describes and models the skill/concept.
  • Teacher clearly describes features of the concept or steps in performing a skill.
  • Teacher breaks concept/skill into learnable parts.
  • Teacher describes/models using multi-sensory techniques.
  • Teacher engages students in learning through demonstrating enthusiasm
  • Teacher periodically questions students, checking understanding.

What are the critical elements of this strategy?

There are 8 essential components of explicit instruction:

  • Concept/skill is broken down into critical features/elements.
  • Teacher clearly describes concept/skill.
  • Teacher clearly models concept/skill.
  • Multi-sensory instruction (visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic)
  • Teacher thinks aloud as she/he models.
  • Teacher models examples and non-examples.
  • Cueing
  • High levels of teacher-student interaction

Implementation

How to implement the strategy:

  • Ensure that your students have the prerequisite skills to perform the skill.
  • Break down the skill into logical and learnable parts
  • Provide a meaningful context for skill
  • Provide visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile means for illustrating important aspects of the concept/skill
  • “Think aloud” as you perform each step of the skill
  • Link each step of the problem solving process
  • Periodically check student understanding with questions, remodeling steps when there is confusion.
  • Maintain a lively pace while being conscious of student information processing difficulties
  • Model a concept/skill at least three times before beginning to scaffold your instruction.

How does this instructional strategy positively impact students who have learning problems?

  • Teacher as model makes the concept/skill clear and learnable
  • High level of teacher support and direction enables student to make meaningful cognitive connections.
  • Provides an accessible learning map for students with:
  • Attention problems
  • Processing problems
  • Memory retrieval problems
  • metacognitive difficulties
  • Links between sub skills are directly made, lessening chance for confusion
  • Multi-sensory cueing provides multiple modes to process and learn