Synthesis of Research on Explicit Teaching

Abstract

The research on effective teaching conducted since 1974 has yielded a pattern of instruction that is particularly useful for teaching a body of content or well-defined skills. This pattern is a systematic method for presenting material in small steps, pausing to check for student understanding, and eliciting active and successful participation from all students. Although this method was derived primarily from reading and mathematics research conducted in elementary and junior high schools, the results are applicable to any “well-structured” (Simon 1973) discipline where the objective is to teach performance skills or mastery of a body of knowledge. Specifically, these results are most applicable to the teaching of mathematical procedures and computations, reading decoding, explicit reading procedures such as distinguishing fact from opinion, science facts and concepts, social studies facts and concepts, map skills, grammatical concepts and rules, and foreign language vocabulary and grammar. These findings are less relevant for teaching in areas that are less well-structured, that is, where the skills do not follow explicit steps or the concepts are fuzzier and entangled. Thus, the results of this research are less relevant for teaching composition, writing of term papers, reading comprehension, analyzing literature or historical trends, for the discussion of social issues, or for teaching entangled concepts such as “liberal” or “modernism” (Spiro and Meyers 1984).

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