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 subskills are directly made, lessening chance for confusion
    • Multi-sensory cueing provides multiple modes to process and learn