Ep 57. The power of explicit instruction with Anita Archer
This transcript was created with speech-to-text software. It was reviewed before posting but may contain errors. Credit to Canadian Podcasting Productions.
In this episode, Anna Stokke welcomes Dr. Anita Archer, one of the world’s leading experts on explicit instruction and co-author of the bestselling book Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching. They discuss what explicit instruction is, why it’s both effective and efficient, and what the research says about its impact. Together, they discuss who benefits from explicit instruction, common mistakes teachers make, and practical strategies such as the “I do, we do, you do” model. Dr. Archer also shares insights from her 50-year career in education and offers advice for teachers looking to strengthen their instructional practices and help all students succeed.
This episode is also available in video at www.youtube.com/@chalktalk-stokke
TIMESTAMPS
[00:00:22] Introduction
[00:05:26] Anita’s background in explicit instruction
[00:07:30] The three big C’s (clear, concise, and consistent)
[00:10:25] What is explicit Instruction?
[00:13:30] Problems with multiple strategies
[00:15:50] Explicit instruction is effective and efficient
[00:20:58] Research on explicit instruction
[00:27:11] Who does explicit instruction benefit?
[00:30:56] When to begin using explicit instruction
[00:38:24] Lack of awareness about effectiveness of explicit instruction
[00:42:32] Teaching well from the start reduces tier 2 intervention
[00:45:55] Identifying the different stages/phases: I do, we do, you do [00:44:48] Phase 1: I do
[00:47:43] Phase 2: We do
[00:49:47] Phase 3: You do
[00:53:29] Importance of giving students opportunities to respond
[00:58:57] What are unison choral responses?
[01:03:17] The importance of structured turn and talks
[01:08:31] Resource recommendations and Archerisms
[00:00:00] Anna Stokke: Welcome to Chalk & Talk, a podcast about education and math. I'm Anna Stokke, a math professor and your host. Welcome back to another episode of Chalk & Talk.
I'm excited to share with you an episode that I recorded with Dr. Anita Archer. If you're not familiar with her work, she is one of the world's leading experts on explicit instruction and co-author of the bestselling book, Explicit Instruction, Effective and Efficient Teaching. So, it was an honour to have her on the show.
In the episode, we discuss what explicit instruction is, why it’s both effective and efficient, and what the research says about its impact. We talk about who benefits from explicit instruction, common mistakes teachers make, practical strategies like the I do, we do, you do model and increasing opportunities to respond in the classroom. Anita also shares advice for teachers who want to strengthen their instructional practices and ensure all students succeed.
Anita shared a lot of resources with me, including a list of Archerisms, and I'll include those on the resource page. Please be sure to check it out. I learned so much from this conversation and I think you will too.
Now before we get started, I have a couple of announcements. Chalk & Talk recently surpassed 250,000 downloads. Thank you so much for listening and supporting the show.
If you find it helpful, please do me a favour and take a moment to leave a five-star rating on your podcast app. It really helps others discover the show. And if you know someone who could benefit from the conversations we have here, whether it's an educator, a parent, a policymaker, or anyone passionate about education, please share it with them.
Your support helps bring these important discussions to even more people. This episode is available in both audio and video. I'll put a link to my YouTube channel in the show notes so you can check out the video and please do give the show a follow-on YouTube.
Also, if you're enjoying Chalk & Talk, you might want to check out another podcast I've been listening to lately. It's called Teachers Talk Radio. They've got a network of around 30 teacher hosts, and they publish episodes daily on all the usual platforms like Spotify, Apple, and YouTube.
They cover anything that's teacher-related like behaviour, assessment, instructional techniques, even AI. So, give them a follow wherever you get your podcasts or visit them at ttradio.org. That's Teachers Talk Radio. Now, on to my episode with the amazing Anita Archer.
I am honoured to have Dr. Anita Archer joining me today, and she is joining me from Portland, Oregon. Anita is an educational consultant to school districts on explicit instruction, the design and delivery of instruction, behaviour management, and literacy instruction. Her career has spanned 50 years.
She has taught elementary and middle school students and served on the faculties of San Diego State University, the University of Washington, and the University of Oregon. She is nationally recognized for her professional development activities, having presented workshops and seminars in every American state, as well as in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. She has co-authored numerous curriculum materials, and she is co-author of the bestselling book, Explicit Instruction, Effective and Efficient Teaching.
And if you don't have that book, you should get it. It is great. She is the recipient of 10 awards honouring her teaching excellence and her contributions to the field of education. And I say it's safe to say that she's one of the leading experts in the world on explicit instruction. And I am so excited to talk to you today, Anita. It's an absolute pleasure to meet you.
Welcome to the podcast.
[00:04:28] Anita Archer: Anna, I couldn't be happier to be here. I've had many, many years where much of my work was done in Canada, and it really is a delight.
So, thank you very much. And I think you can teach me a lot of math as we go to illustrate explicit instruction.
[00:04:46] Anna Stokke: Sure. Yeah. So, we mentioned that before the podcast, you're an expert on explicit instruction and I'm an expert on math. So together, this is a Math Explicit Instruction podcast episode, right?
[00:05:01] Anita Archer: Perfect.
[00:05:02] Anna Stokke: And you also told me that you've been in every province in Canada to deliver PD, except Manitoba. Manitoba. So, we have to get Anita to Manitoba.
All right. So that's on my list of things to do. Okay. So, let's talk about a few things concerning explicit instruction today. So how long have you been teaching teachers about explicit instruction?
[00:05:26] Anita Archer: You know, you sent me the question, and I want to tell you how much I appreciated that because as a person who teaches other people to teach, being prepared, being prepared, being prepared makes all the difference in the attainment of the students. So, I have my notes right here.
I'm going to be using them so that I can make this both effective and efficient. So, I had to look up, I asked myself, when did you teach your first teachers? So, it was in June 1974. I was an acting assistant professor at University of Washington, and I taught courses in literacy.
That means that I have taught for 51 years, teachers. I was 29 the first time I'm 78 now, and I'm still teaching. I've in the last months; I've taught six weeklong trainings on explicit instruction.
So, this was sort of an opportunity to really nail down the big points in that training.
[00:06:25] Anna Stokke: Wow. That's amazing. So, I imagine you've thought really hard about the things to really focus on when you work with teachers. So, when you work with teachers, what are a couple of the main points that you really try to drive home about teaching and learning?
[00:06:40] Anita Archer: So, there's lots, I mean, it's really quite complex. There's lots of behaviours, lots of teaching practices.
But when I got that question, I thought about it. And the first one I said to myself was basically being certain that teachers understood the relationship between teaching and learning. For all of my work at universities and doing consulting and keynotes and so forth, this has been the major model.
How well you teach equals how well they learn. How well you teach equals how well they learn. So, when the students aren't learning, then you must ask yourself, what do I need to do to increase the probability that they will attain this body of information, that there's a direct relationship and a direct responsibility between the quality of our instruction and the quality of the student learning.
And so that would be number one. And then number two, no one would leave my trainings without getting the big idea that children will profit from being taught directly. That humans are designed to learn from humans.
And that we would teach them very explicitly new information, particularly when they are novices. And that the instruction would have clarity, because oftentimes it isn't clear. And so, clarity means the three big C's, clear, concise, and consistent.
Clear, concise, consistent. And so, they would realize the relationship between teaching and learning, that the students would profit from explicit instruction, that it needed to be clear and concise and consistent, and that it had to be interactive. I say something, you say something, I write something, you write something.
And then finally, that good instruction always requires practice, practice, practice, practice. So those are the big ideas of which there are many details, but that is what I want them to constantly remember as they're teaching any group.
[00:08:56] Anna Stokke: Those are great things to stress.
And I'll mention a few things about something you said there just in regard to being clear. And it's interesting because I've been teaching for a long time, and I've been in many roles where I've evaluated other teachers at the university level. And so, I've seen a lot of student evaluations of professors.
And so, the most common complaint students will have is that the professor wasn't clear. And when students are happy, they'll say that the professor was organized, and they were very clear in the way they taught me. I always think we can learn a lot from what students say about teaching.
There tend to be these consistent things that come up. So, I really agree with what you’re saying there. And then the interactive piece is really important too.
And that's something we don't always get right. And so, we're going to talk a lot about that today, because I think you probably have some really good tips for people about that.
OK, so your book, which is great, by the way, it details actually 16 components of explicit instruction.
So, it reminded me a little bit of Rosenshine’s principles.
[00:10:08] Anita Archer: Yes, of course.
[00:10:09] Anna Stokke: You talk about Rosenshine in the book.
So, 16 components of explicit instruction. So, and this is a big question, and we'll do our best here. But I'm wondering if you can just kind of give us a little overview of what explicit instruction actually is.
[00:10:25] Anita Archer: First of all, Barak Rosenshine, you know him, and a very important researcher on instruction. And some of his articles actually we will recommend that people read of his principles of instruction. But if you look at it, they almost always could be divided into the design of instruction and the delivery of instruction.
So, the design of instruction, whether I was using explicit instruction in math or spelling or reading or science or social studies, it wouldn't matter the content. But in terms of design, number one, I'm going to teach critical content, something that's useful in the moment, useful in the future. I am going to break it down into the code of two chunks that could be taught.
And so, I don't have cognitive overload, and my lessons are going to be organized and focused so that you know exactly what you're going to learn. You know, you've seen it being taught and demonstrated. You've seen and done guided practice on it.
And then I am going to have lots of practice to be certain that it moves from working memory to permanent memory. But along with that, I'm going to have delivery. And actually, Anna, when I go into classrooms, often I find that the problem is delivery.
You want to get frequent responses. You want kids to say things, write things, do things. You want to constantly monitor them, scanning the whole group, listening to individuals. You want to, based on your monitoring, give them feedback. It could be positive feedback in terms of praise, specific praise. It could be corrections if they've made an error.
And you want to, this whole time, to have a pace that keeps moving along so that you can maintain their attention. So, it's attributes of design, attributes of delivery. And no matter who the researchers were on explicit instruction, they often looked at it through design and delivery.
[00:12:32] Anna Stokke: OK, great advice. And I'll back up on the content piece because that was kind of the first thing you mentioned is teach the critical content. And I couldn't agree with you more.
And so, we have a problem in math. And in math, I think a lot of times people are not focusing on the critical content. And particularly in those elementary grades, kids need to know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide.
OK, and they need to be able to do this efficiently. They need to have good methods for doing that. And I think there's a lot of extra stuff that's getting introduced into the math lessons, like multiple strategies, convoluted methods for kids coming up with their own strategies for doing basic arithmetic. And what's happening at the end of the day is kids are not learning that critical content.
[00:13:30] Anita Archer: Let's just comment on that one part right there. Multiple strategies. So, you know, that would be like if I was teaching you how to write a paragraph and I had one strategy and then another strategy, then another strategy, then another strategy, and then find your own strategy. Now, just by doing that, I'm reducing the probability that you're going to learn it. Versus if I pick one that was consistently used, that we could take to automaticity, that will allow you to do story problems and utilize your information.
That would make a huge difference. So, I agree with you. That's what I just last week worked with a school district on their program and looking at it through what would be necessary for an optimum math program.
[00:14:20] Anna Stokke: And then the other thing that happens in math is a lot of times people are saying that things that really are critical content actually aren't that important, like memorizing your times tables.
[00:14:32] Anita Archer: You know, like knowing facts.
[00:14:34] Anna Stokke: Yep. Knowing facts.
[00:14:36] Anita Archer: To automaticity.
[00:14:38] Anna Stokke: That's right.
[00:14:39] Anita Archer: In my area of reading, this is what we also have had a long history with.
OK, where people say they really didn't need to know letter sound associations, that they would get them if all good books were read to them and they had lots of exposures. No. You need to look at the letter A and say, ah.
You need to look at the letters M and say, mm, if you're going to decode words. And you have to have it with automaticity, not just exposure, but you have to do it with speed and accuracy.
[00:15:10] Anna Stokke: Absolutely.
And after students have that, they can do a lot with it. Like I always think math is hard enough, right? Like it's hard enough for a lot of people. We don't need to make it harder for them. Right. We should make it as simple as possible. So anyway, that's why we're talking about this today.
[00:15:26] Anita Archer: That's why we're talking about design and delivery, obviously applicable to every aspect of reading and writing and every aspect that it would be true in math.
[00:15:39] Anna Stokke: So, the other thing is your book title adds effective and efficient. So effective and efficient explicit instruction. So how come? Can you elaborate on that?
[00:15:50] Anita Archer: Well, OK, let's take effective.
Basically, effective means that my lessons are so explicit, have such a concentration on the right language and the right number of opportunities to rehearse the information and retrieve it, that it works. You learn it. So, one day, and I was asked to do demonstration lessons, which for my whole career, I've done all kinds of demonstration lessons, and I was to teach the order of operations in algebra. Now, that's not my area of expertise. So, I had to study, and I got it down and I got really good examples. And I even had non-examples to be certain that they understood the concept.
I taught it brilliantly. And afterwards, the teacher said, oh my goodness, they actually got it. See, that is sort of what education is about. They like get it. So, it is effective in terms of they get it. And we have seen that when it's used across reading and math and writing and science and social studies.
And that is the point. Efficient. See, let's say that I am teaching math, which we have to envision that. And I am teaching a skill very, very well so that the students go to high accuracy and then begin to have automaticity on it. It was efficient in terms of the time and the energy and the effort, both from teachers and students. But here's what difference it makes in math, I presume, is that it sets the stage for additional learning later. If that piece is in place and we've done it very efficiently, now it's going to be efficient in what we're learning next. And I believe that's even more critical in the area of mathematics.
[00:217:53] Anna Stokke: I believe you are correct. Although I have heard people sort of disparage the idea that we concentrate on efficiency, that, you know, this is at the expense of critical thinking and things like that. And so, I mean, you come from a reading lens. I'm wondering if you've heard similar things.
[00:18:12] Anita Archer: So, I often hear this. Sometimes when I am working with principals, and we're going from class to class, and they'll say, I only want higher order thinking, I only want higher order thinking, and I say, well, you do not have higher order thinking without literal knowledge, and it doesn't matter what it is about that. So, if you can't read the words, there's no comprehension help.
If you don't know the meaning of the words, you're not going to have comprehension. If you do not have your attention on the critical content as you read, you're not going to have comprehension. And so, all of this is necessary in order to have this. And that's true of anything. If we were to have this discussion, only way we can have this discussion is I have knowledge, you have knowledge, and it's at the point of automaticity. We both know it very, very well.
So, we can have these kinds of conversations. Higher order thinking is necessary, and it's like the research on story problems in your own area, is that if you aren't, if you don't have the operations, and you aren't able to multiply fractions, if you're not able to manipulate it, if you don't know anything about the value of numbers, how are you going to do story problems? It's the body of knowledge that allows you to do it. And you have to have that kind of application.
[00:19:38] Anna Stokke: Absolutely. And we've been telling people, or I've been telling people to keep the instructional hierarchy in mind, and I had a whole episode on this recently with Brennan Lee, and that's kind of the idea, right? You need to learn the skill, you need to be fluent with the skill, and then you can start to do the problem-solving piece. You told me about a remarkable thing before the podcast, by the way, that you worked for Herring, one of the authors of the book that introduced the instructional hierarchy, correct?
[00:20:08] Anita Archer: It was very early on, Norrie Herring, and if you follow the research and reading, Tom Lovett and Joe Jenkins as an undergraduate.
That's so interesting. Yep. I've been blessed.
So, to me, explicit instruction, I also write curriculum materials that are for students that are struggling in reading. And so, it's really critical there that the instruction be effective. It has to work. They've had too much possibility of lack of success. They need success so that they will have motivation and energy, and it has to be efficient. We have to catch them up.
So, we have to use the instruction that is most efficient as well as effective.
[00:20:53] Anna Stokke: How about the research? So, can you say anything about the research on explicit instruction?
[00:20:58] Anita Archer: This one, I wrote down some notes so I could sort of organize this for us, because there are actually different groups of researchers and different bodies of knowledge that all have come together and converged together in agreement on what makes a difference. Okay, so let's start with the first one, which is research from educators, researchers in education, the science of instruction, that first started by looking at a range of teachers and looking at what was their practices, and then looking at master teachers who had very high outcomes from their students and teachers who had lower outcomes to answer the question, what do we need to do that makes a difference? And so many of the researchers emerged and were actually summarized often by Rosenshine and his articles. And so, Brophy and Good were some of the major researchers of this type of research. So, we observe teachers, we code what they're doing, we're looking for patterns that would mark masterful teachers and teachers that need to adopt those practices. Okay.
That's one whole body of knowledge. Okay. The next body of knowledge was, we think that it would be better to model things than have students discover it.
Let's do a study on that. We believe that they might profit more from practice that is over time rather than all in one taste. So, we do studies on comparison of that.
So, we're looking at explicit, well, or effective practices. Are they really in real studies making a difference? So basically, the observation studies give us an idea of the kinds of studies we’re going to do, and then we do it. And so, then we go further within that, and I know that you're aware of Follow-Through, which was a large study of teacher practices, looking at different ways to teach reading and mathematics to students that are in the primary grades.
And in Follow-Through, they found that explicit instruction, direct instruction made the most difference. But we also, if you look at the research in math, they've done the same things. Right? They've looked at specific practices.
There are studies in math on should you have worked problems and how should you use them? So, they look at what are instructional practices and will they make a difference? Now, here's what I would suggest that you as Canadians might want to do, and that is to follow up on the summaries of research by domain, math studies, reading studies, writing studies that are embedded in the work of the Institute of Educational Sciences, of what are called the IES practice guides, so that you could say, ooh, I'm interested in fractions, and you could see a review of research of instructional practices from that group. So that research has been growing, growing, growing for 50 years. More recently, we have had a third body of knowledge, which is from the science of learning, from cognitive science.
Now, those are cognitive researchers who study how children learn or how humans learn, and so some of the critical things that they've focused on is, one, how to reduce cognitive overload, when there's more information than you can handle. But they also decided from that research, break it down, just exactly what we’re basically from the other two bodies of knowledge, teach it explicitly, have practice over time, have students retrieve information from memory, not just rehearse it. So, what is really useful here is the amount of research from different viewpoints that came up with the same conclusions that were complementary or supplementary, but convergent. So, we'll add some articles on the research on explicit instruction that they can follow up with.
[00:25:32] Anna Stokke: And just to follow up on that, so you talked about three different areas where we’re all seeing the same thing. And so, the first was observational studies, and observational studies inform experimental studies. They look for patterns in classrooms, you know, in classrooms that are performing well and what those teachers might be doing, and that informs what you're going to study. And then you kind of have experimental research, right, where you might do things like randomized controlled trials. And, and certainly I've had a lot of people on, like Ben Solomon and Amanda VanDerHeyden and people like that who do behavioural research and experimental research. And then the third is the cognitive science aspect, right? And so, they tend to study, you know, how do humans learn? So, from a more, I guess, thinking about it in terms of the brain and working memory and things like that.
And they're all saying the same thing, right?
[00:26:32] Anita Archer: Right.
[00:26:33] Anna Stokke: So explicit instruction really does work. So hopefully people can check out that research that we're going to put up on the resource page too.
So, we've talked about what, what is explicit instruction. Now let's talk about who. So, who does explicit instruction benefit? And so, I asked this question. It's an important question because I think sometimes people are under the impression that explicit instruction only benefits struggling learners. So, let's talk a bit about that. Is it best for certain subjects or certain ages or does it benefit everyone?
[00:27:11] Anita Archer: You know, I think the best dichotomy here is between novices and experts.
If we define a novice in any area, any age, any subject, any domain would be someone who did not have or who have little or no background knowledge in that domain or what's being taught. And they would benefit with explicit instruction. And that's across ages.
We know it in the primary grades for both reading, math, writing, science, and social studies. But we also know it for algebra. We know it for geometry.
We know it for aspects of reading from decoding of the words to comprehension, to vocabulary. It is if I am a novice, but even if you look at it from the lens of view as a college professor, you have people that are coming in to become teachers, and one of the areas, mathematics, and they need to be taught how to teach math. I know that when I took statistics at the University of my doctoral program, I was praying for someone who would like to teach it, not hope for it, not pray for it, not expect it, but would teach it.
So, to me, it is pretty much across domains, across ages, across subjects. Now, the question here was, is it only beneficial for struggling students? Well, the word that goes with them is essential. There are no research-validated instructional programs in math, reading, or writing that have been validated with discovery for struggling readers. Period. I mean, if they would have discovered it, we never would have met them in intervention. And so, they need, it is absolutely essential so that they will experience learning, experience success, and move through the curriculum that they have not been able to master.
So yes, it is beneficial to struggling students, beneficial to all students in all ages, in all subjects. And once again, even I can teach higher order thinking. I mean, I can teach how to write in a way that is very appropriate for very people who have lots of background knowledge, but they need this specific kind of writing.
So yes, I have yet to see a situation that I picked this math book that I'm now studying just because I had the blessing of being with you and Doug Carnine was the first author of this, and so now I'm studying math. So, I can learn math now, and I'm so glad it's very explicit.
[00:30:01] Anna Stokke: Yes. Okay. So, to follow up on that, the key really is, is this person a novice learner? Have they learned this before, right? So, when someone is learning something for the first time, they really should be taught explicitly. That's going to work best.
[00:30:16] Anita Archer: Or when something is difficult, it needs to be taught explicitly.
[00:30:20] Anna Stokke: And it doesn't matter how old you are.
It doesn't matter the subject. That's why sometimes there's this thing that people go back and forth on. We're hearing about the science of reading and does that apply to math? And people will say, well, math is different.
No, it isn't. I mean, if you're learning anything for the first time, really, you should be taught explicitly and that applies to math. So, the key is whether someone is a novice learner or not, what stages are at in the instructional hierarchy? It's not age.
It's not subject. That's how you think about it, right?
[00:30:55] Anita Archer: Absolutely.
[00:30:56] Anna Stokke: So, and the other thing I wanted to mention, you've worked with a lot of children with learning disabilities who've been diagnosed with learning disabilities, so struggling students. And you mentioned that its absolutely, explicit instruction is absolutely essential for students who struggle. Do you think though that fewer students would actually struggle with subjects like math or even maybe they wouldn't even end up being classified as having a learning disability if the instruction had been right from the start? Like if they received explicit instruction from the start.
[00:31:34] Anita Archer: Absolutely. Of course.
I mean, let's just take reading because what's happening across Canada, what’s happening across the United States and Australia and Great Britain and New Zealand is that we're saying, “ooh, we want them to be able to read the words.” If they can't read the words, there is no comprehension help. And so, here's what we would see if I visited schools in your province, in kindergarten, first and second grade, they would be teaching phonemic awareness, the ability to hear sounds within words, that they would be directly teaching letter sound associations.
When you see the letter M, they would be teaching how to blend the sounds into words without stopping between the sounds. They would be teaching kids how to take a word, segmenting it into the sounds so they could spell it or encoding. They would be practicing, practicing, practicing, practicing, because it would first with accuracy before they ever worked on rate, and then they would put into practice by reading text that was readable given their decoding skills.
And this would be across. So, what's happening with this emergence of what we've known, but we didn't do it. Now we're doing it. Well, one is the children going into grade three are much more likely to be able to read the words so that they can then read more difficult texts and work on comprehension and get bodies of knowledge and write in response to all those things. And so, I have a district that has six elementary schools and consistently every year going into third grade, they had about 90 children in the whole district referred to intervention or special ed.
Last year, three children. Could very good instruction make a difference? In terms of it, because those children probably do have a learning disability and need really significant support, but many of the rest were just instructional disabilities. If they had been taught it well, they would never have been referred to tier two intervention.
Now, I believe, and again, you remember that math is not my area of expertise. So, I had to call up my two friends that are experts in math. And one of them, I had a conversation with Doug Carnine, who did lots of research in math, wrote a great book called Direct Instruction Mathematics.
And he said this, Anita, that it's even more important in math because it is a cumulative body of knowledge that you learn about place value in maybe grade one, and you learn about it in grade two and three and four and five and six and seven and eight, you learn about equal, and then you learn about equal and equal and equal and equal. And so, if you have early failure, it will prevent your later learning. And so, it is even more critical.
Am I right about this? Am I misinterpreting what my ...
[00:34:52] Anna Stokke: I think it's more critical. I'm always sort of hesitant to say that because I'm not a reading expert, so I can’t compare. Of course, I think math is more important than anything. I mean, you have to be able to read, though.
[00:35:06] Anita Archer: We'll give you that, Anna. I should go with reading myself, but the thing is, we have ongoing application, but you have consistent additional information about it as it goes across time, so if you didn't get the concept the first time and you had misinformation, which can happen, that is really going to make it more difficult for you to obtain as you go through the grades.
[00:35:34] Anna Stokke: Absolutely. So, what I always say is math is relentlessly hierarchical. So, I could take an algebra problem, and I could break it down and I could trace it back to grade one, right? The things you need to know.
And so, if you miss things along that ladder, it just makes it way harder. And it just builds and builds and builds and it snowballs.
[00:35:57] Anita Archer: You know, and when I visit schools, I mean, I see attitude, like in middle school, of avoidance.
I just can't do it. This is not my subject. I can't do math.
I can't do math. And that's because they didn't have the early success that would allow them to have current success.
[00:36:15] Anna Stokke: So that is a common thing in math that people think that they can't do it. When in fact, it usually just is that they didn't get taught well and they didn't get enough practice.
[00:36:27] Anita Archer: Right. You got it.
[00:36:29] Anna Stokke: Yeah. Now I have this conversation with a lot of students, so I'm very familiar with that, but we're trying to get the message out there that if you teach well and you get lots of practice, you can actually make sure that your students learn math. So that's what we're doing.
[00:36:45] Anita Archer: But wasn't it better for us to work on prevention?
[00:36:50] Anna Stokke: Oh, yes.
[00:36:51] Anita Archer: I mean, this good instruction is prevention. Rather than always having to accommodate.
[00:36:58] Anna Stokke: Absolutely. That's exactly what people should be doing. Let's try our best to get it right the first time. We're not always perfect. You can make mistakes. Everybody does, but we need to do our best.
But the other thing is a lot of times teachers don't have good resources. Like some of the math textbooks I've seen are just absolutely horrible. Like I would not want to teach out of a lot of these programs.
[00:37:23] Anita Archer: You know, it's very hard to do very good instruction with poor tools. And so, and I just was recently having a conversation about this, that when we look at teaching math, we have to look at the sequence, we have to look at the examples that are given, we have to use, look at the wording that's given, all of that, because it's very hard to take a poor tool and have a beautiful outcome.
[00:37:50] Anna Stokke: So, and I ask a lot of my guests this question that I'm about to ask you, because, I mean, it's perplexing. And you've been working with teachers for 50 years and students for 50 years. And you just told me, and lots of my guests have told me that there's a large body of evidence supporting the use of explicit instruction. Then why is it that so many educators seem unaware about this? They seem unaware about the benefits of explicit instruction.
[00:38:24] Anita Archer: Yes, this is 50 years of me saying, we know how to do it. We know what kind of instruction needs to be given.
What kind of tools need to be developed? What kind of things do teachers need to be aware of? And they aren't. And so, again, you made me think through this. One, it's not embedded in our teacher preparation coursework.
And that would be like saying, you're going to medical school, you're going to be a surgeon, and we hope that you figure out how to do it. We wouldn't do that in a profession. We would teach the best information, hold you accountable for it.
And when we look at licensure, when people are, okay, you're ready to be a teacher. We don't test on that information. We don't hold people accountable for that information.
We don't have them demonstrate that information. And then they go to their schools, and they might have professional learning communities and professional development, but it may not be on the right stuff. It may not be on what our evidence is.
So, we have teacher preparation, not necessarily based on evidence. We have licensure, not based on evidence. We have professional development, not necessarily based on evidence. And so, then we have people who've never had any exposure to it at all. And that's why in this part of my life; I am putting work into an agency that’s trying to organize like you would in medicine or other areas where their profession is based on evidence. So, it's called the Evidence Advocacy Centre, and many Canadians are giving us resources as across the United States and Australia, we're taking it from everyone and organizing it so that we really know what the evidence is. So, what we're hoping to do is, and I am a head of the instructional part of it. And, but Doug Carnine and Dr. Lynn Diamond are the two founders of it. And there, we're trying to build a knowledge management system that every true profession has.
So, a doctor says, I have this symptom, and I go in on my computer, and I pull up, what is the newest research on that? That is when evidence makes it a profession. But right now, I can't tell you this last week, I had two students that are going to be first year teachers, and I just did a keynote and two other sessions that they attended, and they said, I've learned more about teaching, watching you teach, than I learned in four years. Now that is not right.
I think that in the area of reading is happening definitely in a very positive fashion in teacher preparation programs.
I'm working with a university that's Mount St. Joseph, that is a science of reading doctorate. And it's totally based on evidence, evidence, evidence.
[00:41:39] Anna Stokke: That's positive, right?
[00:41:42] Anita Archer: So that's positive.
[00:41:44] Anna Stokke: We're moving. So, you're, are you seeing some positive changes, would you say?
[00:41:48] Anita Archer: Yes.
[00:41:49] Anna Stokke: Okay.
[00:41:50] Anita Archer: Because we're also, there's organizations that are evaluating syllabi and looking at certain criteria to be certain that it's taught and it's an approximation, but it's moving.
[00:42:02] Anna Stokke: All right. So, we talked about what is explicit instruction. We've talked about the who, who does it benefit? And now let's talk about the how. Okay. So, we've got a real expert here and I think you can give us some great tips. So, you talked about explicit instruction lessons in your book being, you know, they have an opening, a body, and a conclusion.
So, let's start there. Okay. So, what happens during the opening?
[00:42:32] Anita Archer: So, the three words that we remember is attention, review, preview. Attention, review, preview. Getting their attention and even having to signals to get their attention so that they are attending to what the outcome is and then review. And I think this is, no matter what subject area it is, we could review what we covered in the previous lesson as a builder to what we're doing now.
But even more importantly, we might have to review the pre-skills necessary for what we are doing. So that, for example, in reading, if I'm teaching decoding of single syllable words, I'm going to go back and review letter sound associations. And phonemic awareness as part of the opening before I introduce a new strategy of sounding out words.
And I know that's critical because so often in math, the challenge is they don't have the pre-skills, and you need to check the pre-skills so that you could reteach them so that they are at an accuracy level that would allow the new teaching. And a preview, this is what you're going to learn. This is the objective for the lesson, no matter what you call it.
People are arguing, should we call it a target? Should we call it an objective? It doesn't matter. It matters that the child knows what they are to learn and it's very clear so they can put their whole focus on it. But even more importantly, the teacher can put his or her focus on it without digressing.
[00:44:09] Anna Stokke: Yes. Okay.
[00:44:10] Anita Archer: Attention, review, preview.
[00:44:12] Anna Stokke: Perfect.
All right. So that's the opening. And then the real meat of the lesson, that's the body, right? The body of the lesson. And you refer to this as I do, we do, you do, right?
[00:44:24] Anita Archer: Particularly if you're teaching how to do something. In math, you're teaching a lot how to do something.
And so, I do it, we do it, you do it is actually wording that I coined in 1978 for demonstration, guided practice, checking for understanding. Because my goal is always to make things memorable. I do it, we do it, you do it.
[00:44:49] Anna Stokke: So, you coined that phrase.
[00:44:50] Anita Archer: Yes, I did. Maybe I, I know I coined it as a part of working on this chapter and with some other people who were doing training.
I'll just tell you a funny story. So, I do it, we do it, you do it. And so, one day I am in Australia, and I said, I do it, we do it, you do it, and this gentleman raised his hand.
He said, well, you know, in Australia, we just say, I do, we do, you do. Why do you say, I do it, we do it, you do it. And, you know, sometimes, you know, Anna, that you just need to be very clever because that was their intent.
And so, I said, well, I was in Eugene, Oregon when I wrote that chapter and, you know, that's the home of Nike, just do it.
[00:45:36] Anna Stokke: Oh.
[00:45:37] Anita Archer: And later he said, that's really not how you got it. I said, no, but wasn't it clever? But it could be, I do, we do, you do, or I do it, we do it, you do it.
[00:45:47] Anna Stokke: Okay. So, let's go through those stages.
So, let's talk about the I do stage. So, what does good instruction look like during the I do stage?
[00:45:55] Anita Archer: So, let's just talk about, because there's different kinds of knowledge. I could teach a skill or strategy. I could teach vocabulary and concepts. I could teach you rules and how they apply. I could teach you bodies of knowledge. But let's look at teaching how to do something. Okay. So, what would it look like? Well, it would look like I'm either going to demonstrate how to do it, model it, or I am going to explain it, and often we do those together.
I'm modeling it and I'm explaining the steps as I proceed. And I'm proceeding step by step, very systematically. And so that, and I'm using clear, concise, consistent language during the modeling. And there's a lot of controversy. Some people want children just to be passive during it. That they just are watching it be done.
And they must not have taught the children that I've taught. If we went like four or five minutes with them doing no responses, there'd be a possibility of deep cognitive floating as they check out. So, in addition to basically show and tell, I show you how to do it, I tell you how to do it, and I might even elicit responses where you have to repeat things, rehearse things, show that you are attending and you are with me. That's the I do. And I might do one dynamic demonstration, another dynamic demonstration. Yes.
[00:47:25] Anna Stokke: Okay. So, lots of good modeling, again, breaking down things into steps that make it easier for students to follow and lots of interaction.
Okay. So, let's talk about the next phase. That's we do phase.
So, what does good instruction look like during that phase?
[00:47:43] Anita Archer: So, we do phrase is actually, I believe, the most important of I do, we do, you do. Because it's basically guided practice. I'm going to, I model it, I showed you how to do it. I told you how to do it. And now we are going to guide you in doing it. Now, guiding would be, one way to do it would be, I could tell you what the step is and have you do it. I could tell you the next step and have you do it and the next step and have you do it. So that's a lot of scaffolding, lot of support as you are going through it. Because I want you to experience success.
Now errors will occur, but I want to optimize success. And then I could even go to, now I'm going to ask you what the first step was and have you do it. What's the next step and have you do it, next step and have you do it. And that might be, again, numerous times. And then I could go to just reminding you about the most difficult part before you did it. So, it, that of course is gradual reduction of responsibility.
But sometimes we don't ever give teachers an idea of what it means. I tell you how to do it. I, and you do it. I ask you what the step is and have you do it. I remind you of the hard part and you do it. Gradual release of responsibility.
Okay. And then there's lots of feedback in the we do phase, right? Yeah, of course. And so, every time they make a response, you're having a rhythm here of good instruction. You have some input and then you ask a question, you get a response and then you give feedback. It could be corrections. It could be specific phrase, and you adjust your lesson based on that.
So, it is the rhythm of instruction that is occurring during the we do it.
[00:49:41] Anna Stokke: Okay. Fantastic. How about the you do phase? What does good instruction look like during that phase?
[00:49:47] Anita Archer: So, you do it now is sort of the precursor to independent work. I need to check you out without any scaffolding of either telling you or asking you or reminding you so that you can show me that you could do it with at least 85% accuracy if we did numerous problems, then you could be ripe for independent practice because I want a very high because we're working on accuracy initially in independent practice and then in some cases we're working on rate and automaticity and then application. So, I really need to set you up for enough success so that you will be able to do it.
[00:50:32] Anna Stokke: So, what have you observed that teachers most likely get wrong or that you see with frequency that teachers get something wrong during the body of the lesson? Sometimes it's good just to talk about things like that because it's usually, it’s common, right?
[00:50:50] Anita Archer: Well, the most common, I do it, you do it.
[00:50:53] Anna Stokke: Ah, okay.
[00:50:55] Anita Archer: That's the most common. And missing out on the whole guided practice, scaffolded practice, setting you up for success. I see. Most common. Another error, when I visit schools and they often have walkthrough forms that they utilize for giving feedback from the coach or from the principal, and often it says in this lesson, there will be an I do it, we do it, you do it in every lesson.
Well, that's a big mistake. If it's very complex, I might model it today and model it one or two times and maybe do guided practice. But the next day we're doing guided practice again. And if it's really difficult, maybe more guided practice before we fade it out to you, do it. So, it could be over time. And this is where the instruction really differs based on if it is in a general ed class versus an intervention, tier two or tier three. Because I could teach the same thing, maybe. I could teach a strategy in a general ed class. I do it.
I do it. I do it. The next day we do it.
We do it. We're looking really good. You do it.
Now we're ready for independent practice and intervention. Same skill. I do it.
I do it. I do it. We do it. We're telling, we do it. And now you do it. The real difference is the amount of we do it with differentiated groups.
[00:52:34] Anna Stokke: I see. Okay. So, it sounds like you're saying that sometimes you see people trying to apply a formula almost that you've got to do an I do, we do, you do in every single lesson, that's kind of poor judgment, right? Like you have to use your judgment as a teacher about how much I do you need and how much we do and how much you do you need, depending on the topic.
[00:53:00] Anita Archer: The topic is students, how well they've been taught in the past, how much background knowledge they have.
Yes. It's a thinking person's career.
[00:53:09] Anna Stokke: And so, let's get down to some specifics. I think a really important thing to talk about is opportunities to respond. That's kind of jargon. So educational jargon in a way. So, let's, first of all, talk about what we mean by opportunities to respond and why that's important.
[00:53:29] Anita Archer: So, a little history. Okay. We know that the more students respond that there's advantages to that, right? Because we know that if the instruction is interactive and you are making more responses, that your learning goes up, you’re on-task behaviour goes up, and management problems go down. So that is clear, consistent research about responses in lessons. More responses, more on-task, more learning occurs, and a reduction in inappropriate behaviour.
Okay. What we really want to know is the students' responses. But if you are doing classroom research, which I always say we definitely should because it's going to occur in classes, and then it's very difficult to constantly take data on all those students, so instead we looked at opportunities to respond, meaning the teacher requests a response.
So now we could count that. And so many studies have been done on looking at, once again, how many responses do really masterful teachers get? And when the responses are pretty simple, most masterful teachers get three to five responses per minute, not per day, not per hour, not per period, per minute, in the elementary studies. And if it's more complex, like they have to share something with their partner or they have to write down a sentence, even then it might be one response per minute. So, we're talking interactive, constantly throughout the lesson, particularly during the we do it portion of it. So it is, to me, when I work with schools, the most transformative piece is to significantly increase the opportunities to respond. It is because of more on task, more learning, and reduced behaviour problems. But also, if you're going to add responses, you have to know what you’re teaching. If you're going to add responses, you have to know what the outcome is. If you're going to add responses, you have to know what wording you're going to utilize. You've had to think about the definition for that word, the steps and how you’re going to explain them. So, it affects everything else.
And when we get responses, there are some basic things that I follow when I look at active participation. Number one, there's frequent responses. Number two, the responses that make the most difference are overt, not covert.
You write something, you say something, you touch something, you point to something, it's overt. And the responses that make the most difference involve everyone. So not just calling on raised hands, but everybody says it, everybody writes it on their whiteboard, everybody holds up their response card, everyone responses. And the responses also have to have think time with it.
Okay. So that sometimes you have to give more think time and sometimes less.
So, you get frequent responses, the responses are overt, everybody does everything, and you have thought time. And so those are sort of the big ideas. There are specific practices that would fit into those categories.
[00:57:05] Anna Stokke: Okay. And so covert would be just sort of, you ask the students to think about it, and they just say, they're thinking it in their head. So, it's better to have them say something out loud, like coral response, or write it, then it is just to think it. Is that what you're saying?
[00:57:23] Anita Archer: So, I wrote down for you, because you asked this question, what are some of the strategies that have the best possibilities? Okay. And first of all, we just get the rhythm down. Input, question, response, monitor, feedback, adjust. Input, question, response, monitor, feedback, adjust. There is a rhythm to instruction.
So, saying responses, how will be the best research validated practice is coral responses, unison coral responses. When the answers are short and the same, the students say it together upon some kind of signal that the teacher gives.
Now, it doesn't matter what I am teaching, whether I am teaching primary kids or middle school or high school or college, there's times when the answers are short and the same, and everybody could say the answers. One of the articles I'm sending you is a review of that specific procedure, which they concluded that if across the world, when the responses were short and the same, the teacher had them say it together rather than calling on volunteers, that it would totally change the outcomes in traditional education.
[00:58:56] Anna Stokke: Wow.
[00:58:57] Anita Archer: So, and that one is an article we're going to make available. Okay. So, unison coral responses, they're highly structured so that the students are given a signal like think and speak.
Then there are partners. Now, I have been doing demonstration lessons for 30 years in Canada, so I’ve been in many, many classes, and just like here, they started with turn and talk. The little problem with turn and talk is we couldn't always establish what were they talking about. But here's the real problem is that inevitably someone will dominate the partnership. So, they had to have structured partners, labels like one and two or A and B. I don't know, you have probably a perfect mathematical choice there for partner names so that you could ensure that you had equity across partner usage. So coral responses, partner responses, calling on individuals. Now, right now there is a lot of talk about randomly calling on students and called cold calls. The challenge with this is as I watched videos and oftentimes, particularly in the upper grades, calling on individuals, a cold call, had with it a little bit of gotcha, another word, a little energy, I'm the teacher, I gotcha. And that's not the route that I would take in teaching. I want it to be safe. I'm going to ask a question. I'm going to give you time to think about it.
I might even give you time to prepare your answer. I'm going to have you share your answer with your partner, and then I'm going to call on you. So, it goes from a cold call to what I call a warm call. I'm setting you up for success beforehand. For writing, math, I mean, one study after the next utilized whiteboards and slates. And the whole benefit is that you can have the students write step by step. You can have them write the whole equation down. You can write them, but then you're going to say, show me, and they’re going to hold it up. And you can monitor everyone and then give feedback to the group.
And the benefit really is that you can monitor everyone. If you have a class of 23, you're not going around and able to look at every response or everything they say, but you could do the holdups. And then in terms of doing all kinds of holdups.
Now, holdups are the least used, but some of the best type of response. I mean, so that I was teaching just the names in math one day, and they had variable and coefficient and on cards, and they held up the answer just to name the part in the equation, and I could monitor everybody and hold everybody accountable. But the big idea is you have a task, and you want a method for opportunity to respond that matches it. So coral responses, partner responses, holdup responses, those are the big winners.
[01:02:06] Anna Stokke: Okay, perfect. And there's lots of different ways you can think of doing holdup responses too. So, you can come up with all sorts of ideas for that.
[01:02:16] Anita Archer: Using fingers to indicate the number and so forth
.
[01:02:19] Anna Stokke: Yeah, finger voting. Yeah.
[01:02:21] Anita Archer: Let me just take this a step further. The science says good instruction should be interactive and that we should have many responses,
[01:02:30] Anna Stokke: true,
[01:02:31] Anita Archer: and that even masterful teachers have three to five per minute. That's the science. Over here we have the art, and this is where I have freedom as a teacher. I have freedom to say, oh, I'm going to use whiteboards.
I'm going to use holdups. I'm going to use unison responses. I'm going to use structured partners. And sometimes what we have done is people have said, you know, I'm a professional teacher. I should be able to choose what I teach, how I teach and what I do. No, good teachers use the evidence-based practices and then they add the art by some decisions they can make based on delivering this and making it work.
[01:03:17] Anna Stokke: Let's back up for a minute just to turn and talk. So, you have partners and basically, you're asking them to talk about something. I'm not convinced this is always would be a great way to do things in math, by the way, maybe sometimes, but the thing I want to ask about it is this.
So, I've been at education conferences where we've been asked to talk to the person beside you about X, Y, or Z and inevitably what happens is you might talk about it for 30 seconds and then you're done the conversation and then you just start talking about something else. Does that not happen in the classroom?
[01:03:58] Anita Archer: Well, of course, that's not very well structured or monitored.
Let's say one day I was in class, and I was watching them teach collaborate. So be my student.
[01:04:12] Anna Stokke: Okay.
[01:04:13] Anita Archer: This word, I'm going to show it.
This word is collaborated. What word? Collaborate.
What is it again?
[01:04:20] Anna Stokke: Collaborate.
[01:04:21] Anita Archer: Collaborate. Excellent. And repeat it three times.
[01:04:23] Anna Stokke: Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate...
[01:04:28] Anita Archer: Teacher talk. One of the problems is in learning vocabulary, even in mathematics, is if you can’t pronounce it, you cannot attach meaning to it, store it, and retrieve it. So, you work on the pronunciation.
Okay. Now, collaborate. Would you underline the word labour in the word collaborate?
[01:04:51] Anna Stokke: Sure.
[01:04:52] Anita Archer: Okay.
So, labour is to work. And now underline C-O-L.
[01:04:58] Anna Stokke: Okay.
[01:04:59] Anita Archer: And C-O-L, uh, means with, together. So, collaborate means to labour together. So, what does collaborate mean?
[01:05:09] Anna Stokke: Labour together.
[01:05:10] Anita Archer: So, collaborate means to labour together. What is it?
[01:05:15] Anna Stokke: To labor together.
[01:05:16] Anita Archer: Excellent, job.
[01:05:17] Anna Stokke: Thank you.
[01:05:18] Anita Archer: Okay. Now, we're going to think of times where we might collaborate. For example, we might write a book on explicit instruction someday, Anna, in terms of math, and we would labor together, we would collaborate. So, I want you to think of something that you might labor with someone on in a school setting.
And you're going to start by saying to your partner, we could collaborate on, and you're going to complete it. We could collaborate on. Say it.
[01:05:55] Anna Stokke: We could collaborate on a math problem.
[01:05:58] Anita Archer: Good. Pretend you're saying it to your partner.
[01:06:00] Anna Stokke: We could collaborate on a math problem.
[01:06:03] Anita Archer: A math problem. Excellent. So having you say answers to partners needs some structure, like some instruction beforehand, something you're definitely going to do, and even the language that would support you doing it. Because if I didn't give you the language to support that collaboration, you’re likely to hear kids say, well, you know, you know, like, yeah, you know, like, make it together. Yeah, you know, you know, yeah, you know.
But I'm, I am giving a sentence to him so that I am making it more powerful. So, I agree with you that partners, saying answers to partners that are totally unstructured, not monitored, lead to off-task conversation, of course, we're human beings, so it has to have a purpose, it has to have a structure, and it has to have monitoring.
[01:06:53] Anna Stokke: Okay.
I'm glad I asked that question because you gave an excellent example of how to do this. So, I think the key there is structure.
[01:07:03] Anita Archer: A structure and a definite response for which you can hold them accountable. So, can I give you another idea? So, let's say that we brainstorm, brainstorming a list of different things we could collaborate on, and I'm writing a list, and now the teacher says, you're going to compare your list with your partner. Now, without any structure, they're going to be off task almost immediately.
So again, you add structure. Once you're going to start, you're going to say, start with, one way we could collaborate is, and your partner is going to look at their list, and they’re either going to check it because they have the same idea, or they're going to add it. So again, it's all about the structure.
We often use check and add. The kids are totally on task. Next kid says, another way we could collaborate is, check and add.
Yeah. It's all about structure
.
[01:08:02] Anna Stokke: And on that note, let's maybe talk about some things that might help teachers. So, I hear from a lot of teachers, and they tell me that they weren't taught about explicit instruction or how to use it effectively in their pre-service teaching. You brought this up earlier, and we know this is common.
Now, there might be teachers listening, and they're wondering what they can do. You know, they want to make up for this. So, how can they learn the things that they need to learn to teach well? What would you recommend?
[01:08:31] Anita Archer: So, I had to really sit back from this, because it hurts my heart that teachers who’ve chosen this profession were not taught how to teach in a way that would lead to learning.
And that was why they went into it, because they wanted to relate to the students. Yes, teacher-student relationship is critical, but they wanted the kids to learn, and the kids come to school wanting to learn. We as humans want to learn.
So, I am so saddened by those two women that I met last week who said, in three sessions, I learned more than I learned in four years how to teach. So, one day, I was in Southern Ohio, and after a week-long session with administrators and teachers and coaches, a principal came up on Thursday as we finished and said, do you have a one-page summary of explicit instruction? I said, no. He said, we'll write one for tomorrow.
So, we're going to give the teachers that one-page summary. Another thing we're going to give them is, often I have turned big ideas into what my students used to call archerisms, because I wanted them to be able to remember big ideas, like, teach this stuff and cut the fluff for critical content, or I do it, we do it, you do it. And so, they're getting, they will have access so they could make a poster of archerisms.
Okay. Articles. So, I don't want them to, I mean, teachers are busy people.
So, we're going to put up the best articles I could find on explicit instruction and the best articles on opportunities to respond. Okay. So, we'll post those.
The next thing I'm just going to remind people is the IES Practice Guides, the Institute of Educational Sciences, because what they do is, every year they have questions that come to them, like, what should we do with struggling students in math in 2022? What should we do with preschool to get them ready for kindergarten also in 2022, so that they bring in all the research they can find on that topic, get rid of any weak ones that doesn't meet the standards of qualitative research, then they summarize them into recommendations. So, I mean, you can find what to do in reading decoding, what to do in reading comprehension, what to do in writing, what to do in adolescent literacy. Woo.
So, they go online and look at IES Practice Guides, and you'll get a whole list of them, pick out the ones that would work for you. I think the book that I wrote with Charles Hughes is a pretty good book for it, big seller, explicit instruction, effective and efficient teaching. But along with it, there is a website of videos I've done over time that illustrate good instruction, one after the next with different age groups, different topics, so many people have looked at those.
Another source is, during COVID, I did 500 webinars on explicit instruction. And you wonder, why would you do that? It was because I had grants that had to be carried out during that time, so I had to do them virtually. And so, almost all the information we've covered could be articulated and expanded on by watching those webinars, and they're all on YouTube,
[01:12:18] Anna Stokke: all 500.
[01:12:19] Anita Archer: Well, I don't know if they put all of them. I did 500, but you know what was fun and it was, okay, so in the morning you get up early, and you do one in New York City. And then you whip over and do one in Oregon and then Alaska and then wrap up your day in Hawaii.
So, it was quite delightful. And I do week-long trainings. Most of them are sponsored by Safe and Civil Schools, which is an organization that I've worked with for years.
But the main thing is, the articles read those on explicit instruction, particularly the one that was written by Roshensine, which will emphasize once again what we’ve discussed here, and then do it. Because children deserve it. It's their civil right, whether they're Canadian, Australian, American, New Zealand, British.
And what I find is that when teachers really look at it and begin to do it, their children learn, and nothing is more reinforcing to a teacher than children learning, nothing is more reinforcing to their parents that when they come home and say, what did you learn today in math, they can say, well, we're continuing our work on, that's what we want to have happen.
[01:13:43] Anna Stokke: I agree with you. And I bet you've turned around a lot of schools.
[01:13:48] Anita Archer: I have. But with teams, it's all about collaboration. It's labour together because it takes excellent administration who comes to all of the trainings that collects data and opportunities to respond.
It gives feedback to teachers. It is coaches who know the content area, know the actual curriculum materials and how we could make it really, really good for explicit instruction. And then it takes beautiful teachers who really understand, I need to follow science of instruction. I still have my personality that I have to bring to it, my enthusiasm, my energy, my presence, my monitoring, my corrections, my feedback, but I'm going to be sure I use the best knowledge because this must become a profession and a profession requires a body of knowledge that we all utilize that makes a difference within our profession.
[01:14:50] Anna Stokke: You bet. And you know, it's really promising that you gave 500 webinars during COVID. It really is, right? Think about that. Like that's a large volume of webinars. It means that there are people out there who are looking into this. They want to make sure that their teachers know how to use explicit instruction so that the kids learn. So, I find that very promising, very hopeful.
[01:15:16] Anita Archer: Well, can I be equally complimentary of you? There's not hardly a time that I do a training that I don't say go to chalk and talk because it is explicit instruction with math, but it is looking at evidence, every single one. I've listened to them all and they're all very much evidence-based and that’s what our world needs. And then you get a, like I had a principal who emailed me last week saying, I attended your weeklong. I've been a principal for 26 years.
I'm really good at organizing schools and coming through with those things. I really didn't attend to instruction and that was a big mistake. Now I am. Now we are doing opportunities to respond. We are doing explicit instruction. We are doing practice over time, and our students are learning and it’s better for me.
It's better for the teachers. It's better for the children. It's better for the society.
It is better for our country. A democracy is based on an educated group of people making very high-level decisions based on good knowledge. But this requires instruction.
It requires education.
[01:16:35] Anna Stokke: Absolutely. So, thanks for plugging my podcast and I'm so honoured that you have been listening.
[01:16:42] Anita Archer: Absolutely. You know, I'm a teacher.
You're a teacher. We have to admire teachers. It's the school year starting this week, this month, and we just need to be certain that teachers have the knowledge that makes a difference with children. That's what we're about.
[01:17:00] Anna Stokke: So, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's been an absolute pleasure, and I really hope we can meet in person.
[01:17:07] Anita Archer: I hope so too. And not only that, but I must also come to the only province that I've not been to in Canada.
[01:17:14] Anna Stokke: You absolutely must. And we will make sure of it.
If you enjoy this podcast, please consider showing your support by leaving a five-star review on Spotify or Apple podcasts. Subscribe on your favourite podcast app to get new episodes delivered as they become available. Chalk & Talk is produced by me, Anna Stokke. You can follow me on X or LinkedIn for notifications or check out my website, AnnaStokke.com for more information. This podcast received funding through University of Winnipeg Knowledge Mobilization and Community Impact Grant, funded through the Anthony Swaity Knowledge Impact Fund.