How can teachers close the gap between learners?
Re–teaching is a necessary part of any scheme of work if there is an important element of the module, topic or lesson that students just haven’t grasped. It happens to all teachers, but the important thing is to spot the ‘gap’ in your students’ learning through marking and assessment and then go back and address it again.
10 Explicit Teaching Methods
Here are ten methods to scaffold student learning by making your teaching more precise and explicit.
- Show what a similar piece of work looks like, and how it is created, step by step.
- Talk it through, not only the things you decide to do, but also the things that you don’t.
- Speak your thoughts. It is the very thoughts that our students cannot hear or see that they need to understand.
- Make mistakes! One of the hardest skills is editing, especially when you’re not wise or good enough.
- Show students what to do when they don’t know what to do.
- Don’t use up all your modelling tips at the start of the lesson.
- A visualiser is your friend and a piece of work can be the next top model.
- Never make assumptions about what students already know.
- Model the learning in many ways — as imaginatively as possible.
- Have at the forefront of your mind your end–goal.
Based on a set of ideas found in Mark. Plan. Teach, to close the gap and avoid students missing out important steps, modelling and direct instruction can be highly effective. There are many ways to achieve this.
