Head of Department-Curriculum - Karen Newton
Understanding Explicit Instruction
Learning by DESIGN.
At Aspley State School, we are committed to evidence-based teaching practices that support every learner. One of the key approaches we use is Explicit Instruction, a structured, clear, and effective teaching method written about by renowned educator Dr. Anita Archer.
Explicit Instruction is built around 16 key elements that help make learning visible, accessible, and achievable for all students. These elements focus on clear goals, modelling, active student participation, and regular feedback — all designed to maximise learning and minimise confusion.
Constructing lessons and lesson sequences that adhere to this 16-point structure is no mean feat, and we Aspley Teachers make it look easy; …..but is it?
A Day in the Life of a Teacher - A light-hearted look behind the classroom curtain
(Read the details below or, for your convenience, tune into the audio file bringing the experience to life)
Ever wondered what your child’s teacher does all day? Let us take you behind the scenes of a typical school day, where coffee is currency, the laminator is a trusted companion, and Explicit Instruction is the name of the game…..
6:00 AM – Alarm rings. The teacher jolts awake, mentally rehearsing the day's learning intention and success criteria, because yes, we do think about this stuff before breakfast. Coffee is brewed, lesson steps are mentally sequenced somewhere between brushing teeth and finding matching shoes.
7:30 AM – Arrive at school, arms full of whiteboard markers, USBs, and a small forest of printed scaffolds. You set up your board with the clear objective, your modelled examples, and guided practice steps, all carefully planned last night, colour-coded and backed by research (thanks, Dr. Anita Archer!).
8:50 AM – Bell rings. Students flood in with a mix of stories, missing homework, and suspiciously sticky hands. A child hands you a note. Another, hands you a rock. You thank them both with equal enthusiasm. You begin the warm-up, a quick review of yesterday’s learning, checking for understanding (Element #5 of Explicit Instruction!) while scanning for signs of someone having a mysterious Band-Aid emergency.
9:00 AM – Time for the main event: the Explicit Instruction lesson you were up planning until 10pm last night kicks off! You:
- Clearly state the learning goal (Element #1)
- Deliver step-by-step modelling (Element #6)
- Use choral response and partner talk to maximise active participation (Elements #8 and #9)
- Promptly realise you forgot to press "Start" on the visual timer. Classic.
You’ve got your objectives, your visual aids, your carefully timed transitions... and then someone’s tooth falls out. Lesson paused for dental ceremony.
10:40 AM – Morning Tea! You bolt to the photocopier to print tomorrow’s worked examples and exit tickets. Copier jam…….. again. You consider forming an emotional support group for teachers with traumatic paper jam experiences.
11:25 AM – Back in the classroom. The next lesson begins with scaffolded practice. You circulate, giving immediate feedback (Element #14!), re-teaching where needed. A student asks, “Can I go to the toilet?” right as you're explaining the most important part. You pause and smile… professionally. After spending 5 minutes getting all the young minds in your class focused back on the learning, the interactive whiteboard updates itself into oblivion. You pivot, improvise, and somehow make the math lesson continue using nothing but a whiteboard marker and sheer willpower.
1:25 PM – Lunch. Or, more accurately, the 7 minutes you spend eating half a sandwich while supervising the playground and mediating whether “accidentally kicking someone with a soccer ball” is really an accident. After your duty, but while the students are happily playing outside, you start reviewing your differentiated learning groups for the next lesson. You rework the lesson’s pacing (Element #4!) because the class took an unexpected detour into the land of off-topic questions before Lunch.
2:00 PM – The afternoon rolls in. You deliver another lesson, this time adjusting instruction based on student performance (Element #13), using hand signals, think-alouds, and every ounce of energy left in your Explicit Instruction toolbox.
3:00 PM – The bell rings. Students depart. You wave with one hand while picking up 37 glue sticks with the other. You smile, and internally review what worked and what didn’t.
3:10PM - You begin preparing for tomorrow’s lessons, tweaking your script, creating prompts, and selecting just the right example to model. Because great lessons don’t just happen……….. they’re deliberately designed.
Moral of the story?
Teaching isn’t just “standing up and talking.” It’s structured. It’s responsive. It’s a complex dance of cognitive science, educational research and passion for student learning. While it’s incredibly rewarding, it’s a daily adventure that requires Olympic-level organisation for every single lesson.
Using the 16 elements of Explicit Instruction, our Aspley teachers carefully plan, model, guide, and assess — all while managing the daily energy of school life.
Over the coming weeks, I hope to unpack some of these Key, 16 elements of explicit instruction, so you can see the intentional magic happening behind the scenes.
And yes — we still occasionally leave our coffee in the staffroom microwave.
Stay tuned!
Classroom News
Prep C
We’ve had a busy start to our term in Prep C, with lots of curriculum learning and celebrations in our school. This week, we acknowledged Bullying No Way Week through classroom discussions, as well as reading the story The Rainbow Fish to tie in with our learning about differences and sharing. ‘We may all be different, but in Prep C we swim together.’
On Friday, we got to ‘Book an Adventure’ by dressing up as many amazing characters from some of our favourite stories for Book Week. Check out our fabulous costumes!
1C
1C students have enjoyed making different puppets this term as part of their Design Technology unit. They are working towards designing and making a puppet with moving parts to use in a puppet show. This also fits in well with our English unit where we are learning about procedures. The students will need to present a procedure to the class and give a reason why others should try what they are retelling.
2C
This Term in 2C has been a busy one! In maths we have been exploring informal units to measure length, mass and capacity. The learning has been hands-on (see photos) from measuring our desks with block and markers, to comparing capacity by filling up different shaped containers with plastic beads. Our science unit has also incorporated real-world examples as we have been growing our own bean plants while exploring different lifecycles of both plants and animals. Unfortunately, the bean plants have taken a hit with the recent warm weather but that has led to learning about habitats and what plants and animals need to survive.
3C
The current Year 3 Science Unit is entitled ‘Spinning Earth’. 3C have enjoyed learning about how the movement of the Earth is causes day and night, sunrises and sunsets, shadows and the seasons. They have identified observable and non-observable features of the Earth and compared its size with the sun, moon and other planets within the solar system. Students worked in groups using torches and tennis balls to gain a better understanding of the Earth’s rotation and revolution around the sun. We have explored how the movement of the Earth effects our daily lives and how First Nations peoples use knowledge of the Earth’s movement in their traditions.
4C
Year 4 students have been studying fractions, decimals and multiplying and dividing numbers by 10, 100 and 1000. With this, they have engaged in mathematical projects and problem solving. To solve these problems, students have needed to use the Maps on the iPads to find distances, perform large multiplication and addition problems on their calculators and on paper, survey their classmates and organise their results in a table. Students then interpret their results to answer the question. An example of one of the investigation questions solved by students is: Does our class travel more than 10 000 km to Chermside each year?
5C
This term in English 5C has been creating persuasive speeches to make improvements to Aspley State School. They have been sharing, developing, and expanding on ideas and opinions for a their particular purpose with their peers as the audience. We have learned a lot about the structure of persuasive text though the use of our WAGOLL, that is, What A Good One Looks Like, and TEEL, which is, Topic Sentence, Explain/Evidence, Examples, Link (link back to the topic in a concluding sentence). We have also looked at a number of persuasive techniques, such as, rhetorical questions, facts, personal pronouns, alliteration, emotive language, opinion, modality, repetition, statistics and rule of three. Ask your child how they are going to improve their school. What do you think they will say?
6C
6C have had a wonderful and busy term of learning! Our highlight was our trip to Canberra, where we made real connections to our classroom work on Federation and citizenship. In English, we’ve been learning to express our opinions through persuasive writing, while in maths we’ve worked hard on fractions and percentages (including discounts) and are now exploring area, perimeter, and angles. In HASS, we’ve learned about latitude and longitude, the geography of the Asia region, and how people and cultures differ across the world. In science, we’ve been fascinated by natural disasters such as cyclones and earthquakes. To finish the week, our Friday afternoons have been filled with fun and creativity as we worked with our buddies on puppetry, from hand puppets to marionettes.
