Provide Models, Examples and Nonexamples

By Elaine K. McEwan (2007)

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We do not teach our children wisely and well if certain keystone stances are not topmost in our minds and hearts. Modeling is one of those keystone precepts. The only thing worse than faulty modeling is a teacher who does not credit the power of modeling.
—Pickard (2005, p. 35)

If your students don't understand or retain what you are teaching them, use the cognitive apprenticeship model as a powerful way to accelerate learning for all students (Collins et al., 1990; Collins et al., 1991). In a traditional apprenticeship (e.g., one in the trades such as plumbing or carpentry), the expert tradesperson shows the apprentice how to do a task and then gradually gives over more and more of the responsibility for the task to the apprentice. In a cognitive apprenticeship, it is the teacher's thinking and problem solving that are made visible to students through modeling. Regrettably, teacher modeling is rarely seen in many classrooms.

In a study of the frequency of general education teachers' classroom behaviors, modeling and role-playing were among the lowest. Modeling was observed less than 5% of the time and role-playing hardly ever. At the other end of the frequency continuum, lecturing was observed slightly more than half the time while giving directions occurred nearly a quarter of the time (Schumaker et al., 2002).

Modeling can take several forms in your classroom:

• Thinking aloud regarding your cognitive processing of text (e.g., sharing with students how you make connections between what you know and something that you've read in the text or how you figured out what the author was inferring).
• Demonstrating or showing your students explicitly how you would complete an assignment (e.g., writing a summary of an article, taking notes, constructing a graphic organizer, or giving a speech)
• Showing first-rate completed examples of a work product (e.g., a summary paragraph or graphic organizer) as well as substandard nonexamples that help students differentiate between a good one and an unacceptable one
• Showing students how to work a math problem, set up an experiment, or follow a specific safety procedure in the laboratory
• Acting out, role-playing, or developing simulations.
• Explaining, telling, and giving directions are essential teaching moves, but unless they are accompanied by various types of modeling, the likelihood of struggling readers achieving success is small. Never assume that because students have spent years in school, they have been explicitly taught or have somehow figured out on their own how to do what you want them to do.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Collins et al., 1991. "Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible." American Educator, Rose, 1995. "Apprenticeship and Exploration: A New Approach to Literacy Instruction." Scholastic Literacy Research.