An Explicit Instruction Approach
At Portarlington Primary School our teachers are committed to explicit and responsive instruction. Our teachers break down learning into clear, manageable steps, providing every student with clear goals and a path to learn and perform better.
Our teachers clearly explain, demonstrate and model to students:
- why they are learning something,
- what their learning goals are,
- how it connects to what they already know,
- what they are expected to do,
- how to do it, and,
- what it looks like when they have succeeded.
Students are given the opportunities and time to:
- show their understanding of what has been taught,
- ask questions to clarify and build understanding,
- practise using skills and knowledge they have learnt, and,
- receive clear, timely and effective feedback.
Why do we use an Explicit Instructional approach to teaching and learning?
Understanding the science behind learning and memory is important in seeing why explicit instruction is so effective in helping students learn.
Our brain can store a large amount of information in long-term memory. Effective teaching establishes and builds connections to new information in students’ long-term memory. Having more connections to a specific piece of information makes it easier to recall and use. The information being used at any one time is held in our working memory. This information is not always stored as an individual fact, rather a ‘chunk’ which can be anything from a single fact to a complex idea. We can only hold limited chunks of information in our working memory at any one time.
When people are presented with more information than the working memory can contain, learning can suffer, making it difficult to move information to long-term memory. When a small amount of information is taught at one time, or when there are ample breaks in learning, students are not cognitively overloaded, and they are more likely to be able to move the information from working memory to their long term memory.
Our Instructional Model
Teaching and learning programs at Portarlington Primary School follow our ‘Instructional Model’.
