Great Explanations

At the core of a great teacher’s skill-set is the ability to explain the concepts, theories and techniques that make up their subject.  These can seem simple to the expert teacher, but to the novice learner, these complexities can be completely alien . There is no doubt that teachers who explain things well, making the complex simple, allow for novice learners to learn in depth, gaining inspiration and a passion for the subject.

Tom Sherrington states:

‘As teachers, for high quality explanations to be habitual, we need to know our subjects, taking time to develop our own capacity to explain the key concepts simply.  I think departmental CPD time would be well spent with colleagues rehearsing the ways they explain the more difficult material.  Too often we assume we can do this but, over the years, I’ve found this is a key area for improvement and experimentation, for me personally and for others.’

Many departments at DGGS now use their department time for  subject planning and development sessions, taking the time to think through explanations thoroughly, sharing ideas/methods to improve explanations. Explanation that isn’t well planned is likely to become muddled, and provide a lack of explanation, the opposite of what great teaching is trying to achieve.

The literature and blog posts below show how to develop good explanations.

Literature: (available in the CPD library – please see CH)

• Why Don’t Students Like School? – Daniel Willingham (this is an outstanding book that grounds effective explanations in scientific evidence)
• Making Every Lesson Count – Chapter 2 – Explanations – Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby
• The Confident Teacher – Chapter 11-  Exemplary Explanations – Alex Quigley

Blog posts:

• Top 10 tips for great explanation – Alex Quigley
• Great lessons need great explanation – Tom Sherrington
• Five steps to improve teacher explanations – Mark Enser
• Dual coding to improve explanation and understanding – Pritesh Raichura
• Great teacher talk – @Turnford
• Five ways to explain BADLY – Tom Boulter
• Features of excellent explanation – Robbie Russell
• Explanation, Practice, Feedback – Pritesh Raichura
• Explaining – David Didau