Naked Explanation

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This post is for anyone but I’ve written a series of blogs with new teachers in mind. The ideas in this post are expanded on in three chapters on subject knowledge in my book What do new teachers need to know? 

If we think about explanation, there are certain principles from evidence and practice that help to guide our planning. We could write a list like this: 

1. Connect current learning to prior learning  

2. Break explanations into small chunks  

3. Move from concrete to abstract  

4. Use examples and non-examples  

5. Ask check for listening questions  

6. Before you move on, check for understanding 

I’m indebted to great thinkers on explanation (excellent research-informed principles from Dan Willingham, great practical application from Pritesh Raichura and Adam Boxer). And of course, we can discuss and debate how these things can be implemented well and what they mean in specific subjects but that’s not what I wanted to focus on here.  

I have the privilege of seeing lots of lessons a week and I’ve noticed something about some of the explanations I see:  

• PowerPoint slides often mirror (sometimes exactly) what the teacher is going to say (about a topic or task with several steps) so the teacher either reads or recites the slide. 
• When this happens, it’s easy to fall into the traps of reciting what’s on the board or explaining quickly (perhaps because we know that  
• If complex tasks or topics are broken into steps on the PP slide, the teacher is less likely to check students have heard or understand instructions (again this is my experience; I’m not saying everyone who uses PP as they explain is doing it badly). 
• The result of all this is often incomplete student understanding.  

Although you will see ‘Turn of the PowerPoint’ as one of the options below, there is probably more to do to change the behaviour. Here are some thoughts on what we can do before and during the lesson. 

In the background 

1. Knowledge building is planning. If you put me in front of a GCSE class studying Macbeth, I could explain various moments and concepts without needing time to plan. The same could not be said for Romeo and Juliet or The Merchant of Venice. Like with our planning in general, there will be topics where we need to spend considerable time and topics where experience has won us short cuts.  

It’s understandable as busy teachers to think that, because there’s a PowerPoint slide or a booklet page, we can just turn up and explain. Often we can. At times, we can’t.  

If a PowerPoint, resource, scheme of work or textbook outlines what students must know, we can spend some time considering which knowledge is most important, what we already know deeply and what we’re less sure about. We could spend planning time briefly doing some of the following: 

• Reading up on the topic we feel less confident in.  
• Talking to colleagues about how they explain this topic.  
• Evaluating what’s in the resource to consider the most important points to get across in your explanation. 

At times, we’re replying on the PP slide with the bullet points or the diagram because we’re lacking in a bit of knowledge or confidence in that knowledge. Weaving knowledge building into that planning process can make up for that lack of confidence.  

2. Plan an explanation. It doesn’t have to be a script. If you’re relying on bullet point lists on a PP or reading verbatim from booklets or textbooks, it might be worth making some notes. These can include key phrases or terminology you want to use. Key beats from a story you want to tell or a process you want to describe are listed in order so you don’t miss anything.  

Planning your explanation might also involve removing distraction from your resources in advance. Move the bullet points in the slide into the PP notes so you can refer to them if you need to. Get rid of the complicated diagram or the whizzy animations as well.  

Planning will also include some kind of check of understanding. How long this check lasts or how much it asks are questions with very subject specific answers.  

I’d commend Pritish Raichura’s blog on check for listening for the best explanation of it. Once you’re in the habit, it will come naturally to you. Before then, plan a few pauses to check specific words, facts or details you want to make sure have been heard.  

In the foreground 

1. Remove distraction. Some children aren’t used to just listening to their teacher. I don’t mean they’re bad at it or they’re all badly behaved. But listening often involves reading or watching the screen as well. Mini-whiteboards and resources clutter the desk, forever on the cusp of being needed again. To address this we can: 

• Be specific about what we want from the class. Absolute silence when we’re talking – definitely. Pens down – probably. Clarity about resources – Close booklets, Miniwhiteboards to the end of the table etc.  
• Remove screen distractors. You can turn off your screen if it doesn’t take an age to come back on. Or, if in PowerPoint, you can press W or B to get a blank screen.  
• Stand visibly. If the screen if off, it could be directly in front of it. Practically we need to be able to see the whole class but just as important is communicating, perhaps implicitly, that what we’re saying is the most important thing to pay attention to right now.  

2. Get excited. When I was a new teacher, I was given the feedback (on more than one occassion) that my voice was quite monotonous. In my very first teaching interview, I was told I needed to be more flamboyant. I’m still not sure what this meant really (I didn’t get the job). I probably was quite monotonous. I was nervous and trying to get through things. It was less immediately clear to me what I should do about this. Only when I started to relax in the classroom did I find I could properly relax into explanation and get excited about Shakespeare or grammar in a way likely to prompt a smattering of eye-rolls from my class.  

In a way, it’s not fair advice to say ‘Don’t be monotonous’ or ‘Get excited’ in your explanation. It may be that behaviour makes this difficult. You can’t be expected to turn into a totally different person but you can probably dial up whatever way you get interested and excited in your subject.  

Short cuts to doing this include: 

• Asking a rhetorical question. Frontload the expectation that the question is rhetorical. Tell the class you want them to be thinking about how what you’re about to say relates to that question. You can go a bit overboard with the sense of curiosity and mystery depending on the question.  
• Introduce a story. You might start with the obvious – I’m going to tell you a story… if not Once upon a time.. – equally you could build a sense of mystery or interest by giving a sense of why the story is important without giving everything away.  

You don’t have to do everything listed here but it’s worth considering if your use of resources (often it’s PowerPoint) are adding to or detracting from your explanation. I’ve used some form of PP for lots of my teaching. I’m not saying never use it but we should be keenly aware of its limitations. 

At times, explanation works best as the sole vehicle for communicating knowledge.