Thomas Guskey says that the best teachers don’t just know what their learners know, they have a plan a variety of ways to respond when learners don’t get it. He doesn’t like the word re-teaching though, because he says re-doing it over the same way is never enough. Guskey notes real re-teaching is about directly addressing student confusion using a new method.
What re-teaching isn’t:
- Saying it again, more slowly and/or loudly
- Teaching everything over to everyone
- Telling student the answers
- Having students keep practicing until they finally understand
What re-teaching is:
- Using a new instructional strategy from a new category of strategies. For example, if you used something from the indirect instruction family like concept attainment, try something from the interactive instruction family, like role play.
- Just reteaching the part the student is confused about. For example, using a formative assessment quick check to find the problems some students are facing, then grouping students for instruction on each of the issues while the students who got it the first time move on.
- Supporting students to be sure they understand before a big summative assessment through the gradual release of responsibility from teacher to student
Common Questions:
Q: Shouldn’t students practice more if they don’t understand?
A: Only perfect practice makes perfect. If students don’t understand, instruction should clear up the confusion so it doesn’t get rehearsed into the brain. If a student is doing something essentially correctly but too slowly or with too many supports, then more practice is exactly the right thing to do.
Q: How are you supposed to think up all these activities when you realize some students don’t get it?
A: It is hard to think them up on the spot, but the ways students get confused become easier to predict in classes you have taught more than once. A good way to prepare is to think about the hardest things you are asking students to do, and plan a couple ways to teach it. Be careful that both methods aren’t essential the same – I explain it to you, you read it in a book and you watch the video are all basically the same type of direct instruction.
Q: How do you know exactly what students misunderstand?
A: It is easiest to tell when you use a method of formative assessment where you can see everyone’s response. Things like hinge questions, mind maps you can walk around and look at, or mini-white boards where everyone holds up their response are best. Remember you want to know during the lesson, so you can fix it right away. Avoid teaching, giving an assignment and then finding out students did not learn well. By that time students are practicing errors rather than quickly resolving them, and it will get much harder to unlearn misconceptions.
Q: Isn’t all this unfair? I want my strongest students to do best.
A: Our strongest students continue to do well, even when we help the others. If a student can learn it reading a book, he doesn’t really need a teacher. The student who struggles really does, and re-teaching is about wanting all students to learn and believing that teaching is important.
Hattie et al (2009) describe the traits common in expert teachers, and many of the traits are related to reteaching. They include:
- Improvising or changing instruction in response to context or the learning in the classroom
- Anticipating and planning for difficulties students are likely to encounter with new concepts
- Deeply understanding why individual students succeed or fail on a given task
- Improvises when things do not go smoothly
- Accurately predicting causes on student confusion
- Knowing why to pick a particular instructional strategy so that instruction is far more innovative and flexible
Teachers who can re-teach are much more successful in helping all students succeed, which is why learning to reteach well is very important.
