Teaching on Purpose #6
Putting decision making at the heart of teaching
At Chiltern Learning Trust, we have six core purposes that capture everything teachers do:
● Securing, maintaining and regaining attention
● Communicating meaning
● Driving student thinking
● Providing, scaffolding and consolidating practice
● Utilising memory
● Checking for understanding
Each week, I interview one of our teachers on the ‘Teaching on purpose’ podcast about a technique they commonly use to serve one of our six core purposes and I write about it here…
This week’s purpose: Communicate meaning
This week’s technique: I do, We do, You do
‘I do, We do, You do’ refers to the back and forth exchange between teacher and students in any given learning exchange. It typically involves the teacher modelling and explaining directly during the ‘I do’ phase. It involves students and teachers working together to co-construct or to work independently with immediate feedback and chance for correction during the ‘We do’ phase. It then involves students working independently on a related example during the ‘You do’ phase.
This week, I spoke to Henry Cross, Assistant Headteacher, History teacher and lead for Teaching and Learning at Challney High school for Boys about how he uses this technique.
When might ‘I do, We do, You do’ be used exactly as described above?
When teachers are introducing a new concept, task or skill, they might use ‘I do, We do, You do’ exactly as explained above. This is because they need to initially explain the unknown to students and then gradually transfer the expectation of working independently with their new knowledge to students. If the transfer is too fast (for example, ‘I do’ straight to ‘You do’) then understanding is likely to be less secure than if the gradual exchange of the ‘We do’ phase is included.
I do…
On the podcast, Henry gave the example of introducing students to how to write a paragraph in answer to a question about the significance of a world leader. In the example, students are introduced to the paragraph structure:
‘’In this paragraph, I’m going to include five sentences – one to introduce the overall point. One sentence to provide some evidence for the point and another to provide an explanation of this piece of evidence. Then, I’ll offer another piece of evidence and another explanation of this evidence in relation to that main point.’’
[The teacher then live models and narrates their thought process]:
‘’I’m going to write:
Emperor Akbar was the most significant Mughal ruler.
That’s my opening sentence that introduces my point. Next, I’m going to write one piece of evidence to support this point.
I’m going to write:
During his reign, the Mughal empire expanded more substantially than in any other period in the empire’s history.
Now I’m going to write an explanation of why this piece of evidence supports my point.
I’m going to write:
This is an example of Emperor Akbar’s significance because it allowed the empire to become the most powerful o earth and this influenced the future of the empire significantly.’’
This brings the ‘I do’ phase to an end.
During the ‘I do’ phase, teachers usually ask lots of questions to check for student listening as this period of sustained teacher exposition can pose a threat to student focus.
Next, the teacher moves to the ‘We do’ phase.
We do…
In this phase of the technique, students begin to take some responsibility for contributing to a shared solution or answer. For example,
‘’OK, now I want us to write the second piece of evidence and the accompanying explanation together. On your mini white boards, write down another piece of evidence that suggests Emperor Akbar was the most significant Mughal ruler.
[students write and teacher circulates, checking the understanding of students based on what they are writing on white boards]
‘’And back to me on 1, 3…2…1… thank you. OK, I saw this great piece of evidence that I’m going to add to our shared model:
Another piece of evidence that suggests Emperor Akbar was the most significant Mughal ruler is that he displayed high levels of religious tolerance.
There were other great answers as well but this one is the one I’m going for. Why do you think that is…. Jake.
[student answers]
OK, so now I’m going to ask you to write an explanation for why this piece of evidence shows that Emperor Akbar was the most significant Mughal emperor.
[students write and teacher circulates, checking the understanding of students based on what they are writing on white boards]
‘’And back to me on 1, 3…2…1… thank you. OK, I saw this great explanation that I’m going to add to our shared model:
This was significant because the empire was quite divided between Hindus and Muslims prior to his rule. His religious tolerance was displayed by abolishing the Jizya tax on many non-Muslims. This showed that he felt that equality was important and he showed this by showing religious tolerance towards Muslims even though he himself was Hindu.
There were other great answers as well but this one is the one I’m going for. Why do you think that is…. Nimrat.’’
[student answers]
This brings the ‘We do’ phase to an end.
What is key in the ‘We do’ phase is that the questions the teacher asks are more reflective, pushing students to think hard about why they have written what they have written and why the answer the teacher has written is so credible. This is a shift from the questions in the ‘I do’ phase where the emphasis was very much more on checking for listening. The teacher also circulates during the ‘We do’ phase, looking for evidence of any student with misconceptions that might require further support.
Next, the teacher moves to the ‘You do’ phase.
You do…
In this phase of the technique, the teacher gives students an opportunity to try another version of the same question or problem independently.
For example,
‘’OK, now I want you to answer this question following the same structure that we’ve just modelled:
‘To what extent is Emperor Akbar’s legacy the greatest of any Mughal emperor?’
[Students start answering and the teacher circulates and provides in the moment feedback to students as they go].
When might the technique be adapted?
‘I do, We do, You do’ needs to be adapted to meet the requirements of the context. One of the innumerate contextual factors that teachers should take into account is how familiar the concept being modelled is to students.
When the concept is relatively familiar, the ‘I do’ stage may be shorter, allowing more time for ‘We do’ and in particular, the deeper thinking questions that the teacher asks to really push students’ critical eye on their own work. Over time, they might even shrink the amount of ‘We do’ time and reinvest it into the ‘You do’ stage, providing more in-depth feedback.
If teachers always keep the proportions of ‘I, We, You’ the same, there is never any shift in the degree of dependence the students have on the model and this limits rather than helps the development of learning – the ultimate aim of teaching.
There are also times when further scaffolding is required for the ‘You do’ phase. This might look like a word bank or a set of sentence starters that students can make use of. Some students may benefit from having the model left up or printed and put next to them.
When might the technique not be needed?
When students know the content and the question or problem structure so well that it is instantly recognisable, they don’t need the model. They don’t need the ‘I do’ or the ‘We do’ in order to get stuck into solving the problem and can instead have a go straight away.
In this case, teachers will usually bring the class back together and provide whole class feedback, perhaps under a visualiser before setting students off to improve their work. The important shift here is that the teacher is giving the students the opportunity to ‘show what they can do’ before intervening and shaping what they do next.
If this were to be attempted when the question or problem structure or the content were unfamiliar to students, it would be likely to have very little impact at all on learning. Students need knowledge, both of content and structure, to think with, before they can apply what they know critically and flexibly to answer questions or solve problems independently.
If you enjoyed reading and want to hear the podcast episode linked to this post, you can find it on this link:
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