Publish at January 21 2018 Updated March 05 2025
The end of term is approaching, a pedagogical day is scheduled, weather conditions could lead to school closures... once again, the teacher finds himself short of time and resources.
How do you get students to revise and make sure they've understood the material in such a short space of time? These are common situations that stand in the way of strategic learning development. It's clear that the overriding concern in any teaching or learning situation is student success.
During the course of their lessons, teachers are likely to face problematic situations that considerably reduce the time devoted to learning activities.
While making students successful is not an objective that can be achieved with a few recipes, certain pedagogical practices have proven their worth throughout the history of education and continue to develop in our schools.
Convincing evidence shows that close support for students and actions that stimulate reflective thinking contribute greatly to their academic success. The contextual dimension that sometimes prevents the class or certain students from progressing must be taken into account in strategies to foster learners' interrelations with knowledge. Explicit teaching develops a set of strategies aimed at helping students to connect with and understand the objects of knowledge.
Getting gifted students to succeed is rarely a problem. On the other hand, every year our secondary schools receive a clientele that is disadvantaged in many ways. Some students come from low socio-economic backgrounds, a situation that creates a disparity in the means to instrument learning. Other students with learning delays or mild deficiencies are integrated into average classes - classes that are said to be "skimmed" due to the classification of students in options with concentrations in sports-study, arts and sport or in international education programs (IEP). In this context, learning issues are numerous, and constraints or unforeseen events must be an integral part of the teacher's lesson planning.
There are various pedagogical approaches that lead students to engage in the task of learning. The teacher's devotion does not seem to help our struggling students succeed. This pedagogy puts control of learning in the hands of the learner, who is responsible for managing cognitive operations and assimilating knowledge.
The role of the teacher practicing explicit teaching is multidimensional.
If there's nothing new in this way of conducting a lesson, at least it has the undeniable advantage of placing the learner at the heart of the learning process. According to proponents of this type of teaching, good planning should be based on three phases: preparation time, classroom interaction and consolidation time, which consists of homework and review periods. (Gauthier, Bissonnette, 2005, 2017.)
Despite the significant influence of Piaget and Vygotski on the development of educational science thinking, the behaviorist approach remains an institutional adoption observed in many schools.
In France, for example, a working group linked to the Direction Générale de l'Enseignement Scolaire published a dossier in 2016 " aimed at clarifying and illustrating the concept of explicitation as it is thought of in the référentiel de l'éducation prioritaire ".
Without conforming to the dogma of direct instruction, the group puts forward "a set of gestures, postures and pedagogical practices to be conducted in everyday classroom life", fostering understanding and engagement of pupils in their task as learners. The tendency to maintain a traditional form of teaching is strong, while attempts are being made to improve it.
A review of literature published by the Centre facilitant la recherche et l'innovation dans les organisations (CFRIO) in 2014 indicates that the way in which teachers use digital technologies and resources as media to support learning has a significant influence on students' academic performance.
Using technological supports in support of teaching, as well as making tablets or computers available to students to "search, discover, learn, revise, create" are a set of means compatible with a course approach consistent with explicitness.
However, many of the considerations drawn from the research cited by CEFRIO and the Centre de recherche et d'intervention sur la réussite scolaire (CRIRES) concern the importance of teachers' pedagogical practices, as well as institutional policies.
In light of what has offered significant results for school success and student motivation to perform well, the pedagogical choice of explicit teaching and the support of digital technologies to make learning happen must be seriously considered.
CEFRIO (2014). Usages du numérique dans les écoles québécoises: L'apport des technologies et des ressources numériques à l'enseignement et à l'apprentissage. Recension des écrits. With the collaboration of CRIRES members.
https://eer.qc.ca/publication/1599172603110/usages-numerique-ecoles-quebecoises-recension-ecrits.pdf
Cusset. P.-Y. 2011. What does research say about the "teacher effect"? Technical Report 232, Centre d'analyses stratégique.
http://archives.strategie.gouv.fr/cas/system/files/na-qsociales-232.pdf
Gauthier, C. 2017. How to plan the organization of learning? Consensus conference, Différenciation pédagogique. Conseil national d'évolution du système scolaire, Institut français de l'éducation. With the collaboration of Steve Bissonnette, Ph.D., TELUQ, Quebec.
http://www.cnesco.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/170313_8_15_Gauthier.pdf
Groupe de travail. Enseigner plus explicitement. Everyday situations and professional gestures. DGESCO Office of Priority Education, 2016.
https://www.reseau-canope.fr/education-prioritaire/fileadmin/user_upload/user_upload/actualites/enseigner_plus_explicitement_cr.pdf
S. Bissonnette, M. Richard, C. Gauthier, Interventions pédagogiques efficaces et réussite scolaire des élèves provenant de milieux défavorisés, Revue française de pédagogie (RFP), vol. 150, no. 1, 2005, pp. 87-141.
http://www.persee.fr/doc/rfp_0556-7807_2005_num_150_1_3229
L'enseignement explicite : une méthode adaptée pour les élèves en difficulté. - Alexandre Roberge - Thot Cursus
http://cursus.edu/dossiers-articles/articles/25046/enseignement-explicite-une-methode-adaptee-pour
CRIRES - http://crires.ulaval.ca
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