Model Assignment or Skill

Overview

By talking through their thinking at each step of a process, teachers can model what learning looks like. Showing students that teachers, too, are learners who struggle and persist through challenging work also models the importance of continuous growth. Observing thought processes and expected behaviors also helps students feel supported in their learning.

Use It in the Classroom

Watch a kindergarten teacher model his thinking while reading a story aloud. He shows how he arrived at his questions and how asking questions is important when reading. This same process can be used with a math-based children's book or a math problem.

Teachers can model with a think-aloud, verbalizing their thinking while working through a math problem. Seeing the thoughts and questions that arise for another person helps learners become more aware of the strategies they can use to master a skill and monitor their understanding.

Design It into Your Product

Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.

Videos are an excellent way to provide models that students can revisit, such as this Khan Academy example on number patterns. Products can easily integrate such videos into their instructional roadmap, supporting students' deeper conceptual development.

Visual and interactive models can be readily integrated into edtech products. Developers can provide pre-made models or the tools, such as audio and video recording, for teachers to create models, including more complex models such as a math talk, that their students can revisit.

View References

Resources

Below are additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.

Examples

Explicit Teacher Modeling

MathVIDS guide on modeling

Examples

Interactive Modeling

Responsive Classroom explanation of interactive modeling with examples of what it looks like in the classroom

Examples

Think-Alouds

Reading Rockets guide that can be adapted for math on how to implement think-alouds as modeling

Professional Development

How to Model Effectively

Module by Sanford Inspire