The Gradual Release of Responsibility in Action

What I wish I knew when I started teaching

Since I left my position as a classroom teacher a few years ago, there has been so much that I have learnt that I wish I had known then. Understanding the gradual release of responsibility is one of them! I used to just see it as a set of steps we could go through as a teacher and as long as I had done each step, then I had used it correctly. How wrong was I! Hopefully, this article helps teachers see the importance of using it and how it can be used effectively.

The reason why I wanted to share my thoughts on it is that I’ve come to realise the importance of getting to the granular level of detail when it comes to defining our teaching practice. I’ve found that too often, we have discussions about concepts, but we’re actually talking about very different things e.g. “My explicit instruction is not your explicit instruction.” 

In this post, I’m going to unpack the gradual release of responsibility and you can also see a video of me using it in a lesson. 

Recently in Australia, there has been announcement after announcement stating that a new system is now pushing for explicit teaching/instruction to be the dominant pedagogical approach that is adopted by teachers. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a massive supporter of this approach. However, I feel there are a lot of misconceptions as to what it actually is and how it should be used. This article will analyse one of the key aspects of explicit instruction – the gradual release of responsibility.

Creating a shared understanding

 

When we are presented with information we interpret it based on our pre-existing knowledge or schemas. So, everytime information is presented to us we acquire it in one of three ways (Rumelhart & Norman, 1978): 

• Accretion: The basic accumulation or building up of facts and information
• Tuning: Occurs when new information means that an existing schema needs to be modified
• Restructuring: Where completely new schema need to be created based on new facts or information

So, that’s why we need to have articles like this one and videos that demonstrate these different instructional models and techniques because it is the most effective way of making abstract ideas with fuzzy boundaries, more concrete.

Background on the Gradual Release of Responsibility

Over the years, there have been a number of different models presented on the GRR such as:

• Pearson & Gallagher, 1983 – The instruction of reading comprehension 
• Frey & Fisher, 2008 – Better Learning Through Structured Teaching
• Archer & Hughes, 2010 – explicit instruction: Effective and efficient teaching

However, the main theme has been consistent in having three phases of:

1. I do (Modelling)
2. We do (Guided practice)
3. You do (Independent practice)

When to use the Gradual Release of Responsibility?

The Instructional Hierarchy is a great way of breaking down the novice to expert continuum and essentially tells the teacher what to do and when. Without turning this into a post on the Instructional Hierarchy (which I recently stated as being, “the single most important thing for teachers to know”), essentially we can use it to guide teachers in helping them work out what instructional tactics to use based on where students are at. 

Teachers need to know what stage of learning their students are at, so that they know what teaching strategies to use. This decision can be based on the data from the students. 

• Are they accurate? If not, they are still in the acquisition phase.
• If they can do things accurately and repeatedly without assistance, then they can move into fluency practice
• If they are fast and accurate with their responses, then they are ready to apply and generalise.

We should follow the gradual release of responsibility when students are in the acquisition phase of learning. This is when students:

• Struggle to start tasks
• May be unable to complete the task independently, consistently and accurately
• Find it difficult to discriminate relevant elements
• May be accurate, but slow
• May not know why something is correct or incorrect
• Feel frustrated!

That is – they don’t know stuff, so we need to teach them and the gradual release of responsibility best supports the process of how learning happens.

How do I use the Gradual Release of Responsibility

The GRR is not just a sequence of steps that you move through as a teacher, but it requires the teacher to move through the steps by acting responsively to the students based on the information they are giving you. 

I do (Modelling) 

This involves the teacher showing their students what they need to know. It can be through physically demonstrating, using a think-aloud or showing completed worked examples. Essentially, at the acquisition phase of learning, novices need to know (Haring et al, 1978):

• What the skill/knowledge is
• The steps involved
• How the skill/knowledge is useful
• When to use the skill
• How to perform the skill accurately
• What a good one looks like
• Why it’s valuable

I try to not spend too much time in the “I do” phase because students will start to get restless and their working memory is limited. Explicit instruction is not lecturing. In the breakdown of my demo lesson (below) the “I do” phase only went for 4 min out of a 50 min lesson. For the rest of the lesson students averaged more than 1 response per min.

Often, teachers can get the “I do” and “We do” phases mixed up by asking questions during the “I do” before we have actually taught them what we want them to know. As a teacher, we might do this as it feels right to get their involvement. This often favours those students who enter our classroom already knowing stuff and it’s usually not actually due to what we’ve taught them.

We do (Guided Practice) 

As you’ll see in the video, this is the longest part of the lesson. There should be a direct link between what has just been shown in the “Modelling” phase and what students practise in “Guided Practice”. It should then prepare them for what they are about to do independently.

Rosenshine and Stevens (1986) describe the key aspects of guided practice as the teacher usually:

• Asks a large number of questions 
• Guides students in practising the new material
• Checks for student understanding 
• Provides feedback
• Corrects errors 
• Reteaches when necessary
• Provides for a large number of successful repetitions

So, we provide students with plenty of opportunities to respond, error corrective feedback and scaffolds and prompts such as:

• Graphic organisers
• Sentence stems
• Example-problem pairs

Students should be provided with loads of opportunities to respond in the guided practice phase to give them (and you) confidence to move to independent practice. You need to be purposeful with your practice questions and checking for understanding techniques and have clear expectations around them. While students are at the acquisition phase, they need to receive prompt, specific feedback to ensure that misconceptions don’t become ingrained and correct responses are reinforced.

The ‘We Do’ phase is not just the teacher doing questions alongside of the students. Rather, it requires the teacher to go through a cycle of modelling, providing practice opportunities or checking for understanding and then gradually fading away the prompting and handing over more responsibility to the students.

You do (Independent practice)

Independent Practice is a time for students to practise what you have just taught them without prompting or scaffolding. It is not the time to go to a rich learning task that asks them to apply their learning, that would fall into “Generalisation”. Often teachers will underestimate the impact of changing the activity (or even just the layout) during independent practice. While as experts, we can see the direct links between what they have done in guided practice and the independent task, the students have not had enough deliberate practice opportunities to be able to generalise their knowledge.

Going off to Independent Practice is a routine that needs to be taught. My rule is that once they are there, they are working silently. If they are working with a partner, that’s not actually INDEPENDENT. If they need help, they come back to me as I’m working with the guided practice group. Also, it is not independent, if they are doing it with a partner. This would fall under the guided practice phase.

Often, we don’t provide students with enough practice activities because we underestimate how much practice it takes to reach mastery.

Multiple streams in one lesson

Explicit Instruction Video

In this video I attempt to demonstrate what the I Do (Modelling), We Do (Guided Practice) and You Do (Independent Practice) phases look like. This is with a class that I have never taught before, so things like the pace of the lesson and routines are affected. I also spent longer in the preview and review stages of the lesson, due to not knowing the students. Focus on the flow of the activities and student involvement at different stages of the lesson. I have annotated the video to provide a look at my decision-making process throughout the lesson.

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