Darlington County focusing on good teaching basics

Teachers in Darlington County’s public schools are refocusing on the basics when it comes to classroom teaching.

Darlington County School District officials are implementing an instructional model for district classrooms that educators say is known to improve learning and academic achievement for students.

Explicit Direct Instruction, often referred to as EDI, is a strategic set of instructional practices used together to help teachers design and deliver well-crafted lessons that explicitly teach grade-level content to students.

“It’s my belief that teaching doesn’t happen until a child has learned,” said Superintendent of Education Dr. Rainey Knight. “We want our teachers to know what their children are doing, what they are learning and what they don’t understand.”

The concept is nothing new, said Terry Martin, principal of Pate Elementary School in Darlington. “To me, it’s just good teaching,” she said. Martin and principals Ada Sindab of Brunson-Dargan Elementary School in Darlington and Dr. Greg Harrison of Darlington High School gave the Darlington County Board of Education an overview of Explicit Direct Instruction during Monday’s monthly board meeting.

With EDI, the whole lesson is designed to teach students how to do the types of problems, questions and activities that will be included in independent practice after the students have learned the content, Martin said.

The district’s model is called “I Do, We Do, You Do” to reflect how it is designed to work: the teacher teaches the lesson, then the teacher and students work together to help the students learn the information, and finally the students put what they learn to use in independent practice, according to Martin.

“It’s that simple and that complex,” she said.

Last summer district principals read a book explaining Explicit Direct Instruction.

Martin said EDI is skill based, but students are active participants in the learning process. “It is not skill and drill,” she said.

It features a holistic approach to classroom instruction rather than teaching just isolated facts and procedures. It integrates smaller learning units into meaningful wholes and is developmentally appropriate, she said.

“It is not one-size-fits all,” Martin said. It is not rote, and it is not basic skills only, she said.

The teacher constantly monitors student understanding to make sure students are learning the material. EDI is not all teacher directed, she said. Students also have the opportunity to direct their own learning and participation.

“It really is just another way of explaining what good teaching is,” Martin said.

“It really is teaching deeper. Good teaching has been around for a long, long time, and we know how to recognize it.”

“A well-crafted EDI lesson helps students learn the content faster,” said Sindab.

“It begins with independent practice in mind,” Harrison said.

The “I Do” component is teacher directed and teacher centered, Martin said. “In order for new learning to occur, the teacher has to directly teach the skill, strategy or concept she expects the students to learn,” she said. The teacher defines, models, explains, thinks aloud and shows the students how to “do it,” Martin said.

The guided practice or “We Do” element is the “We do it together at the same time” part of the lesson, Sindab said. It is the bridge between presenting content to students and having them work by themselves, she said.

Guided practice also allows the teacher to see when a child is learning something wrong and correct it, she said.

The “You Do” element is independent practice – students working by themselves to demonstrate that they have learned the content, Harrison said. Independent practice helps make the learning permanent and helps motivate students and build self confidence through their accomplishments, he said. “It lets them see, ‘I followed the system, and I can do it,’” Harrison said.

Martin said the model will be implemented at all grade levels.