BY: BEANIE GEOGHEGAN
Since its debut in 1965, The Sound of Music has remained a family favorite. Maria’s gentle and patient nature, along with her beautiful voice, has captivated audiences around the globe. One particular scene often goes unnoticed, yet it deserves the attention of parents and educators alike, as it demonstrates the power of explicit instruction supported by cognitive science and the creativity that often arises from a solid understanding of knowledge.
Remember the picnic scene with Maria and the Von Trapp children in the beautiful meadow of Austria? The lovely young governess sits in front of the children, who are engaged and listening as she begins to teach them a song. When Maria “starts at the very beginning,” the children are captivated. As she adds more, they become overwhelmed and a bit confused. As the attentive teacher, Maria pauses and breaks the lesson down into smaller, more manageable parts. Before long, the children repeat her words, sing along, and eventually sing the song on their own.
Later in the movie, the children confidently and joyfully apply the foundational knowledge from that lesson and others to create their own music and songs. While The Sound of Music is just a film and not real life, movies often convey important lessons to apply to everyday experiences. In this instance, we see how teaching small bits of information, providing concrete examples, and offering ample opportunities for repetition and retrieval help transfer knowledge from working memory to long-term memory. These practices aren’t limited to teaching children songs; they can be applied to teaching students of all ages practically anything.
The key point for parents and teachers is that explicit instruction is a highly effective teaching model, significantly benefiting students when implemented. Although explicit instruction has been a topic of discussion for decades, particularly concerning students with learning disabilities, the dialogue is now shifting toward its positive effects in all classroom settings with diverse learners. In Dr. Zach Groshell’s recent book, “Just Tell Them,” he details his transition from inquiry-based instruction, which encouraged students to “discover” the needed knowledge, to the explicit instruction model. He noted that he “came to realize that effective teaching is not about withholding information from kids but about giving them the information they need to think critically and encouraging them to engage deeply with it.”
While the cognitive science of learning supports explicit instruction, neither parents nor teachers have to be researchers or scientists to understand or appreciate its effectiveness. Everyone can recall how they learned to swim, ride a bike, play an instrument or sport, or read. Someone likely provided explicit instruction in small increments, allowing plenty of opportunity for repetition. Anyone working with children intuitively knows this is the best teaching method.
Unfortunately, many teachers were victims of training that promoted trendy methods that sounded good but were ineffective and harmful. As our society moved more toward being child-centered, so too did schools. The methods promoted and taught in teacher prep programs complement that trend. Inquiry-based, project-based, and discovery learning all put students, rather than the content, at the center of the classroom and relegate students to discern what they need to know. This is all to the detriment of student learning.
Schools that understand and adopt curricula and practices, such as explicit instruction, aligned with the cognitive science of learning can create classrooms that are “alive with the sound of learning.” This sound won’t resemble the “productive buzz” Dr. Groshell recalls from his early days as an “inquiry-based” classroom teacher. Instead, it will be a beautiful melody of teachers clearly delivering instruction to attentive students who actively respond to relevant questions and connect new information with their existing knowledge.
