The I Do: three approaches that don't work, and one that does

A deep dive into the I Do phase of a worked example

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I am lucky enough to watch over 100 maths lessons each month. Most of those maths lessons involve some form of modelling or worked example from the teacher (often referred to as the I Do). This is my favourite phase of the lesson. It is where teaching in its purest sense happens: here is a new idea that needs to be communicated to students as clearly as possible to give them the best chance of understanding and applying it. It is a crucial phase of any lesson, and hence I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make it as effective as possible.

Three approaches to the I Do that I don’t think are effective

1. The co-construction

Here, the teacher wants every step of the solution to come from the students. It comes from the self-evidential belief that learning must come from the students and cannot simply be imparted by the teacher. But the reality of doing it in the classroom is often a bit of a mess.

Recently, I watched a teacher deliver an I Do about rationalising the denominator, and his opening gambit was: Now, I have not taught you this, but I wonder if any of you can figure out how to remove the surd from the denominator of this fraction. After nearly 9 minutes, with much teacher-prompting, one student came up with the correct approach. But lots of students were left confused, and several had clearly switched off.

I fell victim to this approach for about 12 years. I was scared to tell my students how to do something, so I would ask them questions they had little chance of answering correctly because the questions were about the very novel process they were about to be taught. At its worst, it is essentially a game of Guess what is in my head. Time and confusion are the heavy prices you pay.

2. The lecture

At the other end of the spectrum, we have the lecture. Here, the teacher runs the show, taking their students through each step of the process, line by line. The students are silent.

At their best, the teacher explanations that accompany these lecture-style I Dos are clear and concise, giving students the best chance to follow them. However, I have seen (and delivered!) enough of these to know that often the explanation can be protracted and unclear, negating any potential time savings and leaving the students confused.

Carefully planned - or even scripted - explanations can help. But they do not solve the biggest problem with lecture-style I Dos: how do we know the students are listening? Sure, students may be silent and looking at us. They may even be nodding and smiling. But are they listening? I have written before about how teachers get seduced by such poor proxies for listening. But without hard evidence, we cannot be sure. And, of course, if students are not listening they will be unlikely to understand.

3. The hybrid

Surely the solution is to do a bit of both? So, only check students’ understanding for steps in the solution they should know because they are relevant prior knowledge, and essentially lecture them on the rest.

But I am not sold on this approach either. The checks for understanding of relevant prior knowledge often reveal that knowledge is not as secure as we hope, so all of a sudden the I Do is derailed whilst the teacher intervenes. And if the student selected gets the check of prior knowledge question correct, does that mean everyone else understands it?

And we have not solved the problem inherent with the lecture approach - namely, for those parts of the I Do that the teacher chooses to tell the students, how do we know they are listening?

My experience of the hybrid approach is that it tends to be a bit chaotic. Instead of being the best of both worlds, it ends up being the worst of both, with students unaware of their ever-changing role in the process.

• Which of these, if any, resembles your approach to the I Do?

• Which of my reflections do you agree with, and which do you disagree with?

My preferred approach

The I Do is the phase of the lesson that has changed the most in my nearly 20 years of teaching. I’ve gone from co-contruction, to lecture, to hybrid, to where I am today.

There are three components:

1. The prior knowledge check

Before we go anywhere near the I Do, I assess relevant prior knowledge. In other words, I ask my students questions on concepts they have encountered in the past that, if they are not secure on, will reduce the chance of them understanding this new idea.

I must see the responses of all my students during this prior knowledge check, so my evidence of whole-class understanding is as reliable as possible. If I am doing this prior knowledge check in class, then I will get students to respond on mini-whiteboards so I can see everyone’s answer. If I have included a prior knowledge check in a recent homework, then I ensure I have looked at my students’ responses before the lesson.

If my students’ prior knowledge is not secure, I intervene with an explanation, model and further practice. There is no point carrying on if the foundations are not in place. Crucially, this intervention happens outside the messiness of the I Do, so there is only one idea to focus on.

If my students’ prior knowledge is secure, then I can proceed with the I Do, safe in the knowledge my students’ attention can be on how ideas that are familiar to them and which they understand fit together in this novel way. Moreover, I am not obliged to check for understanding of this knowledge during the I Do.

2. Silent Teacher

Most of the time, I start the I Do with a silent model of the process from start to finish. I find this helps generate a calm focus to the I Do, as well as allowing students to see the entire process and begin to make connections. I wrote more about Silent Teacher here.

3. Narration and checks for listening

With the completed I Do still visible on the screen from Silent Teacher, I draw students’ attention to each step of the solution. I give a clear and concise explanation for each step, and then check my students have listened. I do this using a combination of Cold Call (where I direct a question to one student) and Call and Respond (where I ask the class to respond as a whole), and ensure I do so using my Explain, Frame, and Reframe structure.

Let’s look at an example of this in action:

• Explain: There is an invisible multiplication sign between the 2 and the first bracket…

• Frame: What invisible sign is between the 2 and the first bracket?… Ben?

• Reframe: Where is the invisible multiplication sign?… Emma?

• Explain: We are going to multiply out this bracket using a grid…

• Call and Respond: We are going to multiply out this bracket using a…

• Explain: The grid has one row because there is one term outside the bracket…

• Frame: Why does the grid have one row?… Mo?

• Reframe: Because there is one term outside the bracket, what do we know about our grid… Heena?

• And so on…

Why do I use this approach for my I Dos?

1. I have assessed my students’ relevant prior knowledge before I begin the modelling process, so I do not need to check this is secure during the I Do. This saves lots of time and potential confusion.

2. Silent Teacher provides a calm start to the I Do, and allows my students to get a glimpse of the whole process before we dissect it.

3. The checks for listening during the I Do serve three purposes. First, they sustain students’ attention - if you know you could be asked to repeat what someone has just said at any point, and be held to account if you cannot, then quite simply you pay more attention. Second, they help with a future diagnosis - if a student cannot do the follow-up We Do question but I have data that they have been listening during the I Do, then something must have gone wrong with my explanation. Third, students experience lots of success - if students are listening, they cannot fail to get our check of listening questions correct, and those correct answers will be crucial to the confidence of some of our students.

In summary, this approach is designed to take the best features from the different types of I Dos I see during my classroom visits. We have the clarity and concision of the lecture approach, together with the increased student participation and cognitive engagement that underpins the co-construction approach. It sets students up for the carefully planned checks for understanding that will follow during the We Do - something we will discuss in a future edition of this newsletter.

What do you think about this approach to the I Do?

What do you like, what have I missed, and what questions do you have?

Let me know in the comments below!

🏃🏻‍♂️ Before you go, have you…🏃🏻‍♂️

1. … checked out our incredible, brand-new, free resources from Eedi?

2. … read my latest Tips for Teachers newsletter about making invisible steps visible?

3. … listened to my most recent podcast with Kris Boulton about Atomisation?

4. … considered booking some CPD, coaching, or maths departmental support?

5. … read my Tips for Teachers book?

Thanks so much for reading and have a great week!

Craig