[Text on screen reads, 'We recognise the Ongoing Custodians of the lands and waterways where we work and live. We pay respect to Elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in NSW achieves their potential through education.']

[Text on screen reads, 'Aboriginal nations and languages in NSW'. Screen shows a map of NSW which attempts to represent the language, social or nation groups of Aboriginal Australia.]

[Text on screen reads, 'Schools across the state are implementing explicit teaching'. Screen shows the map zoomed in on the East Coast of NSW. There are 2 school emblems on the map. The Francis Greenway High School emblem appears on Wonnarua Country and the Windsor South Public School emblem appears on Dharug Country.]

Karlie Scott – Teacher, Windsor South Public School

All right. Let's say it together. Ready? And...

[Text on whiteboard shows 3 sentence stems. Today is ... , Yesterday was ... , Tomorrow will be ... ]

Students

Today is Monday. Yesterday was Sunday. Tomorrow will be Tuesday.

Karlie

Tomorrow will be Tuesday. Fantastic.

Belinda Bristol – Principal, Windsor South Public School

When it comes down to it, explicit teaching makes a difference for our students.

Karlie

Now that we've said our days of the week, months of the year, and our seasons, we are going to do a fast write. Pick up your whiteboard and textas.

[Screen shows students sitting on the floor and writing their answers on mini whiteboards.]

Karlie

Make sure we are starting in our top left corner. You are going to write me your days of the week first, then your months of the year, and if you get up to it, your seasons.

Belinda

The teachers are making second to second decisions about what their next part of the lesson will be based on their check for understanding.

Karlie

And 3, 2, 1 chin.

[Screen shows students holding mini whiteboards under their chin to display their answers to the teacher.]

Karlie

Excellent. I can see lots of you have got down more than you did yesterday, so well done for beating your goal. Can you give your board a three second rub? Go one, two and three. Fantastic. So how many days are there in July? Allira?

Student

31.

Karlie

How many days are in July?

Students

31.

Kerryn Carter – Assistant Principal, Windsor South Public School

Before we cold call, there would be an expectation that students have had an opportunity to engage in choral responses, where they've had that scaffolding and that support to be able to provide an answer so that they have formulated a mental model in their mind of what a good response would be like, so that when they are cold called, they've had plenty of those opportunities to practice and rehearse those responses and to demonstrate their understanding of the content being taught

Sharon

3, 2, 1. Chin it.

Hai.

Laura Tonkin – Head Teacher English, Francis Greenway High School

We're focusing on checking for understanding at Francis Greenway because we want to know at what point our students are ready to move on to new learning, so that everyone's ready to progress to the next level.

Sharon Waller – Teacher, Francis Greenway High School

Hai. Next one, rearrange the words to make the sentence, which means I like ice cream.

[Text on whiteboard shows a sentence provided in Japanese, however, the sentence has words out of order.]

Sharon

You have a bit longer for this one.

Rearrange the words.

Laura

Ultimately, we're looking at ensuring that the high expectations are consistent in terms of checking for understanding, so that all students know that they could be asked at any point through a process of non-volunteers to respond, and that we want to see responses not only on the boards, but also chorally or verbally to the teacher in a way that encourages participation for all the students in the room.

Sharon

Keep going up to 20 go.

[Text on whiteboard shows numbers 1 to 20 in Japanese characters. There are also sentence prompts to assist students with counting.]

Students and teacher

Juu yon, juu go, juu roku, juu nana, juu hachi, juu kyuu, ni juu. Excellent. Write the next number in the sequence in Japanese. Five seconds. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Chin it.

[Screen shows students holding mini whiteboards under their chin to display their answers to the teacher.]

Kerryn

Good. Let's say them again. Tracking the board. Ready? 1, 2, 3. Tracking the board. Our first climate zone is...

Students

Tropical, sub-tropical, desert, grassland, temperate.

[Screen shows students tracking by pointing at the words on the whiteboard as they read them aloud.]

Kerryn

Good. Tickle under your chin.

Okay, have a look at this image. I want you to hold in your head what climate zone this picture is representing. Hold in your head. What climate zone is this picture representing?

[Screen shows a picture of a tropical beach landscape on the whiteboard. The teacher is using the gesture of a closed fist to cue thinking time for the students. After thinking time has occurred, she changes the cue to an open hand and extends her arm to indicate the students can answer.]

Students

Tropical.

Kerryn

Well done. Turn and talk with your partner. Tell me about the weather in a tropical climate zone. Go.

Student

Very hot.

Kerryn

We have different cues for different reasons, so when we are ready to teach something really important, we want to cue kids in to be attentive.

So I'll often start with a watch me, listen, hold, because I want them to able to process their thinking before giving me an answer. Allowing everyone an opportunity to have that thinking time and that space to formulate an answer.

[Screen shows the teacher demonstrating a range of hand gestures that are used to cue students.]

Kerryn

Tell me what a number bond is. Have a think, what's a number bond? Oliver?

Student

It's when you add two numbers to make a number.

Kerryn

I think the fact that we give a cue to allow that hold time does symbolises to all children, that they need to be switched on and they need to be thinking about what the question is asking them to do. Because with a check for understanding, with a question, students don't know which person we're going to call upon.

It's an indication for the teacher whether or not to either pull back and remodel, based on that sample, or if they continue and can go deeper.

If you were planning a trip to Hobart, what kind of clothing would you take and how might that be different to what you might pack if you were going to Darwin?

If it's something that I just want students to retrieve because it should be embedded in their long-term memory, they're just automatically recalling a concept or a fact, then I would expect that that response to be quite quick, because I'm not asking them to do anything more than just directly state an answer.

But I think you've got to allow that extra time when you're asking questions or you're checking for understanding. If you are trying to determine if students have actually grasped that concept, are able to work with that concept and be able to demonstrate their understanding, you've got to give them a little bit more time to process all of that knowledge and to have that thinking time.

Laura

So I want you to find for me, the zoomorphism for A, the neologism, which is an invented word for B, metaphor for C, and the example of irony.

[Screen shows an excerpt of text from a novel on the whiteboard.]

Belinda

It's taken four years to get where we are now, which is still not at the end. We're still learning and we're still growing. We've had great shifts in our data, which is incredible.

Explicit teaching improves children's engagement in learning because, they know what they're doing. They know the expectations. They know why they're learning. They know how they're learning, and they know that they're going to be challenged.

[End of transcript]

The department acknowledges and thanks teachers and leaders from Windsor South Public School and Francis Greenway High School for their participation in this video.