Explicit Teaching

Want to make learning in your classroom more efficient? Explicit teaching is student-focused, adopting principles of the science of learning and memory to provide a clear understanding of what learners are expected to know and do. It’s about breaking down the learning into explicit, detailed steps in instruction, setting clear and attainable learning goals and applying intentional and instructional processes to promote student mastery of learning. In this course, you will explore evidence-based teaching strategies, such as modelling learning, breaking down complex tasks, and how to check for understanding. You’ll develop lesson plans grounded in explicit teaching methodologies, collaborate with other educators facing similar challenges, and leave prepared to teach with newfound precision, clarity, and impact.

Our Explicit Teaching course is aligned to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers at the highly accomplished level, with a focus on evidence-based strategies tailored for today's dynamic classrooms. You will:

• review research substantiating the benefits of explicit teaching
• identify and apply explicit teaching strategies to increase students’ learning gains
• examine and refine your approach using Action Research
• connect with an active online community for discussion and reflection
• engage with, share and contribute to a repository of explicit teaching resources related to explicit teaching
• work toward a potential credit pathway for post-graduate study at the University of Adelaide.

The micro-credentials are designed for education professionals: school teachers (early years, primary and secondary), school leaders, other education professionals within the school setting, and pre-service teachers.

This program will expand your repertoire of instructional strategies, giving you the confidence to select a targeted and student-centred approach to teaching. You will feel prepared and assured to support learning with access to a well-structured repository of resources and a framework to prepare, deliver, assess and provide feedback on learning in an explicit way. Completing this micro-credential can count towards the annual 20-hour requirement for maintaining your teaching certificate.

We know that learning happens most efficiently when teaching is clear, systematic, and guided with intent. As you apply explicit teaching practices, your students will experience a more transparent, structured learning environment, fostering confidence in their own learning progress and achievements. Explicit teaching also reduces your students’ cognitive load, supporting them to link prior learning to new concepts. This results in better comprehension and retention into long term memory, and increased student engagement.

With staff proficient in explicit teaching, your educational institution will be better positioned to deliver high-quality instruction. This proficiency helps reassure stakeholders—such as parents, school boards, funding bodies, and alumni—of the school's dedication to impactful and effective teaching. School leaders can use the micro-credential to support implementation of a whole-school approach to explicit teaching by encouraging their teachers to undertake the micro-credential together. The readings, tasks and strategies can form the basis for ongoing critical conversations of professional learning teams to share practice.

In 2022, the Quality Initial Teacher Education Review suggested that short courses could help teachers to upskill, particularly in areas where they feel underprepared, such as managing classrooms, using explicit teaching strategies, and teaching phonics. In response, the Australian Government has selected the University of Adelaide to develop evidence-based micro-credentials so that teachers in all stages of their careers can upskill in these areas of need with minimum disruption to their work capacity.