The Teacher Presentation, or ‘I do’, component of the lesson is when the concept or skill that is being taught is explained, modelled and demonstrated using concise language. The new material is presented in small steps to reduce the cognitive load for students. It begins with a clear statement of the learning intention and success criteria for the lesson. Incorporating a carefully selected range of examples and non-examples in the presentation also helps to avoid possible misconceptions of when and when not to apply the skill, strategy, concept, or rule. To develop students’ understanding of the content, clear definitions are provided.
A learning intention outlines what students should know, understand or be able to do by the end of the lesson. It is included at the beginning of the presentation and referred to in the closing of the lesson. Stating a success criterion assists both the teacher and student to know what is required to achieve the learning intention.
The students are engaged through the effective use of strategies such as repeat and read with me. A think-aloud strategy is also an effective way to model the new skills. The teacher explains the steps by saying and making obvious the thinking required to complete the task. Demonstrations of new content are also evident. The teacher uses prompts such as visual diagrams, objects or gestures to make the new concept clear for the students.
Illustration:
Example
Learning intention: We are learning to spell the /e/ sound with the digraph ‘ea’.
Presentation
- Write these words on the board: head, bread, breath, ready, weather. Read the words.
- Then have students read the words with you.
- Identify the vowel sound in these words /e/.
- How is this sound spelled in these words? ‘ea’.
- Underline the ‘ea’ and point out it is always in the middle of the word.
- Group words with similar patterns after the ‘ea’ (e.g. ‘ea’ followed by ‘d’, ‘ea’ followed by ‘th’).
- Select words appropriate to students’ abilities.
