What does effective explicit instruction actually look like—and when should teachers move beyond it?

In this episode, Dr. John Schembari sits down with Australian instructional coach Brendan Lee, founder of Knowledge for Teachers, to explore how cognitive science, explicit instruction, and the instructional hierarchy can help educators improve student learning and instructional decision-making.

Brendan shares his own journey from struggling teacher to instructional coach and explains why understanding how learning happens is essential for improving classroom outcomes.

• What explicit instruction is—and what it is not

• Why many lessons fail despite strong planning

• The importance of prerequisite knowledge and retrieval practice

• How to use modeling, guided practice, and checking for understanding effectively

• Why guided practice is where most learning occurs

• The role of feedback in accelerating learning

• How fluency differs from acquisition and why both matter

• When students are ready for independent practice

• The Instructional Hierarchy: Acquisition, Fluency, Generalization, and Adaptation

• Why teachers should differentiate support rather than curriculum

• How understanding learning science can increase teacher efficacy and retention

Explicit instruction is critical when students are learning something new, but it is only the beginning. Effective teaching requires knowing where students are in the learning process and providing the right level of support, practice, feedback, and challenge to help them move from novice to expert.

Brendan Lee Website

Brendan Lee LinkedIn Page

Music by Aylex