As any educator will tell you, the Gradual Release of Responsibility instructional model has been a foundation of teacher education programs for the last 24 years. We all have been trained to ‘I do’ or model the learning for students first. We were taught that we can’t ask students to do something we haven’t modeled first. Next, we were told to ‘We do’ or practice exactly what we modeled together as a whole group. Finally, the ‘You do’ where students engaged in individual practice to ensure they could do what we modeled. Now the researchers who launched that model in 2000 have said, ‘Oops, there is more to it than we first thought!’
Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey, renowned educational researchers who have published a substantial body of work, released a 3rd edition of their book that launched the Gradual Release model in 2000. The new edition of Better Learning (Corwin, 2023) launched a new Gradual Release instructional model that is substantially different from the ‘I do, we do, you do’ model. Here are the 3 big ideas from the new instructional model.
Big Idea #1: We now have 4 components instead of 3.
The new Gradual Release model adds a 4th crucial component to our instruction which is ‘You do it together’. Fisher and Frey have acknowledged the substantial body of research that has supported collaborative learning with both of them contributing to that research themselves. The research of Building Thinking Classrooms (Corwin, 2020) conducted by Peter Liljedahl supports the use of vertical spaces, visibly random groups of students working collaboratively on thinking tasks. John Hattie’s Visible Learning research places collaborative learning in the Zone of Desired Effects (www.visblelearning metax.com) as an impactful instructional strategy. Collaboration coupled with meaningful, thinking tasks creates ‘Knowledge Mobility’ (Liljehal, 2020) where the modeling done in the classroom shouldn’t always come from the teacher. Students should share their thinking with other students daily. We want to maximize our instructional time when students are together by asking them repeatedly to discuss their ideas, think critically, and problem-solve (Fisher, Frey, 2023). We are not talking about a ‘turn and talk to your shoulder partner’ kind of activity. Instead, collaborative learning is students solving problems together, sharing their thinking with others who may be outside their collaborative group, and consolidating their learning together to create a common meaning of the content being discussed.
Big Idea #2: The order is NOT linear.
What does it mean that ‘I do, we do, you do’ can now instead be ‘You do together’, then ‘We do’ then ‘I do’, then ‘You do’, ending with another ‘You do together’? It means we don’t always have to be the giver of knowledge, we don’t have to know it all, instead, let’s see and hear what students know first before we assume they don’t know anything. In Building Thinking Classrooms, Peter Liljedahl states,
The second epiphany was the sudden realization that Jane was planning her teaching on the assumption that students either couldn’t or wouldn’t think. Jane was in a tough position—she had a room full of students who weren’t thinking, yet she had curriculum to get through and standards to meet. This is not uncommon. Every day, teachers all over the world find themselves in this exact same dilemma. Even teachers who, by traditional measures, are considered good teachers—who know their content, care about their students, and want to do the best for them—face this dilemma. (p. 4-5)
Students will amaze you with what they know when we ask them to work together on a rich task and collaboratively discuss and share their thinking. Why not do this ‘together’ stage first? Fisher and Frey state that any of the 4 components of the revised Gradual Release model can be done in any order and each component can be repeated within the lesson. Why would we spend a substantial amount of time within a lesson on the ‘You do’ when we can have students thinking together? I understand the need for individual students to show what they know but does that have to mean a worksheet with 20 practice problems? This new instructional model allows educators the opportunity to better meet the needs of their students by varying the structure of our lessons.
Big Idea #3: We can expect more from our students.
When I consider one of the major pitfalls of the ‘I do, we do, you do’ instructional model I think about the ability of students to be passive learners and thinkers rather than students being held accountable to sharing their thinking with others and for contributing to the overall conceptual understanding of their peers. I have visited thousands of traditional classrooms in my career where I see students passively taking in the content being modeled by the teacher. Students are engaged in the studenting behaviors of taking notes, sitting quietly in their seats, answering questions (or not) when called on, the same 4-5 students raising their hands each time the teacher asks a question and the absence of students sharing what they think about the content. How often do we ask students what they think about the content we are teaching? Early in my teaching career, I am certain I never asked my students what they thought about the quadratic formula, rather I asked them to mimic and DO the quadratic formula. My students missed out on the insight their peers could have added to the overall understanding of the content I was teaching. It was a missed opportunity. Our students can be thinking so much more than we are asking them to think in the classroom.
I am thrilled at the opportunity afforded educators to learn more from educational research about what works and doesn’t work in the classroom. I appreciate Fisher and Frey shifting their thinking about a very rigid instructional model we have embraced for far too long. I hope you will seek to learn more about the revised Gradual Release model and try some of these ideas in your classroom.
Research Basis
Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2023). Better learning through structured teaching: A framework for the gradual release of responsibility. ASCD.
Liljedahl, P. (2020). Building thinking classrooms in mathematics, grades K-12: 14 teaching practices for enhancing learning. Corwin press.