Gradual Release of Responsibility

In 1983, Pearson and Gallagher suggested a framework for slowly shifting the heavy thinking part of a task from the teacher to the students, called gradual release of responsibility. The idea is that the teacher starts by showing the students what to do, and eventually the students can do it on their own.


The scaffolding goes roughly like this:

  1. Teacher Teaches. You show them what to do. You explain what to do.

  2. Teacher Guides. You show them what to do, but ask questions and allow them to contribute. You prompt them.

  3. Students Work Together. They complete a task while collaborating with peers.

  4. Students Work Alone. They do it without help.



The process doesn’t have to be linear and you don’t have to do each step exactly once, but it’s a good guideline.


What might it look like?


Example 1: You’re teaching a middle school science class. You want to teach students about how volcanoes erupt. First, you show them a video that shows how volcanoes erupt while the students take open notes on the video (Teacher Teaches). Next, the students help you fill in a graphic organizer. You give verbal or written prompts for each step (Teacher Guides). After that, students work with a partner over several days to create a model volcano that shows all of the steps of an eruption (Students Work Together). For homework, students read about a historical volcanic eruption and write a mock primary source account of the eruption, including all the steps they learned in class (Students Work Alone).


Example 2: You’re tutoring a student in SAT Reading. You are teaching the student to think through a quick paragraph summary at the end of each paragraph. First, you read a paragraph aloud and then describe how you would summarize it (Teacher Teaches). Next, you read the second paragraph aloud, but ask the student to summarize the paragraph, with a verbal prompt if they need it (Teacher Guides). Since there is only one student, you improvise the next step: you and your students take turns summarizing paragraphs. This way, your student gets to practice the skill while you can keep providing exemplars (Students Work Together). Lastly, you ask the student to do an entire passage alone, untimed, writing a once-sentence summary at the end of each passage (Students Work Alone).


What ways have you used the gradual release of responsibility framework? What strategies have worked for you? Comment below.


Sources:

https://dpi.wi.gov/ela/instruction/framework

https://pdo.ascd.org/lmscourses/pd13oc005/media/formativeassessmentandccswithelaliteracymod_3-reading3.pdf


Robin SattyComment