Engaging Students During EDI

What is EDI?

While EDI is not the only model for instruction (i.e. inquiry based learning, etc.) it is a fundamental model for new teachers as it builds teacher clarity and student understanding of routines and procedures.

How do I engage students during each phase of the EDI Model?

Learning objective: In SBCUSD, we use learning intentions and success criteria to ensure students have clarity about what is being taught and how they will know they have learned the intentions. See CSTP 4 for more information on Learning Intentions and Success Criteria:

• At the start of the lesson, teachers should engage students in the learning intentions and success criteria through the use of the TAPPLE strategy. See a script here for how to do this.

Relevance: During the teaching of the learning intentions, teachers should also engage students in a discussion about why the learning intentions are important. This can be done through a quick pair/share or a more involved discussion using Kagan strategies. (Click here for more information.)

Activating Prior Knowledge: Engage students in activating prior knowledge by asking them what they already know about the topic and participate in some sort of discussion. This also aligns to How People Learn principle #1. Click here for more information. 

Concept and Skill Development: Teachers should use the gradual release model (also known as I Do, We Do You Do) to explicitly teach new concepts and skills. Here are some examples of how to engage students during each phase of gradual release.

• I Do: As you model it is essential to stop frequently to check for understanding and that students are with you:

Teacher: “The first step in solving this problem using this strategy is… Turn to your partner and tell them the first step.” (choose three people to share out)

• We Do: Students are working in pairs or groups to solve the problems while the teacher is checking. Strategies like Reciprocal Teaching, Jigsaw, Small groups with roles, charting, etc can be used to engage students during this phase.

• You Do: Engage students by ensuring they have differentiated materials and/or scaffolding as appropriate (organizers, sentence frames, etc.). Students should work on their own so the teacher can assess who has met the learning intention. However, after finishing, students can share their answers and their thinking with each other.