# Explicitation

research

I came across this case study recently that I managed to like a little. It focuses on an analysis of a Singapore teacher’s practice of making things explicit in his classroom. Specifically, the paper outlines three ways the teacher engages in explicitation (as the authors call it): (1) making ideas in the base materials (i.e., textbook) explicit in the lesson plan, (2) making ideas within the plan of the unit more explicit, and (3) making ideas explicit in the enactment of teaching the unit(s). These parts are shown in the diagram below, which I have redrawn, with minor modifications, from the paper.

The teacher interviewed for this case study, “Teck Kim,” taught math to Year 11 (10th grade) students in the “Normal (Academic)” track, and the work focus of the case study was on a unit the teacher called “Vectors in Two Dimensions.”

Explicit From

The first category of explicitation, Explicit From, involves using base materials such as a textbook as a starting point and adapting these materials to make more explicit what it is the teacher wants students to learn. The paper provides an illustration of some of the textbook content related to explaining column vectors, along with Kim’s adaptation. I have again redrawn below what was provided in the paper. Here I also made minor modifications to the layout of the textbook example and one small change to fix a possible translation error (or typo) in the teacher’s example. The textbook content is on the left, and the teacher’s is on the right (if it wasn’t painfully obvious).

There are many interesting things to notice about the teacher’s adaptation. Most obviously, it is much simpler than the textbook’s explanation. This is due, in part, to the adaptation’s leaving magnitude unexplained during the presentation and instead asking a leading question about it.

The textbook presented the process of calculating the magnitudes of the given vectors, leading to a ‘formula’ of $$\mathtt{\sqrt{x^2+y^2}}$$ for column vector ($$\mathtt{x y}$$). In its place, Teck Kim’s notes appeared to compress all these into one question: “How would you calculate the magnitude?” On the surface, it appears that Teck Kim was less explicit than the textbook in the computational process of magnitude. But a careful examination into the pre-module interview reveals that the compression of this section into a question was deliberate . . . He meant to use the question to trigger students’ initial thoughts on the manner—which would then serve to ready their frame of mind when the teacher explains the procedure in class.

So, it is not the case that explanation has been removed—only that the teacher has moved the explication of vector magnitude into the Explicit To section of the process. We can also notice, then, in this Explicit From phase, that the teacher makes use of both dual coding and variation theory in his compression of the to-be-explained material. The text in the teacher’s work is placed directly next to the diagram as labels to describe the meaning of each component of the vector, and the vector that students are to draw varies minimally from the one demonstrated: a change in sign is the only difference, allowing students to see how negative components change the direction of a vector. All much more efficient and effective than the textbook’s try at the same material.

Explicit Within

Intriguingly, Explicit Within is harder to explain than the other two, but is closer to the work I do every day. A quote from the article nicely describes explicitation within the teacher’s own lesson plan as an “inter-unit implicit-to-explicit strategy”:

This inter-unit implicit-to-explicit strategy reveals a level of sophistication in the crafting of instructional materials that we had not previously studied. The common anecdotal portrayal of Singapore mathematics teachers’ use of materials is one of numerous similar routine exercise items for students to repetitively practise the same skill to gain fluency. In the case of Teck Kim’s notes, it was not pure repetitive practice that was in play; rather, students were given the opportunity to revisit similar tasks and representations but with added richness of perspective each time.

We saw a very small example of explicit-within above as well. The plan, following the textbook, would have delayed the introduction of negative components of vectors, but Teck Kim introduces it early, as a variational difference. The idea is not necessarily that students should know it cold from the beginning, but that it serves a useful instructional purpose even before it is consolidated.

Explicit To

Finally, there is Explicit To, which refers to the classroom implementation of explicitation, and which needs no lengthy description. I’ll leave you with a quote again from the paper.

No matter how well the instructional materials were designed, Teck Kim recognised the limitations to the extent in which the notes by itself can help make things explicit to the students. The explicitation strategy must go beyond the contents contained in the notes. In particular, he used the notes as a springboard to connect to further examples and explanations he would provide during in-class instruction. He drew students’ attention to questions spelt out in the notes, created opportunities for students to formulate initial thoughts and used these preparatory moves to link to the explicit content he subsequently covered in class.