Taking Remote Teaching from “Zoom to Boom”
A summary of Dr. Anita Archer's 2020 webinar on explicit remote instruction, updated with the origins and research behind gradual release of responsibility.
Gradual release of responsibility, from Pearson and Gallagher in 1983 to Rosenshine's principles: what it is and how to use it.
EdCircuit Staff summarized Dr. Anita Archer’s 2020 webinar on evidence-based remote teaching, which gives seven short mottos for explicit instruction. A new section after the summary explains the gradual release of responsibility behind the “I do, we do, you do” approach in Archer’s webinar, what research supports it and how to use it.
In a recent webinar presented by Curriculum Associates, Dr. Anita Archer shared recommended remote learning strategies to use in the 2020-21 year. Dr. Archer highlighted the importance of utilizing evidence-based practices to optimize learning, several of which she describes further in the presentation. She emphasized the importance of creating an environment where learning is always the goal, and quality instruction is the path.
The webinar, “Zoom to Boom: Embracing the Science of Instruction in the New School Year,” draws strategies from Dr. Archer’s book, PHONICS for Reading, bringing useful tips to teaching all coursework in elementary, middle, and high school. She asks the listener to take a moment and affirm what we already know about instruction. All teachers have the body of knowledge regardless of the method used for delivering instruction. It all boils down to this: the knowledge you have is the knowledge you need to use.
The following strategies presented in the webinar take proven practices for the traditional classroom and add the virtual learning context, resulting in techniques that are must-haves for teachers this fall:
Critical Content
Focusing on critical content to teach to mastery and promote learning is essential, explains Dr. Archer. In reading, there are two main areas: decoding and language comprehension. A student needs to be able to read the words but also have strong comprehension skills. It encapsulates phonological awareness, recognition, and fluency imprint concepts that lead to actual fluency. Learning letter-sound associations is part of the critical content element. Inferential and academic language skills, background knowledge, plus literal and narrative skills are all part of the process. Teachers should ask: What is the most relevant content that I introduce and come back to for students?
Motto #1 from Dr. Archer: Critical content comes down to “Teach the stuff and cut the fluff.”
Break Down Complex Strategies to Ensure Learning
Various researchers are discussed in the webinar, regarding their work on phonological awareness, the sequence of letter-sound associations, and the patterns inside words.
Teaching systematically, such as the process involved in helping someone learn a musical instrument, is described as an example of incremental success leading to motivation. By recognizing achievement and value, one is motivated to do more as a result. With the continuation of Zoom to Boom in the fall, this will be even more critical, says Dr. Archer.
Motto #2: Success breeds success but, more importantly, success + value = motivation.
Quality Instruction
The best learning results from quality instruction, which entails demonstration, guided practice, and the checking of understanding. Dr. Archer gives credit to Madeline Hunter’s work as the seed to the knowledge. The “I do it; we do it; you do it” approach is a process that connects quality instruction with meaningful learning.
Motto #3: “How well I teach = how well I learn,” leading to the idea of “How well they learn = How well I taught.”
Learning Made Visible
It’s important to actively involve all students in responding throughout a lesson, says Dr. Archer. This makes learning visible in the remote setting. As responses go up, so does learning, and management issues go down. These “responses” come in verbal, written, reading, action, and technology-driven forms. The most common practice of a teacher asking and students raising their hands is popular, but it only shows the success of the most gifted. It’s vital to set up all students for success. Using hold-up cards can be a great resource to involve all students in response and action.
Dr. Archer adds that physical distancing will be a challenge with these approaches. Traditional partnership learning will be unavailable, yet individual and class discussions can take place. Whiteboards are useful with distance learning and response sheets. All types of reading except for partner reading are encouraged. Anticipating what will be different is essential to transitioning to remote models. Students’ virtual whiteboard on other objects, such as plates and note sheets, can be useful. Structured partners can help in adaptation to physical distance learning. It becomes the partner that’s “got your back,” making physical distancing classes and remote learning more social.
Motto #4: Learning is not a spectator sport. If students are not holding up their response cards or writing on their whiteboards, then as teachers you know that they are not cognitively with you. Students need to join into the learning.
Monitoring Students’ Responses
No matter the platform, monitoring of responses is imperative, Dr. Archer explained. She describes the approach of “As simple as 3,2,1.” It involves introducing student names, calling on them to make sure that answers are accurate and immediate. An ongoing collection of data can make sure that responses are occurring throughout the group to ensure equity.
Distancing measures are changing the monitoring process. Dr. Archer explains how feedback will need to take place in terms of praise, honoring work, and encouraging growth. Correction is most effective through positive feedback and reinforcement. Smiling with students online is always invited.
Motto #5: Affirm and Inform. “Feedback feeds forward.”
Practice and Management Models
Dr. Archer rounds out the webinar with an in-depth look at practice and management methods. The idea takes on three forms: Deliberate practice, retrieval practice, and spaced practice over time. Data proves that there are high effect results for all three areas.
Motto #6: Practice doesn’t make perfect, but instead perfected practice over time makes perfect and permanent.
Management models need to be well-formed, explains Dr. Archer. It’s important to recognize the essential support for teachers and students through management procedures. First, create a well-organized environment, then teach practical routines: predictability predicts ability, she shares.
Try not to start classes with socialization, she says. Teach and then socialize at the end. Make it predictable with clarity. Provide pre-corrections because “if you expect it, pre-correct it.” Look for the good in students and maintain a perky pace to teaching. Intentionally establish positive teacher-student relationships that support learning in the classroom and virtually.
Motto: #7: Connect. Connect. Connect. Be kind. We need to be very kind to ourselves, family neighbors, staff, and children. Teachers have the most capability of spreading kindness.
Learn more about Dr. Anita Archer’s strategies by viewing the archived webinar, Zoom to Boom: Embracing the Science of Instruction in the New School Year
Gradual release of responsibility: what the research says and how to use it in 2026
The “I do it; we do it; you do it” approach in the quality instruction part of the summary above, drawn from Dr. Anita Archer’s webinar, is the most widely used form of the gradual release of responsibility. Teachers use it in nearly every subject, and it appears in many lesson-plan templates. This section explains where the model comes from, what the evidence behind it does and does not show, and how teachers can use it without turning it into a fixed script.
Where gradual release of responsibility comes from
The model was described by David Pearson and Margaret Gallagher in 1983, in a review of how reading comprehension was taught. A 2019 article in The Reading Teacher by Sandra Webb and colleagues, Thirty-Five Years of the Gradual Release of Responsibility, explains that Pearson and Gallagher presented it as a theoretical model with three stages: the teacher models a strategy, the teacher guides practice, and the student takes over. They also noted that little research supported the value of explicit instruction in comprehension strategies at that time. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey added a fourth stage in 2008, in which students work together, and stressed that the model is not linear and that students move back and forth between its parts. According to Webb and colleagues, the catchphrase “I do, we do, you do” came later and was popularized by Archer and Charles Hughes in 2010.
What the evidence supports
The strongest support for the practices inside gradual release comes from Barak Rosenshine’s article Principles of Instruction, published in American Educator in 2012. Rosenshine drew on cognitive science, on observations of teachers whose classes made the highest gains on achievement tests, and on research on instructional supports such as thinking aloud and scaffolds. Rosenshine’s principles include guiding student practice, checking for understanding and obtaining a high success rate.
Two of Rosenshine’s findings bear directly on Archer’s mottos. First, in a mathematics study Rosenshine cites, the most effective teachers spent about 23 minutes of a 40-minute period presenting, questioning and working examples, while the least effective spent 11 minutes presenting new material. Second, in a fourth-grade mathematics study, 82 percent of student answers were correct in the most successful teachers’ classrooms and 73 percent in the least successful teachers’ classrooms. Rosenshine writes that the research suggests the best success rate for learning is about 80 percent, which shows both that students are learning and that they are challenged.
These are the limits a reader should keep in mind. The teacher studies Rosenshine describes are observational: they compare teachers whose students gained more with teachers whose students gained less, and they cannot prove that one practice caused the gain. The article is also a summary, from 2012, of research that is older still. It supports the practices of modeling, guided practice and frequent checking. It is not a controlled trial of the “I do, we do, you do” sequence itself, and the Webb article notes that the original authors recognized the thin research base.
A caution against using it as a fixed script
Webb and colleagues argue that “I do, we do, you do” became simplified into a set of strict moves expected to fit in one class period, and that a teacher evaluated on such a format may follow the format instead of responding to students. Their view is that explicit teaching comes in response to student difficulty and not routinely, and that the teacher decides how much to release. An Edutopia article from 2022 by Autumn Mosby and Samantha Hamilton makes a related practical point: for complex tasks, a short practice period before release is not enough, and teachers should allow movement back and forth between phases. That article gives no outcome data, and its claims about attention and memory are stated without specific studies, so it is best read as classroom guidance.
Using it well
- Model with a think-aloud, then stop and check understanding before moving to shared practice, in line with Archer’s point about demonstration, guided practice and checking understanding.
- During guided practice, use the response routines in Archer’s fourth motto, such as hold-up cards, whiteboards or structured partners, so that every student responds and not only the confident ones.
- Watch the success rate, which is a practical use of Rosenshine’s finding. If students are well below roughly 80 percent correct during guided practice, stay in that stage or model again before releasing them.
- Treat the phases as a loop. A class might begin with independent work, find a gap, model that one step and return to practice.
- Keep the aim in view, which is independent use of the skill. Plan a final stage in which students apply it alone.
For related edCircuit reading on how research shapes literacy teaching, see The Science of Reading: How Research Shapes Literacy.
Related reading
More on Literacy and Reading
