5 Pillars of Effective Instruction
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Durable Learning
Durable
Learning
Durable learning means learning that is long-term, being remembered weeks, months, or years later. Information can be mentally retrieved efficiently, retrieved even in times of pressure, and applied to new situations.
Effective Instruction Assessment
Effective
Instruction
Assessment
Supported by the pillars of instruction, effective teaching and assessment involve ongoing observation, feedback, and a variety of methods to evaluate student progress and understanding. Concepts are taught and retaught as often as needed for a student to reach mastery.Â
Structure
Attention Based
Practice Rich
Multisensory
Explicit
Structure
Structure includes the orderliness of one’s environment, thoughts, routines, and written work. Structure helps tame the chaotic nature of an impulsive mind and helps channel its calm, focused, creative energy.
Teacher:
The teacher carefully shapes the environment and lessons for calm clarity.
Student:
The student learns to organize and manage their internal and external worlds.
Attention-Based
Instruction
Attention-based instruction uses specialized techniques that hold students’ attention and build their focusing skills over time.
Teacher:
Rather than assuming students should be able to focus on their own, the de Paul teacher captures and maintains attention through techniques like pacing, variety, presentation, subtle cues, and routines.

Student:
As students build their endurance for maintaining focus, they begin learning specific strategies and skills for monitoring and redirecting their own attention.
Practice Rich
Practice-rich instruction provides a higher number of repetitions and reteachings when needed for student mastery. It also applies current scientific knowledge about learning so the most effective types of practice are used.
Teacher:
The teacher provides adequate repetitions, useful feedback, effective study strategies, and tracking of progress.
Student:
Students learn how and why to utilize specific study techniques independently.
Multisensory
Multi-sensory instruction involves a high degree of physical interaction with the environment throughout a lesson, including body movement, manipulating objects, and discussions. Sight, sound, and touch are often integrated simultaneously in activities.
Teacher:
The teacher leads hands-on and movement-based activities to concretize abstract concepts, symbols, and procedures.Â
Student:
By engaging with new ideas through all of their senses, students have a deeper understanding of the concepts and more mental pathways for storing and retrieving information.
Explicit
Instruction
In explicit instruction, the teacher is responsible for making sure concepts are clearly understood. Details of lessons are planned carefully, with lessons building upon one another, to help guide the students to full understanding.
Teacher:
The teacher carefully crafts the details of lessons for clarity and builds concepts sequentially. Instructions, examples, modeling, and feedback are clear.
Student:
Research shows that students with learning differences are more successful in classrooms which use explicit instruction.Â
Trusting Relationships / Safe Environments
Trusting Relationships / Safe Environments
A foundation of trusting relationships is essential for optimal learning. Students must feel physically and psychologically safe in order to devote their full mental capacity to learning.Â
Curriculum: Common Vision, Philosophy, & Goals
Curriculum: Common Vision, Philosophy, & Goals
A foundation of trusting relationships is essential for optimal learning. Students must feel physically and psychologically safe in order to devote their full mental capacity to learning.Â
