Guide to Tripod’s 7Cs™ Framework
Clarify
Teachers who clarify help students understand content and resolve confusion. They explain ideas and concepts in a variety of ways, check frequently for understanding, address misconceptions, and provide useful feedback.
Message to Students:
“I can explain in a variety of ways, and when you are confused, I will help you understand.”
Sample Student Survey Items
(for different grade levels)
- My teacher is very good at explaining things.
- My teacher knows when the class understands, and when we do not.
- The comments that I get on my work in this class help me understand how to improve.
Indicators of an Exemplary Classroom
Teachers effectively clarify through practices like these:
Explaining clearly
The teacher explains concepts clearly and anticipates common areas of difficulty.
- The teacher effectively explains key concepts and offers multiple explanations for those that frequently cause confusion.
- The teacher models success by providing examples and rubrics that establish expectations.
- The teacher breaks down complex tasks and provides instructional supports for new skills and concepts as needed.
Checking for understanding
The teacher uses a variety of strategies to check for understanding and clear up confusion.
- The teacher checks regularly for understanding using techniques such as questioning, quizzes, exit slips, and monitoring student work.
- The teacher asks students to check their work against rubrics and exemplars.
- The teacher surfaces misconceptions and addresses them effectively.
Providing constructive feedback
The teacher provides useful, timely, and specific feedback.
- The teacher provides specific, descriptive, concise feedback on student work linked to standards and established criteria for success.
- Feedback on student work focuses on supporting students’ thinking and self-directed problem-solving.
- The teacher customizes feedback on students’ work to guide their next steps.
Reflection Questions
Consider these questions as you reflect on your classroom practice:
- Do you provide orderly, structured explanations when introducing new ideas, including illustrative examples?
- Do you anticipate questions by considering what students will likely find difficult?
- Do you generate multiple explanations for potentially tricky concepts?
- Do you use a variety of methods and media to present and explain content?
- Do you regularly check for understanding using a variety of formal and informal assessment strategies?
- Do you ask students to explain their reasoning to reveal points of confusion?
- Do you share clear success criteria for student work and provide specific feedback based on those criteria?
Sample Strategies
Try implementing teaching strategies like these in your classroom:
- Explain concepts using multiple media, including text, images, audio, and video.
- Use rubrics to articulate criteria for success and describe a range of performance levels.
- Use exit slips at the end of lessons to check student understanding and use responses to plan subsequent lessons, clarifying as needed.
- Write comments on student work describing specifically what has been achieved and where more work is needed.
TEACHING RESOURCES
We’ve curated a set of teaching resources for Clarify. As you set goals and pursue professional learning opportunities, use these resource collections to access additional strategies, tools, and examples of effective practices in action.
Clarify: Providing Constructive Feedback
Teachers who clarify help students understand content and resolve confusion. They explain ideas and concepts in a variety of ways, check frequently for understanding, address misconceptions, and provide useful feedback. Find resources offering classroom strategies that support the practice of providing useful, timely, and specific feedback.
Strategies to enhance peer feedback
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Educational Leadership: Looking at Student Work: The Secret of Effective Feedback
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Using Gaming Principles to Engage Students
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Creating High-Quality Work in EL Education Schools: Multiple Levels of Support | EL Education
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The Who, What, and Why of Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback | EL Education
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RubiStar Home
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Seven Keys to Effective Feedback
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What Are Rubrics and Why Are They Important?
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Mindset Kit – Praising the process: See it in action, Praise the Process, Not the Person
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Embracing Failure: Building a Growth Mindset Through the Arts
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Austin’s Butterfly
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UDL Guideline 8: Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence
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The Big Ideas of Understanding by Design
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Thinking Big About Engagement
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Implementing the Writing Process – ReadWriteThink
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Clarify: Checking for Understanding
Teachers who clarify help students understand content and resolve confusion. They explain ideas and concepts in a variety of ways, check frequently for understanding, address misconceptions, and provide useful feedback. Find resources offering classroom strategies that support the practice of checking for understanding and clearing up confusion.
Summarizing
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Dipsticks: Efficient Ways to Check for Understanding
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Talking Circles: For Restorative Justice and Beyond | Teaching Tolerance – Diversity, Equity and Justice
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Strategies to enhance peer feedback
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Educational Leadership: Looking at Student Work: The Secret of Effective Feedback
Read More
Using Gaming Principles to Engage Students
Read More
Creating High-Quality Work in EL Education Schools: Multiple Levels of Support | EL Education
Read More
The Who, What, and Why of Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback | EL Education
Read More
I Do, We Do, You Do: Scaffolding Reading Comprehension in Social Studies
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What Makes You Say That
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Making Sure They Are Learning
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RubiStar Home
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Exit Slips
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Seven Keys to Effective Feedback
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Expect Students to Activate, Connect and Summarize Daily
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First Five Minutes/Last Five Minutes
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What Are Rubrics and Why Are They Important?
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5 Ways to Give Your Students More Voice and Choice
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6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students
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3-2-1 Bridge
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Encouraging Students to Persist Through Challenges
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Building a Classroom Culture of Trust and Collaboration
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Austin’s Butterfly
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Keeping It Relevant and “Authentic”
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The Big Ideas of Understanding by Design
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The Doing What Works Library
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Science Talk: Management in the Active Classroom
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Reciprocal Teaching | Reading Rockets
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Analyzing Perspectives through Primary Sources, Part 1 in Core Practices in Action: Laying the Foundation for Deeper Learning with Literacy
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Personalized Learning: Enabling Student Voice and Choice Through Projects
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Implementing the Writing Process – ReadWriteThink
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Think Pair Share
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Kindergarteners as Experts
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Clarify: Explaining Clearly
Teachers who clarify help students understand content and resolve confusion. They explain ideas and concepts in a variety of ways, check frequently for understanding, address misconceptions, and provide useful feedback. Find resources offering classroom strategies that support the practice of explaining concepts clearly and anticipating common areas of difficulty.
Providing Explicit Vocabulary Instruction
Read More
Get the GIST: A Summarizing Strategy for Any Content Area
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How to Increase Higher Order Thinking
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Strategies to enhance peer feedback
Read More
Creating High-Quality Work in EL Education Schools: Multiple Levels of Support | EL Education
Read More
UDL Guideline 3: Provide options for comprehension
Read More
The Who, What, and Why of Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback | EL Education
Read More
I Do, We Do, You Do: Scaffolding Reading Comprehension in Social Studies
Read More
Making Sure They Are Learning
Read More
UDL Guideline 2: Provide options for language, mathematical expressions, and symbols
Read More
RubiStar Home
Read More
Seven Keys to Effective Feedback
Read More
Adapting Curriculum to Learners’ Needs
Read More
What Are Rubrics and Why Are They Important?
Read More
6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students
Read More
Austin’s Butterfly
Read More
Keeping It Relevant and “Authentic”
Read More
The Big Ideas of Understanding by Design
Read More
The Doing What Works Library
Read More
Thinking Big About Engagement
Read More
Science Talk: Management in the Active Classroom
Read More
Instruction | Teaching Tolerance – Diversity, Equity and Justice
Read More
Implementing the Writing Process – ReadWriteThink
Read More
Kindergarteners as Experts
Read More