Self-Explanation
Table of Contents
Bloom's Level
Use
Setting
Activity
Technology
Related Strategies
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Description
Self-explanation is a constructive learning strategy that requires students to explain concepts, knowledge, and skills to themselves as they are learning. During the process of self-explanation, students make connections between what they are learning and their prior knowledge. They make inferences and elaborate on content they know and do not know to construct new knowledge and understanding. Self-explanation can also help students monitor and correct misconceptions. Teachers may prompt students to engage in self-explanation, or students may naturally practice this strategy as they are learning. Teachers should model, train, and coach students on how to self-explain. Self-explanations can be written or verbal, open-ended, or focused on specific aspects of the content.
When To Use It
As a learning strategy, use self-explanation when you want students to:
- demonstrate understanding of content or tasks as they are learning or engaging in a process
- monitor their learning by pausing during the activity to explain their understanding and recognize misconceptions
- explain why a solution or response is correct or incorrect
- explain the rationale for a concept or solution to their classmates while they are working collaboratively
- respond to prompts to explain concepts or tasks at strategic points during an activity
As an instructional strategy, use self-explanation when you want to:
- assess students’ understanding of concepts, knowledge, or skills as they are engaged in an activity
- build students’ capacity to self-monitor and self-correct their misconceptions as they are learning new material or studying previously learned material
- foster a deep understanding by asking students to explain (why, how, what does this mean, what is the rationale, etc.)
- help students make meaningful connections between prior and new knowledge
- build students problem-solving skills with a deeper level of understanding
How To Use It
Advance Prep
There are different ways to engage students in self-explanation depending on the content, context, and learning objectives. Some examples include:
- Open-ended: students explain a concept or task as they are engaging with it based on broad questions or without specific prompts
- Focused prompts: students are asked to explain with a specific focus to direct their explanation
- Scaffolded prompts: students fill-in the blanks of explanations (best used with students who do not have a lot of prior knowledge)
- Model revision: students compare incorrect alongside correct examples
- Menu or resource-based prompts: students select an appropriate explanation from a menu or glossary of choices
In general, teachers can prepare students for self-explanation using the following steps:
- Model how to self-explain and coach students as they practice the strategy so that they will become independent. You can model by thinking aloud as you work through solving a problem or explaining a concept or steps in a process. For example, if you want students to be able to explain the water cycle, you can show a diagram of the water cycle along with written stages of the process. As you read each stage, you can pause and explain the stage in your own words, why that process occurs, and how it connects to what you already know. You can point out features in the diagram as you explain your thinking aloud. You can also model how to redirect your thinking when you come across a contradiction in what you thought you knew and what is present in the learning material Note that self-explanation works well when there are multiple representations of the learning material (videos, diagrams, photographs, text, interactives, etc.)
- Once students are comfortable with the strategy, consider the content, context, and learning objectives, and then decide during what activity you want students to engage in self-explanation
- After you have identified the learning activity, decide what type of prompting you will give students (open-ended, focused, scaffolded, etc.).
- Prepare self-explanation prompts and integrate them into the planned learning activity
*Note that self-explanation adds time to the learning activity, so you should account for the time needed for students to write or verbalize their explanations in addition to completing the activity
Implementation
- Ensure that students understand the learning objectives, and explain to students that as they engage in the learning activity, they will pause and explain their understanding
- Communicate expectations for recording their explanations. Remind students to look out for misconceptions and use the content to help them clarify their understanding as they self-explain
- You may assess student understanding by observing their explanations or asking students to share verbally as you circulate during the activity
Pros
- Encourages students to make learning meaningful by connecting new and prior knowledge details specific to them
- Helps students identify what they do not understand.
- Improves comprehension and provides a deeper understanding of the concept, knowledge, or skill.
- Offers an effective independent learning and studying strategy.
Cons
- Can be less effective if students do not have any prior knowledge to make connections with new material.
- Requires more time for students to learn and complete tasks because they are self-explaining during the learning process.
- A learner’s self-explanation may be incorrect if they misunderstand the content, leading to further confusion.
- Requires modeling and coaching before some students are able to effectively use the strategy on their own.
Culturally Responsive Application
Self-explanation aligns with culturally responsive teaching because it allows students to make sense of their learning based on their own experiences, thoughts, and words. Self-explanation has the potential to nurture students’ natural way of learning because they are engaged in deeper learning, and making meaningful connections as they leverage what they already know. It builds their capacity as an independent learner.
Emerging English Language Support
Students may engage in self-explanation in english or their native tongue. The potential difference in effect has not been empirically investigated yet. Repeated practice in self-explanation of a particular topic may yield greater fluency in presenting their knowledge on the topic.
Students with Disabilities Support
Learning disabilities may reduce a student’s self-efficacy to learn new concepts. It is plausible that intentional practice of self-explanation may help make content more meaningful and positively influence motivation. Note: this strategy has not been empirically investigated with students with learning disabilities.
Subjects
All
Why It Works
Self-explanation requires students to retrieve known information and elaborate on details. Self-explanation may be open-ended or guided with prompts (or even fill-in-blank style questions). A meta-analysis of 69 comparisons of students who learned with or without self-explanation found a moderate to large effect on learning for learners across age groups and subjects, including computer science (REFM1). Previous research suggests that open ended self-explanation prompts could help students improve their source code comprehension skills and learn complex programming concepts (REF7). Particularly, self-explanation combined with worked examples can positively influence on student motivation and student performance on well-structured problems.(REF8). Another study focused on using self-explanation with 11 year old students either standalone or along with sketching with the goal of improving science suggests a positive effect when students used only the self-explanation strategy rather than combining strategies (REF9). While the exact reason for this difference is unknown, it is hypothesized to be related to students’ prior topic knowledge and familiarity with sketching as a learning strategy.