Do we always need ‘I do, we do, you do’?

Retaining flexibility with this popular modelling process could make learning more meaningful for your students, says Nathan Burns.

Have you trained recently, or have you worked with a trainee teacher?

 If you answered ‘Yes’ to either of those questions, you will almost certainly have come across the idea of ‘I do, we do, you do’. And for good reason, too! It is a really strong modelling process. But… is it always the best way to model to our students?

The purpose

The idea of ‘I do, we do, you do’ is to provide clear, structured modelling with a gradual release of responsibility. The ‘I do’ places the spotlight on the teacher – the expert in the room – to model the steps, stages or deeper thinking needed for a particular task. The ‘we do’ begins to draw students in, providing an opportunity to assess how well they have understood the model, while supporting them to tackle something similar but subtly different. Then comes the ‘you do’ with the onus moving to the students. They can utilise the model they have just seen and contributed to, but now they need to do the work independently.

Often this can act as a formative assessment – perhaps on mini whiteboards or through a multiple-choice question – before we release students into a longer period of deliberate practice.

Rethinking the sequence

I’m fortunate to watch a lot of lessons across a range of subjects and phases. And ‘I do, we do, you do’ is used consistently – sometimes almost religiously – by trainee teachers. It is what they have been shown, it makes sense, and it provides a really helpful structure. However, I would argue that there isn’t always a need for the ‘we do’ interlude.

Very often, where something new is being modelled but is only subtly different from something students have already learned, they can go straight from witnessing a model to having a quick opportunity to show whether they can do it independently. They see the model, perhaps ask a question or two, and then complete a carefully chosen ‘you do’ assessment.

Take adding and subtracting fractions. Imagine students have learned to add fractions with a common denominator. They have experienced an ‘I do’, a ‘we do’ and a ‘you do’, completed some deliberate practice, and received feedback and correction. You then move on to subtracting fractions where the denominators are already equivalent.

Do we really need another full ‘I do, we do, you do’ sequence?

Perhaps not. Show them what is different. Model it really crisply. Talk through that difference. Then see whether they can do it on their mini whiteboards or answer a carefully selected multiple-choice question.

If the lesson has been broken down into coherent, sensible small steps, the new model may not actually be all that different from what students have just been doing. In those circumstances, an additional ‘we do’ can become redundant. Worse, we risk losing students through unnecessary repetition or eliciting half-hearted responses that add very little to our assessment of what they understand.

Retaining flexibility in the formula

This isn’t to say that ‘I do, we do, you do’ doesn’t work. It does – and the majority of the time all three stages will be incredibly useful. The point is that each stage has a purpose, and sometimes that particular purpose isn’t needed. In fact, occasionally the ‘I do’ might be the redundant bit. If students have just been highly successful with a previous task and the next step is a very small change, perhaps a ‘we do’ is the most sensible place to begin. See what they can already do. If students struggle, move back to an ‘I do’. If they don’t, move forwards.

That is where some of the art of teaching comes in. The ‘I do’ gives us the opportunity to demonstrate our expertise and make thinking visible. The ‘we do’ begins to hand over responsibility and allows us to probe understanding. The ‘you do’ gives us an opportunity to assess what individual students can actually do independently.

All three matter. But that doesn’t mean all three have to appear, in exactly that order, every single time.

Using it wisely

‘I do, we do, you do’ is an incredibly strong modelling process. There is a reason why it is so popular in classrooms and schools and why it is embedded across teacher-training programmes and resources.

However, it is important that we understand the individual components of it – and understand that the process can be altered and manipulated to suit the context and the content that we are trying to teach and develop in our learners.