1. Direct Instruction Teacher gives students input. At this point in the process, the teacher's goal is that about 50% of the students will understand the new learning fairly well. Instruction should be brief and lively.

2. Independent Practice Next, each student attempts an assignment based on the direct instruction. It is vital that the teacher allows students to struggle on this assignment. The teacher should only offer minimal assistance to students, and when he does, it should be in the form of hints, not reteaching. If the students are sure their answer(s) are correct because of their interactions with the teacher, the next step in the process will be completely ineffective. The students need to have justification for their answers, and this justification should not be, "Because Mr. Bedley helped me get this answer."

3. Reaching Consensus This step requires every student to interact with one or more students in the room. The students need to compare their answers. If their answers are the same, they don't talk about that problem. If different, then the students must discuss the problem until they reach agreement and one student changes her answer to match the other student. Students should be effectively and carefully coached during this step. Give students language to use during their consensus time, like, "Explain to me how you got that answer," and, "You changed my mind." Also, the teacher should listen in carefully in order to get feedback on his teaching and insight into how students think. The teacher should also coach students into high-involvement, appropriate student interactions. You can watch video footage of students reaching consensus here.

4. Reteaching This final step should happen concurrently with and as a natural response to step 3. As you notice a widespread misunderstanding in your classroom on a certain point, stop the student discussion and bring them together for a brief reteach session. This reteach may be in the form of repeating instruction, offering a hint or two, and/or trying a different approach to gaining student understanding. Again, don't try to get 100% of the students to master the point of confusion; you are just aiming for about 50%. These 50% will teach the other students as a natural result of the reaching consensus discussion.

If these steps seem unclear, I encourage you to watch some videos of the strategy in action. A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth a million!