“Well-designed explicit instruction, by contrast, is specifically structured to ensure that students experience success, build accurate knowledge, and develop the confidence that comes from knowing that effort leads to results. It does not produce the conditions for learned helplessness. It prevents them.” 100%. Explicit instruction has produced the most consistently motivated and effortful learning I’ve ever seen in my teaching. Why? Because students see how their effort leads to success, which motivates them to keep putting in effort and experience even more success in learning. Instead of developing learned helplessness, they develop something far more powerful—and perhaps one of the most important mindsets we can cultivate in students: self-efficacy.