Robert C DiGiulio's book reinforces the essential skills of teaching that lie outside the exclusively direct-instruction, skills-based methods. Though he does discuss the importance of skills-based methods, his true focus in this work is on the teaching behaviours that research has shown matters most.

The book includes self-assessment checklist similar to those the author employed in his successful Positive Classroom Management, which focus on timesaving by distilling a teacher's workload down to the critical, most effective approaches to classroom instruction.

The book also employs an 8-step framework to define good teaching skills (Preparation, Attention, Clarity, Feedback, Monitoring, Questioning, Summarizing, and Reflection).