In
2001, a book called, “Classroom Instruction that Works” by Robert Marzano,
Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock was published. In 2012, a second edition of the book written
by Ceri B. Dean, Elizabeth Ross Hubbell, Howard Pitler, and BJ Stone was
published. The second edition builds
upon the work done in the fist book. It
incorporates findings from a study that clarifies the concepts related to each
of the nine categories identified in the first edition and it uses an analysis
of the literature published since the first edition to provide an updated
estimate of each strategy’s effect on student achievement (Classroom
Instruction that Works 2nd edition p. xiii). The nine categories include:
·
Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
·
Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
·
Cooperative Learning
·
Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers
·
Nonlinguistic Representations
·
Summarizing and Note Taking
·
Assigning Homework and Providing Practice
·
Identifying Similarities and Differences
·
Generating and Testing Hypothesis
The book is organized into three parts;
in which each of the nine categories are divided into chapters with a final
chapter devoted to Instructional Planning Using the Nine Categories. Each chapter provides descriptions, examples,
and strategies to help teachers use these practices in their own classrooms.
In
the chapter devoted to setting objectives and providing feedback it explains
that the two concepts work hand in hand.
“Teachers need to identify success criteria for learning objectives so
students know when they have achieved those objectives. Similarly, feedback should be provided for
tasks that are related to the learning objectives; this way students understand
the purpose of the work they are asked to do, build a coherent understanding of
a content domain, and develop high levels of skill in a specific domain (p.
3).” The four recommendations given for
setting objectives in the classroom are: 1.) Set learning objectives that are
specific but not restrictive, 2.) Communicate
the learning objectives to students and parents, 3.) Connect the learning objectives to previous
and future learning 4.) Engage students in personal learning objectives. They
also have four recommendations regarding feedback. They are: 1.)
Provide feedback that addresses what is correct and elaborates on what
students need to do next, 2.) Provide feedback appropriately in time to meet
the students’ needs 3.) Provide feedback that is criterion referenced 4.)
Engage students in the feedback process.
Throughout the chapter they give sample situations in which these
processes are used and also examples of appropriate learning objectives and
feedback.
Reinforcing
Effort and Providing Recognition explains the importance of giving students
recognition for their accomplishments and showing them the relationship between
effort and achievement. The three
recommendations made for reinforcing effort are: 1.) Teach students about the relationship between
effort and achievement. 2.) Provide students
with explicit guidance about exactly what it means to expend effort. 3.) Ask students to keep track of their
effort and achievement. With regards to
the third recommendation, a sample of an effort rubric for test preparation is
provided to show students the correlation between their effort and performance
on tests. There are also three
recommendations that are made for providing recognition. They are:
1) Promote a mastery-goal orientation.
2.) Provide praise that is specific and aligned with expected
performance and behaviors. 3.) Use
concrete symbols of recognition. It also
goes on to explain that too much praise could be negative, so it should be used
intentionally, yet sparingly.
Cooperative
Learning is another area of focus in the book.
According to Drs. David Johnson and Roger Johnson (1999) there are five
elements to define cooperative learning:
positive interdependence, face-to-face promotive interaction, individual
and group accountability, interpersonal and small-group skills and group
processing (p.35-36). They believe that
the most essential are positive interdependence and individual
accountability. The three
recommendations for using cooperative learning include: 1.) Include elements of both positive
interdependence and individual accountability.
2.) Keep group sizes small. 3.)
Use cooperative learning consistently and systematically. They believe that to be effective cooperative
learning should be used once a week and they caution not to over use it.
Cues,
Questions, and Advanced Organizers is an important section in the fact that it
shows teachers the specific ways to ask questions to ensure student
learning. Research has shown that 80
percent of teacher interactions with students involve cueing and questioning (p.50). This section offers suggestions of some
specific practices to make the most effective use of cues, questions, and
advance organizers. The suggestions
include 1.) Focus on what is important, 2.) Use explicit clues, 3.) Ask
inferential questions, 4.) Ask analytic questions. With regards to advanced organizers, they
suggest: 1.) Use expository advance organizers, 2.) Use narrative advanced
organizers, 3.) Use skimming as an advance organizer, 4.) Use graphic advance
organizers. Some examples of the advance
organizers are demonstrations, video clips, drawings, graphics, and
skimming.
Nonlinguistic
representations try to encourage students to create, store, and manipulate
information either mentally of with concrete tools or displays (p. 64). Examples
include: creating graphic organizers,
making physical models/manipulatives, generating mental pictures, creating
pictures, illusions, or pictographs, and engaging in kinesthetic activity. It is explained that the elaboration of
knowledge gained by using nonlinguistic representations help students
understand knowledge at a deeper level.
The
strategies of summarizing and note taking facilitate learning by providing
opportunities for students to capture, organize, and reflect on important
facts, concepts, ideas, and processes (p. 78).
Students’ comprehension can be increased through summarizing because
they need to sort, select, and combine information. Similarly, when note taking students must
identify important information. Some
suggestions for summarizing include: 1.)
Teach students the rule-based summarizing strategy, 2.) Use summary
frames, 3.) Engage students in reciprocal teaching. The suggestions given for note taking are:
1.) Give students teacher-prepared notes, 2.)
Teach students a variety of note-taking formats, and 3.) Provide
opportunities for students to revise their notes and use them for review.
Assigning
homework and providing practice is an important category because assigning
homework and proving practice allows students to learn or review content and
skills on their own. There are mixed
results on the research in how effective homework is. As a result, teachers should carefully design
the assignments with the following things in mind 1.) Develop and communicate a
district or school homework policy, 2.) Design
homework assignments that support academic learning and communicate their
purpose, 3.) Provide feedback on assigned homework. When providing practice, teachers should:
1.) Clearly identify and communicate the
purpose of practice activities, 2.) Design
practice sessions that are short, focused and distributed over time, 3.) Provide
feedback on practice sessions.
Another
area of focus is identifying similarities and differences, which is important
because it helps us make senses of the world.
Identifying similarities and differences is the process of comparing
information, sorting concepts into categories, and making connections to
existing knowledge. The recommendations
made for helping students to identify similarities and differences are to: 1.) Teach
students a variety of ways to identify similarities and differences 2.) Guide students as they engage in the process
of identifying similarities and differences, 3.) Provide supporting cues to help students
identify similarities and differences.
Examples include Venn diagrams, comparison matrixes, and creating
metaphors.
The
final area covered in the book is generating and testing hypotheses. This includes the mental processes involved
in asking questions and seeking answers.
It does not only take place in a science classroom. It is a part of other content areas, however
it may be referred to as other names such as predicting, inferring, deducing,
or theorizing (p. 135). In order to
engage students in this process in all content areas the following
recommendations are made: 1.) Engage students in a variety of structured tasks
for generating and testing hypotheses, 2.) Ask students to explain their
hypothesis and their conclusions. These
are important so that students can apply the information that they learn, not
just recall facts.
Overall,
“Classroom Instruction that Works” provides great tips and ideas for teachers
to implement their research based strategies.
Each topic is broken down into its own chapter and provides not only
tips and examples, but also explains why these are “best practices” according
to the research. My school has
implemented the McRel Powerwalk through and has purchased copies of this book
for all teachers and they are proving PLC’s in order to help teachers implement
these strategies.
