Marzano's High Yield Strategies and the Super 7

Did you know that Marzano has done extensive research on 9 instructional strategies that you can use in your classroom that will result in high achievement gains?  Each one of the instructional strategies relate to Marzano's Super 7.  Marzano has identified 7 elements that will have a high impact on the learning that takes place in your classroom.

Here are the 9 instructional strategies and the percent gains they should yield:
1. Identifying similarities and differences (45 percentile gain)
2. Summarizing and note taking (34 percentile gain)
3. Reinforcing effort and providing recognition (29 percentile gain)
4. Homework and practice (28 percentile gain)
5. Non-linguistic representations (27 percentile gain)

6. Cooperative learning (23 percentile gain)

7. Setting objectives and providing feedback (23 percentile gain)

8. Generating and testing hypothesis (23 percentile gain)

9. Questions, cues, and advance organizers (22 percentile gain)

You will notice that several of these instructional strategies relate to a number of Marzano elements.  Marzano research has shown that the following 7 elements from DQ #2,3,4, have the greatest impact on student achievement:
Element #6 Identifying critical information
Element #11 Elaborating on new information
Element #12 Recording and representing knowledge
Element #17 Examining similarities and differences
Element #18 Examining errors in reasoning
Element #20 Revising knowledge
Element #22 Engaging students in cognitively complex tasks involving hypothesis generation and testing

The highlighted elements are included in the Charlotte County Expectations.  Attached you will find a few documents that include what research says about the strategy and how it will look in the classroom.  There are also a few examples included in the document as well. 

Thank you so much for the great response to our Mighty Marzano PLC opportunity.  I was so pleased with the number of teachers who attended and gave their full effort to gain a better understanding of element #7.  I hope that you found it worthwhile.  Based on the information that was provided on the exit tickets, we will continue with our Mighty Marzano PLC. Our next session will focus on Element #18 Examining Errors in Reasoning on February 5^th.    

Processing Information

Active processing results in students' abilities to summarize, make predictions, ask clarifying questions, and discuss chunks of critical content. Processing new information is vital to engaging students in a more rigorous learning. This will help you grow into an innovative and highly skilled teacher who is able to implement, scaffold, and extend instruction to meet all of our students needs.

Students need on going opportunities to actively process new information. You must provide them with some type of processing experience after every chunk of new information they hear, see, or read.

The following teacher behaviors are associated with facilitating the active processing of new information:

• Teaching and modeling various techniques prior to their implmentation
• Planning and providing multiple opportunities for students actively process the information
• Organizing collaborative groups 
• Encourage and Motivate student to persevere through the new information
• Gradually release responsibility to students for their own processing
• Ongoing monitoring for result

Three common mistakes the teacher can make while seeking to become skills with this strategy:

• Does not intentionally plan for enough time that students can actively process the information
• Does not use the power of collaborative groups to assist students with the new information
• Does not gradually release the reins of responsibility for learning to students. 

Here is the main source of evidence that would show you your students are able to process information:

• They can explain or paraphrase after your lesson
• They can volunteer predictions
• They can ask clarifying questions
• They can discuss information by asking and answering questions 
• They can generate conclusionsa
• They can summarize new information
• They can write in response to the new information

There are 6 instructional techniques to facilitate the process of information.

• Using Collaborative Processing
• Using Think Pair Share
• Using Concept Attainment
• Using Jigsaw
• Using Reciprocal Teaching
• Using Scripted Cooperative Dyads

After reading the above, what elements do you think you could hit by using these instructional techniques? I know this is element 10 but it ties into many other elements too. You can use the techniques within DQ2, 3, and 4. 

Here is a link to the book (only some parts) that I pulled the information from:https://www.learningsciences.com/media/catalog/product//p/n/pni_lookinside.pdf

We have a hard copy of the entire book if you would like to borrow it. This will provide you an opportunity to read more about the 6 instructional practices.

Here is a useful video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtmB8uF8KiU

Have a nice week! :) 

Organizing Students to Interact With New Knowledge

At our last PPC meeting, we discussed formulating a plan to provide professional development on the Charlotte County expectations. (Marzano)  We decided that we would offer a few informal afterschool sessions to discuss the expectations.  Several teachers selected element #7 Organizing students to interact with new knowledge as their deliberate practice.  

Organizing students for learning is a powerful instructional strategy that focuses on facilitating small-group discussions in which students use academic vocabulary to talk about content with each other.  This strategy can be formal organization of students or informal conversations with small groups or partners.  This strategy does not encompass whole-class discussions.  While there is a time and place during instruction for teachers to lead whole-class dialogue, this strategy is focused on smaller groups of students interacting with each other rather that the teacher. 

It is important to note that there must be a stated purpose for interaction when you organize students to work together.  Some examples include processing new content, revise thinking, or practice a procedure.  Organizing for learning almost always goes hand and hand with other instructional strategies such as processing new information, practicing skills or processes, examining errors in reasoning, or elaborating on content.  Students are able to interact in two ways: collaboratively and cooperatively. Collaborative learning is interaction in which students share ideas and consider others perspectives as they are learning.  There is low interdependence with this learning interaction.  Their success in completing a task is not immediately ties to their productivity during collaboration.  There should be structures in place to ensure that all students participate and that groups remain focused.  Cooperative learning is interaction to facilitate the accomplishment of a specific end product or goal through students working together.  This type of grouping has higher accountability levels.  There is usually a task or a product that the group is expected to produce.  

Positive interdependence results when students recognize that their success is linked to the success of the members of their group and is an essential prerequisite for effective student interaction.  As you organize your students for learning you should create conditions and set the stage for positive interdependence.  The following teacher behaviors are essential to the effective implementation of organizing for learning:

• Identify critical information (#6)

• Plan meaningful tasks

• Structure intentional interactions

• Organize students into groups

• Establish routines

• Teach and reinforce skills

It is important to avoid the following common mistakes with organizing students for learning. 

• The teacher fails to identify the critical content or information

• The teacher fails to structure purposeful student interaction

• The teacher fails to prepare students to interact in groups

• The teacher fails to stay out of the conversation

Teachers should intentionally monitor their students to make sure they are enhancing their understanding of the critical information during their interactions.  Here are some ways that teachers can monitor the effectiveness of the strategy:

• Students use academic language to talk about content with each other

• Students share perspectives about critical content

• Students know their responsibilities during group work

• Students share the workload equally

• Students use small-group interaction to enhance their learning

While researching information related to this strategy, I am reminded of content that I learned during the Kagan Summer Academy.  I am excited that we will all get to participate in the day 1 training in February.  Please visit the links below for a video and resources related to this Marzano strategy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL8qK0PXuOo

https://graniteschools.instructure.com/courses/1118234/pages/organizing-students-to-interact

Reflecting on Learning

This does not only focus students' attention on the content but also on themselves as learners. This results in higher ordered thinking on their part. 

Some strategies that you may incorporate, but are not limited to:

Reflective journals- Students can respond to reflective questions. The questions prompt the students to reflect on what predictions they made that were correct or incorrect, what information was easy or difficult, how well they understood the material, how well they think they did during the day, what what they think they could have done differently. 

If they state any of the above they should add why, give evidence!

Think logs- students reflect on cognitive skills-classification, inference, decision making, creative thinking, or self-regulation that the lesson focused on.

Exit slips- The student responds to specific reflective questions at the end of the room. Some examples include: What are the main ideas of today's lesson? What do you feel most and least sure about? Do you have specific questions about today's lesson? What aspects of today's lesson did you feel successful with?

Knowledge comparisons- Students compare and contrast their current level of knowledge on a topic of level of competence with a procedure to their previous level. Multiple methods may be used for this one. 

Two-column notes-Students use a two-column note sheet as an extended reflection activity at the end of the lesson. Left students record facts or other information they found interesting, right they record their reactions, questions, and extended ideas related to the facts or information to the left hand side. (This could easily be done in a Thinking Map fomat too)

The focus for this strategy is to help students understand the learning process as one that requires their attention and effort!

When the strategies in this element produce the desired effect, teachers will observe the following behaviors:

Students can describe what they are clear about and what they are confused about.

Students can describe their levels of effort and the relationship of their effort to their learning.

Student can describe what they might do to improve their learning. 

This resource breaks apart the scale:

https://www.kyrene.org/cms/lib/AZ01001083/Centricity/Domain/42/Art%20and%20Science/Enhanced%20Developmental%20Scales/Enhanced_Developmental_Scale_E13.pdf

Here is a great video on this element:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL_GKyh4FrI