Marzano Unpacks the Art & Science of Teaching

"When I started teaching, I just thought I needed to race through the content."

"We need a protocol in the classroom; when you present content to students, you need to do certain things," Robert Marzano asserted this morning at his session on the Art and Science of Teaching. "[It's] not a lock-step routine, but a macrostrategy that guides teaching," he added. Marzano's new book, The Art & Science of Teaching, presents a research-based protocol for getting students to deeply interact with new knowledge.

Over the course of his Friday morning Teaching & Learning Conference session, Marzano touched on the finer points of what he called a new approach to lesson design, guided by nine key questions--like "What will I do to communicate high expectations for all students?"--and the action steps required to positively answer these questions.

Whether you use his framework or develop your own, Marzano strongly believes "every school or district should have its own model of instruction--i.e., good teaching should look like this. The art part is the specifics, what it’ll look like at 1:00 in the afternoon with one student in Algebra; that's up to the individual teacher."

Do you agree with Marzano that schools need to develop their own instructional models? Does your school do this already?

Listen to the ASCD Talks with an Author interview with Robert Marzano, and learn more about The Art & Science of Teaching.

Comments

[Dawn Russert]

How is this book being used in other schools?

[Laura Vaden]

We are doing a book study and the book we are studying is the Art & Science of Teaching. Our Special Area teachers are reading the book and then each one of us takes a chapter of the book and presents it to the whole special area group once a month. We discuss how each chapter is applicable to our specific programs and how we use (or can use) the strategies, etc.

Our whole school system is using Marzano's books.

[DJ West]

It seems clear that teachers need a more direct approach to actual teaching in the classroom and Marzano's research has been key in helping this happen, but it will take strong leadership on the part of adminstrations and teachers.

The key to this is the art part. Districts are very quick to implement: Step one, step two step three without ever really changing what goes on in the classroom. Teachers need to be developed like professionals in any other career and need to be given the freedom to use the model along with their own personal strengths.

[Ramon M. Dawkins]

In order for classroom intruction to really work our teachers respect the fidelity of implementation. We teach prescriptively, noticing where the children are experiencing difficulties as we proceed. The staff uses a common vocabulary and there is consisistent exposure to high yeild strategies and higher order questioning including targeting instruction in small group settings as well. The children are required to use complete sentences and accurate vocabulary in responding. In short, we want to demonstrate through our teaching and through the response of the children that high expectations are evident in everything we do. The staff gets it and so do the children. I posted the leadership portion of all of this on my web page at http://homepage.mac.com/ramonmdawkins/

[Dean]

The science of teaching is the defined practices and strategies that are effective. Teachers should have a protocal that would be the basis for lesson development (crafting the lesson). The art of teaching is the teaching personality for the delivery of the crafted lesson. Also, there should be a common vocabulary for the elements of a well crafted lesson and the strategies for presentation. I agree with the macrostrategy to guide teaching but I don' think each school or district should develop their own instructional madel. The district or school should develop focus on the rigor of the current curriculum.

[Kathy Rushe]

As a school principal, I opened a new school 7 years ago with a strategy (research-based) for literacy instruction. Each year new staff are trained throughout the first semester to assure that the instructional structure is consistent and pervasive. These efforts result is high levels of achievement on state assessments.

[Bonnie Ferrell]

The art and science of teaching are not mutually exclusive, because of the government standards, the board of education curriculum the schools must adhere too and the science of implementing the enormous amount of regulations into the infrastructure of the education system.
The standards and the regulations that are mandated by the board of education and the government is cemented into the system, in terms of being non negotiable to the staff, employee and the parents. The science of introducing new regulations coupled with old government standards are a remarkable task even for an experience, certified teacher. The No Child Left behind (NCLB) Act raises the bar (and most likely the spending it'll take to clear the bar) in terms of students' required academic performance. Not to mention nudging the focus of K-12 education from teaching kids how to learn to teaching them the facts necessary to pass standardized exams.
The art of empowering the students to become more of a decision maker, or to become more engage in the planning of his or her academic future is critical to their personal and professional success post K-12. As educators it is important to remember the infrastructure of the educational system is structured around the students and it is our job to empower the students.