Chapter 2: The Art & Science of Teaching
Summary:
After identifying key learning goals, the teacher must then figure out the activities or network of activities—what Marzano calls critical input experiences—students need to achieve those goals. Marzano suggests the general framework of the following:
previewing; division of students into groups; chunking information in ways that require students to describe, discuss, and make predictions; asking inferential questions; recording information in various forms of notes; and reflecting on the learning.
Stuck in My Head: The Power of Narrative
Figure 2.1 on page 32 says it all, doesn't it?
|
Type of Experience |
Percent of Information Recalled One Year After Completion of Unit |
|---|---|
|
Visual Instruction |
77 |
|
Dramatic Instruction |
57 |
|
Verbal Instruction |
53 |
|
Source: Data from Nuthall, 1999; Nuthall & Alton-Lee, 1995. | |
I've got a thing for narrative as an English teacher, of course, and so this tidbit isn’t enough for me. Check out Daniel Willingham's column on the neuroscience behind the power of narrative. I give this link to almost everyone I talk to eventually—no kidding. I'm also kicking around researching something along these lines for a doctorate someday.
Playing It Out:
I'd like to focus here on a central concept of the chapter: group work.
I'll start out by stating that I work with teachers on a core team (English/Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science). Two years ago, our math teacher, Ms. B., came to us with an idea for incorporating a protocol for group work into all of our classes, something "transparent" into which we could pour any content we wanted. She gave us a rubric to look at, we tweaked it, and we made a goofy video modeling good (and bad) group work. Our use of a consistent format, taught to all our kids at once in a huge group meeting in October, has paid back in spades in the classroom: all I have to do now is hand the kids the rubric, smile when they groan good-naturedly, "Yeah, this is what Ms. B. used too this week!"—and off we go.
Now, I am extremely lucky to work with three other colleagues who are enthusiastic and supportive of one another in the extreme, as well as in a district that supports teaming. But even if you're in a different situation, group work can still hold tremendous benefit for you, as long as (and here's the important part) you put in the time to explicitly teach kids group work procedures and expectations: 1-3 periods' worth of pure practice, treating it as a procedural learning goal in and of itself.
It's going to feel wasted at first; I won't lie to you. It's not chugging through curriculum or producing work to be assessed. But how it pays off will be evident shortly, when after six weeks of using the same protocol you say, "All right, chickies—time for some group work!" and before you have turned back to the board, the kids have assigned themselves their work roles and are waiting for the next step. Sweet stuff.
An aspect of group work with which I still struggle, however, is how to get the kids to communicate with genuine civility with one another. Hand-raising is a solid start in early grades, I think, that outlives its usefulness by middle school. Not only is it easily manipulated by any bright verbose tween, but it also lets every listener off the hook completely. I need something more. At the moment I insist on a host of expectations beyond the usual hand-raising—to the point of politely stopping a speaking child until I feel she has enough eye contact from her audience, for example—but this too often feels police-y and forced.
I had the pleasure last year of spending a day in the classroom of the 2004 New York State Teacher of the Year, Lynn Gatto. I was delighted with the generous give-and-take of her kids. She shared with me that much like the protocol for group work, she also spent a chunk of time in the beginning of the year teaching the kids explicit procedures for productive dialogue (sentence tags, listening for pauses, apologizing for interrupting, and so on). I’ve realized that for the kind of synergistic, critical dialogue I want going on around great themes of reading and writing, I'm going to have to do the same thing. Summer curriculum work, here I come . . .
Take Away This:
I've included a one-page lesson plan (PDF) I'm playing with, based on the principles in Marzano's book. You'll see where Chapter Two crops up (mainly on the upper half of the page). You'll also see, though, where I have placed two important tools from Chapter Two—inferential questioning and student reflection—under the heading of "Daily."
Marzano doesn't talk a lot (if at all) in terms of "periods' or “days". I appreciate this on the one hand, because it indicates that his focus—as it should be—is on a more complex entity than that of my little 56-minute E/LA box. On the other hand, for better or worse, one of my major challenges is to squeeze the utmost out of my students' brains for exactly those 56 minutes. Although suggestions for teacher time management are legion, Marzano has little to say on actual research that pertains to this highly touted aspect of effective pedagogy, and I wish there were more of it in the book.
At any rate. As a result, I shifted these two things down to a "daily" heading, because I found that they work well as a beginning activity (questioning) and an end point (reflection) to our work for the day, no matter what we end up doing in the middle.
The other information on the page corresponds to suggestions in later chapters, which I'll explain in more detail in forthcoming posts.
This is a major work in progress. Copy, distribute, critique, tweak (heck, I might change things myself between now and the next post!) . . . and most importantly, let me know any questions or thoughts by leaving a comment.
Dina Strasser is a middle school English/Language Arts teacher in upstate New York and blogs at The Line. Read her Chapter 1 post in this chapter-by-chapter series on Marzano's Art & Science of Teaching, here.
