Teacher Behaviors Communicate Expectations

Robert Marzano's, The Art and Science of Teaching
Chapter 9: What Will I Do to Communicate High Expectations for All Students?

Summary:

In this second-to-last chapter (wow—in the home stretch, readers!) Marzano summarizes the extensive research on this topic and recommends five action steps that walk the teacher through her expectations of her students, examination of the interactions with those students that result, and corrective actions to take if necessary.

Stuck in My Head:

Marzano's at his wonky best in this chapter; he captures with style and ease a good 40 years of research on teacher affect—well worth a focused read. I also still remember the presentation he gave on this chapter at the 2008 ASCD conference in New Orleans. He told the story of teaching an online course while writing this chapter and, putting himself through the paces, he recommends for teachers in regards to his online students. He was a model of modesty and clear-headedness.

I would wager an ice cream cone, then, that the fictional teacher whom we've been been following anecdotally throughout the book (Mr. Hutchins) is actually Marzano in this chapter. He makes a statement that I have embedded in my head over the past year or two and is worth quoting in its entirety, because—at least for me—it works exactly as he says it does:

"To counteract the potential negative influence of his behaviors, he continually asks himself the following question, particularly when dealing with students for whom he has doubts about their chances for success in class:

If I believed this student was completely capable of learning this content, what would I be doing right now?

This question serves as a trueing mechanism for him . . . he realizes that it matters little whether his thoughts change regarding students, but it matters a great deal whether his behavior changes."

Playing It Out:

If Marzano can do it, so can we.

I put in front of me the roster of my smallest class (12 students) and did a quick survey of my interactions with them (the Informal Observation Form suggested in Figure 9.2 helps, but it's pretty basic. You can do the same thing for yourself on a legal pad). Fifteen minutes tops—I swear. For that tiny chunk of invested time, I found some fascinating patterns.

• It's not the low-expectancy kids that I short on interaction, but the high expectancy ones. I assume that they're "OK" with the majority of the content I teach in class—and 99% of the time, they are. This tells me right off the bat that I'm not differentiating my classroom content enough.

• I'm pretty good on sticking with kids and eliciting deeper answers—what Doug Lemov calls in his recent book the "No Opt Out" technique (described toward the end of Elizabeth Green's NYT Magazine article "Building a Better Teacher").

• I also try very, very hard to call on each student substantially at least once—yes/no questions don't count—during the instructional period. Prefacing my questions with "Let's see . . . can I get someone I haven't heard from yet today for this one?" helps weed out the perpetual conversation dominators in class; and I gently remind interlopers that the question belongs to the student I have asked.

• My biases, apparently, are almost always never about the internal capacities of a student. Instead, I tend to lower my expectations, and behave accordingly, when I know a kid's external circumstances are getting in the way—poverty, abusive parents, or similar issues. I still struggle with this one. Where does compassion step over the line into neglect?

Take Away This:

Good and Brophy's work, cited numerous times in this chapter, apparently is highly regarded among administrators and education professors alike—a quick Google search yielded almost half a million hits on the book Marzano cites, Looking Into Classrooms. Reviewers consistently praise the book's comprehensiveness and constructionist approach—so why hadn't I heard of them before? Turns out, sadly, that this is a classc example of good research staying trapped outside of classrooms. Looking Into Classrooms runs over $100 on Amazon new, $60 or so used. Jeepers crow! And this, according to one reviewer, should be "in every teacher's professional library"? 

For the curious, broke, and time-strapped teacher, instead I recommend the work of Carol S. Dweck, who does fascinating research on communicating expectations to students. She doesn't get a mention in this chapter, but she should. Start here: "The Secret to Raising Smart Kids;" and when you're ready, buy her book, Mindset, for $11. 

Dina Strasser is a middle school English/language arts teacher in upstate New York and blogs at The Line. Read her Chapter 8 post in this chapter-by-chapter series on Marzano's Art & Science of Teaching.