ASCD Inservice

Let Me Entertain You?

As I head back to school in a brief two weeks, Art & Science of Teaching Chapter 5 ("What Will I Do To Engage Students?") falls open and asks me to consider the basic question: How can I get students hooked on what's going on in my classroom? Marzano suggests some time-honored traditions backed up by research: using games, inconsequential competition, physical movement, pacing with a logical pattern that kids understand, providing unusual information, allowing kids to discuss themselves, and the kicker for me: teacher enthusiasm.

Stuck in My Head:

Marzano lays it out in the very first few sentences of the chapter. Engagement is "capturing students' attention in a way that enhances their knowledge of academic content"—and this becomes both the gold standard and the big prickly burr in my side for the entire conversation. It sent me scurrying back to a lively conversation I had last year with educator bloggers dy/dan and TMAO on content versus delivery:

Dy/dan: "Engaging a classroom on a daily basis requires more than just some superficial adjustment to classroom form. You've gotta bring great, diverse content daily and, unfortunately, there exists no tool, no shortcut, nothing else to do the job but the blunt application of profound creativity in the direction of challenging content standards."

TMAO: "[but] a lot of the time my content ain't that great. I'm teaching 14-year-olds short vowel sounds. That content sucks. But I can change the form to make it engaging, change the product so you don't feel like you're dumb when you're 14 and still spitting out short-e, and so on."

Dina: "If I scan a page of a vocabulary workbook into the computer, convert it to PDF, and add digital fill in the blanks, my kids may be "motivated" to work on it—but it's still the same damn workbook that has no basis in effective teaching practice, flexible problem solving, or language acquisition research."

My point: games, TPR techniques, unusual responses and so on are indeed useful for creating engagement, and especially useful when you need to teach thrilling content like "short e" vowel sounds. But they never, ever, take the place of finding and creating relevance. Relevance self-generates the student engagement we seek.

Mailbag: Media Specialist as Coteacher

We love feedback, especially the kind we can learn from. A recent issue of the e-newsletter ASCD Express on the theme "The Transformational Media Center," prompted this response from Library Media Specialist Ava Biffer of Nathan Hale-Ray Middle School in Moodus, Conn.:

I'm delighted to see the articles on librarianship in today's schools. You provide excellent information which will assist my effort to constantly evaluate and improve my program.

I'm disappointed, however, in the "well-crafted" assessment document (referenced in the last bullet point of this article). It is absolutely true that the evaluative documents most of us have in place are geared toward a teacher in a traditional classroom, not a library. However, the document you cite would not meet the standards in my state.

We are moving beyond the concept of having a library curriculum and teaching lessons on discrete skills. Rather than the old methodology of teacher librarians teaching stand-alone lessons, we are embracing the concepts of co-teaching, integration, and cooperation--precisely the instruction addressed by the other portions of this ASCD Express issue. The Connecticut Department of Education's Information and Technology Literacy Framework is a document worth sharing with others, as it encompasses the guidelines of both Information Power and the ISTE standards. I would particularly call page four to your attention. It's an excellent explication of the optimum melding of the library with the greater learning community of the school.

Thank you for providing excellent information to discuss in continuing conversations with my principal and at Curriculum Council meetings.
 
How are media specialists and other teachers collaborating at your school?

Got something to share with the ASCD community? Whether it's a response to something we've published or something entirely new, e-mail us and let us know.

Race to the Top Guidelines Announced

In a press conference today, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made clear that if states and school districts want a slice of the $4.3 billion Race to the Top, they need to take four major grant criteria to heart.

Race to the Top applicants must demonstrate they're actively pursuing Duncan's "four assurances":

• Increase teacher effectiveness and address inequities in the distribution of highly qualified teachers.
• Establish and use preK-through-college and career data systems to track progress and foster continuous improvement.
• Make progress toward rigorous college- and career-ready standards and quality assessments.
• Support targeted, intensive support and effective interventions to turn around schools identified for corrective action and restructuring.   

To make these points clearer, Duncan brought out a group of speakers who laid the groundwork for the model Duncan wants schools to follow.

Hypotheses: They're Not Just for Science Anymore

Are you saying to yourself, "What on earth does a hypothesis have to do with English?" Or perhaps, "Hypotheses? You're kidding me. I need my kids to know the causes of the Civil War first." Read on, colleagues. Marzano [Chapter Four, Art & Science of Teaching] may surprise you. 

Summary:

You've set learning goals with your kids, presented the related knowledge, and worked with that knowledge. Hypothesis-generating and testing are the next essential step. There are four types of this kind of higher level work: experimental inquiry, problem solving, decision making, and investigation.

Stuck in My Head:

There's an innocent statement on the top of page 97 that goes like this: "Of course, students will be better able to address these questions if they have had some previous experience with experimental inquiry, problem-solving, decision-making, and investigation tasks designed by the teacher." My response, unfair as it is, goes like this: "And where is this going to happen, Dr. Marzano? Atlantis?"

It's not Dr. Marzano's job in this book to deconstruct school systems, but simply to suggest good teaching. I get that. Yet of all the chapters I have read so far, this is the one that strikes me as the most important—and the most difficult to implement. Why? Because aside from some very limited and teacher-directed applications in the sciences, hardly anyone teaches like this. Despite all our buzzwords like "differentiation", "higher-level thinking," and "student-centered learning," in practice, the majority of our educational culture is still crawling at a painfully slow pace away from the "banking" model of school: kids heads are empty, and we need to fill them.

The American Idol* of Education

Starting teacher salaries ($125,000! with $25,000 in potential bonuses!!) made headlines in yesterday's NYT article on NYC charter school The Equity Project (TEP), set to open in the Washington Heights neigborhood this September. 

TEP's investment in really excellent teachers (not class size, not a great principal, not genius computers from outer space) as the decider of a school's success raises questions like, what kind of teacher can you get if you pay them really well, and fundamentally, what makes a great teacher?

My fave line about lessons learned from the nationwide search for TEP's elite staff is that "a golden résumé and a well-run classroom are two different things." The tipping point in classroom visits for TEP teaching candidates? Respect from students, high levels of student engagement, contagious enthusiasm for content, and the ability to redirect or intercept potential disruptions.

After the jump, the résumé qualifications that'll get you in the gate at TEP.

*We prefer old-school Star Search.

TEP's investment in really excellent teachers (not class size, not a great principal, not genius computers from outer space) as the decider of a school's success raises questions like, what kind of teacher can you get if you pay them really well, and fundamentally, what makes a great teacher?

My fave line about lessons learned from the nationwide search for TEP's elite staff is that "a golden résumé and a well-run classroom are two different things." The tipping point in classroom visits for TEP teaching candidates? Respect from students, high levels of student engagement, contagious enthusiasm for content, and the ability to redirect or intercept potential disruptions.

After the jump, the résumé qualifications that'll get you in the gate at TEP.

*We prefer old-school Star Search.

Fifty Instead of a Zero Misses the Point

Post submitted by Cathy Vatterott, author of the upcoming ASCD book Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs.

A recent Houston Chronicle article describes an effort by the Houston Independent School District to make grading more fair by replacing zeros for incomplete or missing assignments with 50s. I think the goal is commendable—to prevent struggling students from giving up—but I also think the remedy is a band-aid approach for outdated and unfair grading practices.

Zeros only have power because we average grades—then they become super zeros with the power to turn an A student into a C student with only a few missing assignments. Why do students get zeros on homework? Because we allow students not to complete work. Zeros are an easy way out—simply label students lazy for not completing homework (without trying to figure out why), and the teacher is absolved of all responsibility. Zeros punish the vice of laziness, but is laziness the reason most students don't complete assignments, especially homework? I don't think so.

Parental Help with Goals Gets the Grades

In a new meta-analysis on parental involvement, researchers found the highest positive effect on student achievement among middle schoolers whose parents engaged them in goal setting that valued education as integral to future successes.

Though middle school is often marked by declining interest in academics in favor of social pursuits, it's also the time when adolescents begin to internalize personal goals. Parental guidance on goal setting and learning or studying strategies tied to achieving those goals goes a long way for students at this age. 

Parental involvement with homework had less of a clear connection to academic gains--some students found parents helpful, while others found their parents' help confusing or over-bearing.  

Chapter 9 of the new ASCD book, Changing the Way You Teach, Improving the Way Students Learn (Martin-Kniep, Picone-Zocchia) gets into goal setting and planning as part of growing strategic learners. Here's an excerpt:

Practice, Practice, Practice (Or: Homework, Homework, Homework?)

Hang onto your hats, folks. If you’re mired in the homework/no homework debate, read on for some very interesting commentary from Dr. Marzano in Chapter Three of The Art & Science of Teaching.

Summary

It is essential for students to not merely be exposed to new knowledge, but actively and authentically work with the knowledge. Not every kind of work fits every kind of knowledge, however.

When teaching procedural skills (how to accomplish something step by step), you also need to allow students to practice those skills. This practice should be frequent and simple at first, giving way to more complex activities. Importantly, students should reflect consistently on their own use of the procedures and come to an understanding that works for them individually: changing, adding, or deleting steps as necessary.

When teaching declarative knowledge (concepts or ideas), you need to create activities that allow students to review and revise. By making active corrections, connections, and reflections, students incorporate their knowledge into their long-term memories, like pressing pieces of pottery into a mosaic. There are seven pages at the end of this chapter that give some solid practical tools for working with declarative knowledge in class.

Stuck in My Head

By far the most interesting writing in this chapter to me is Marzano’s position on—you guessed it—homework. And serendipity strikes! As I write, commenters are raging over this Inservice post on "The Homework Lady," Cathy Vatterott.(Full disclosure: I attended Homework Lady’s workshop at ASCD's 2008 Annual Conference and loved it.)

For those of you out there spurning Homework Lady's seemingly anti-homework policies, it's worth mentioning here that Marzano's own homework recommendations echo Vatterott’s nearly point for point. See below for a list.

Get Your Students to Read During the Summer

James Kim and Thomas White of Harvard University conducted an experiment to see if summer reading helps improve test scores and if it can be a factor in closing the achievement gap between minorities and white students. The researchers think that the lull in academic activity in the summer causes a decline in literacy skills. 

Kim and White took a group of children and divided them into four different groups to conduct the experiment. Every student was tested before and after the experiment on their reading ability. The groups were:

The “Homework Lady” Sounds Off

Cathy Vatterott, author of the upcoming ASCD book Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs, joined the debate surrounding Marshall County, W.Va., where the school system is using her research to consider ending the district policy of penalizing students for incomplete homework.

In a Charleston Daily Mail article and an interview on MetroNews Talkline radio yesterday, Vatterott stresses that traditional homework practices are usually idealized and overrated. She does not believe in eliminating homework; however, Vatterott thinks teachers should ensure fewer take-home assignments and more targeted learning tasks: “When homework is really boring and painful and when kids don’t understand what they’re doing, it really impacts their view of learning,” said Vatterott.

Last month, The Juggle, a parent-focused Wall Street Journal blog, tackled kids “drowning in homework.” Vatterott acknowledges not only the importance of parents’ roles, but also the significance of socioeconomic status on students’ home environments. She advocates that “homework that cannot be done without help is not good homework.” In the end, Vatterott wants students to be responsible for their own learning, rather than the grade on their homework.

How have you handled “My dog ate my homework!”? What is your district doing to make homework more effective for all students?

 

Cathy Vatterott is a university professor and a former middle school teacher and principal. You can contact her at www.homeworklady.com. Her book Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs will be published in July 2009.

In Math, Concepts Are King

New research out of Vanderbilt University claims teaching the basic concepts at work in a math problem is more useful than teaching the procedures for solving a math problem. The study complements a growing body of research that supports teaching math concepts along with problem solving.

The key phrase here is "more useful"—no one seems to argue teaching concepts along with problem-solving procedures. But will the "more useful" mean instruction could swing wildly toward concept teaching exclusively? Or is that just the paranoid rambling of someone far behind on her RSS reading? Speaking of, here's a solipsistic take on some hot math posts of yesterblog—with a nod to the importance of teaching concepts:

• Research showing gestures can play a major role in teaching math concepts.
• Oregon's Lebanon Community Schools District getting good results by teaching algebra concepts in the early grades.
• From the EL archives, "How Mathematics Counts" advocates for contextualizing math concepts and communicating their application across content areas.
• And a caveat that math concepts must be taught in relation to real-world applications.

Help a Principal Get Creative with Scheduling

For the last few years, my school has experimented with a rotating seven-period schedule. (If today is periods 1-2-3-4-5, then tomorrow is periods 6-7-1-2-3 and so on . . . you get the point).

Teachers, students, and parents love the schedule. The idea of classes meeting at different times of the day has been embraced as the biggest plus—gone is the dreaded last period of the day (every day) class that we have all experienced.

For me, it's a bit of a nightmare because it makes hiring part-time teachers nearly impossible, and if I want to send 8th graders to the local high school in the morning to take a course too advanced to be taught in my building (i.e., I have four students ready for Algebra 2), it can be hard to work it into this rotating schedule.

Still, the benefits have outweighed the costs thus far, so we're sticking with it and dealing with the problems. Are any of you doing anything creative or different with your master schedule? I'd love to hear some fresh ideas. Remember that what is old hat for you may be completely foreign to me, so please just throw out some ideas that you know have worked for kids.

(Submitted by 2009 Outstanding Young Educator Marc Cohen, principal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Germantown, Md.)

Struggling Teachers: Boot or Retrain?

In the April issue of Education Update, the article "Supporting Struggling Teachers" asks whether struggling teachers should get the boot or be retrained. Robyn Jackson, author of Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principles of Great Teaching, says, "Teachers don't get have the option of getting rid of 'bad' kids, so why is our only solution to get rid of 'bad' teachers?" Some education experts and administrators say professional development, coaching, and mentoring can give underperforming teachers the tools they need to improve.

What do you think—should they stay, or should they go? How can you help teachers who struggle in the classroom?

[Bonus: Check out this new report (PDF) from the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future on how best to retain inexperienced new teachers with learning teams.]

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?

Effects of Different Types of Learning Experiences in Nuthall's Research

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.

MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Past, Present, and Future

Also last Wednesday, we went to the release of the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Past, Present, and Future. On hand were:

• Charles Kolb, President of the Committee for Economic Development
• Sibyl Jacobsen, MetLife
• Mary M. Brabeck, Dean of the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
• Humphrey Taylor, Chairman of the Harris Poll
• Lee Allen, 30-year veteran of teaching
• Kheaton Scott, Junior, Howard University School of Education.

MetLife has been doing these surveys for the past 25 years. This year, they compared some of their responses to feedback they got 25 years ago to see what had changed. Many of the findings were pretty positive:

Marzano: "I Can Think of No Strategy Every Teacher Should Use"

This post is Bob Marzano's response to our teacher-blogger Dina Strasser's analysis of Chapter One of Marzano's The Art and Science of Teaching.

My overarching comment is that the title "art and science of teaching" is meant to convey the message that research only gets you so far and then teachers' reasoned adaptations must take over. All research is equivocal at least to some extent, and its application to new situations must be discussed and debated.

Regarding the issue of rewards, that's a tough one. People seem to be lined up strongly on one side or the other of the issue. On page 16 of the book, I said, "It is safe to say, however, that when used appropriately verbal rewards and perhaps also tangible rewards can positively affect student achievement," which I believe is a fair and accurate interpretation of the research. My intent wasn't to say that all teachers should use rewards. However, it was to say that it's not prudent to ban them either. I included the long quote by Deci, Ryan, and Koestner, however, to allow people to read the concerns of the major researchers in the field.

On the issue of setting goals and tracking student progress, I think the research is less equivocal. I find it hard to make a case that it's not a practice that all teachers should consider. We have done quite a few experimental/control studies on this practice and have received very good results. These studies will be posted on a new Web site going up in a few weeks; I'll provide a link soon.

Chapter One: The Art and Science of Teaching

As I sit down to write this first substantive post, I have to admit I'm feeling a little trepidation . . . as if I'm having a peer observation in all of my classes! But I am also enjoying the challenge of being asked to articulate my practice decisions to a knowledgeable audience.

Chapter Summary

Chapter One focuses on the bedrock of teaching: what do kids need to learn, and how do you know they've learned it? Marzano suggests articulating one or two learning goals—not activities—per unit of study; writing a scale or rubric for assessing whether the goals have been achieved; having kids share in the process of forming goals; formally tracking student progress on those goals; and acknowledging student success in that progress.

I'll also make an overarching remark here that for the practitioner who is short on time, essential reading is the Action Steps provided at the end of each chapter (Chapter One's Steps is on page 17). Try reading these first, and then going backwards in the chapter to pinpoint the research discussions for the action steps that interest you—or even disappoint you.

Why? I say this not as a Marzanoetic, but rather because I have rarely found a book that puts its supporting research front and center for you to evaluate, instead of burying it in footnotes for you to sift through bemusedly. (And believe me, I'm a geek. I've done this.) This is the great benefit of A&S. Use it. Because in the end, it doesn't matter whether you agree with its conclusions or not, so long as you can do so well.      

What Makes a Great Teacher?

ASCD author Robyn Jackson chatted with Teacher Magazine's online editor Elizabeth Rich last Friday about the practical magic behind great teaching. Jackson discussed her new ASCD book, Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principles of Great Teaching, and answered questions from readers about topics such as performance pay, teacher burnout, and testing.

"I would love to see the way that we develop teachers to focus more on what it means to teach and how students learn and the principles of effective instruction, rather than just the methods . . . I think testing has taken on too great a focus not just in education schools, but in our national conversation about education. It has become such a focus that we often forget about the human side of education and just look at the numbers."

Do you know what makes a great teacher? Join the discussion!

Intro to a Teacher's Take on The Art & Science of Teaching

This post is teacher and blogger Dina Strasser's first in a series on Marzano's The Art and Science of Teaching. Read Marzano's response here.

Robert Marzano is a guru, as I'm sure most of the readership knows. His name is consistently the only one I can throw out at educator-type cocktail parties and have teachers from all walks of the profession say, "Oh, yeah, HIM." So you can imagine my delight and sense of honor at being asked to chronicle my ongoing tango with his latest book, The Art and Science of Teaching (2007). 

I first encountered Dr. Marzano directly at his 2008 ASCD Annual Conference in New Orleans keynote. I fell for his presence; not only because he backs up every single assertion he makes with gobs of quantitative research, but because he is as unsparingly and honestly critical of his own teaching as of anyone else's; indeed A & S is essentially a revisiting (and occasional revision) of the principles he discusses in his earlier work Classroom Instruction That Works (2001). This is not something that a teacher may necessarily know from reading A & S, but it may be the most important thing to know about it, ironically. Dr. Marzano is not some education "expert" eating sugar plums in the ivory tower. I trust him. You should too.

The other assertion I need to make right off the bat is about where I am professionally myself: in my tenth year of teaching, but only my second in a new subject area (middle school English/Language Arts). I tell you this because I feel it encapsulates the weird, but useful, universe in which I live at the moment. I am both experienced and green; understanding keenly what I need to do to be an effective educator, and still struggling mightily to do it. In other words, if you're a teacher, I am probably just like you in one way or another. I hope you can trust me as well.