Source: Image of light bulb, Public Domain, http://pixabay.com/en/the-light-bulb-light-bulb-lighting-349400/; Image of grading, public Domain, http://pixabay.com/en/pen-school-notes-grade-memo-162124/
Welcome, I'm Trisha Fyfe. And in today's video lesson, we'll be covering the topic applying standards-based instruction and evaluation theory. As we learn about this topic, we will work toward several learning objectives together, and we'll answer the following questions throughout this video tutorial. How are the various theories and models related to standards-based instruction? And how can these theories and models be applied to units of study?
Let's start with how you can use the work and ideas of Marzano, specifically his nine high-yield instructional strategies? How can you apply this to your units of teaching? We will dive into these instructional strategies and go through each one separately, as well as some examples.
So let's start with the first instructional strategy of, identify similarities and differences. Here, you could have students use charts and graphs, maybe Venn diagrams, any visual aid students can use to help them see the relationships and those similarities and differences. You can use metaphors and analogies with the students. And this also helps them identify what is similar and what is different about a concept.
The second instructional strategy is, summarize and take notes. And here you might think about giving a lesson on proper summarizing skills. Maybe you model some examples of what proper summaries look like so that students have a basis for when they're asked to do it themselves. You can also do things like supply outlines for note-taking when you have tough concepts especially.
The third instructional strategy is, reinforcing effort and provide recognition. And here it's important to tailor rewards for students to make sure that they stay motivated. You can also show connections between hard work and high performance levels. Maybe use some examples of individuals in history that have worked hard and had great things happen for them.
The next instructional strategy is, use homework and practice. Here, differentiating homework for independent levels is important, and making sure that giving homework that's about 10 minutes per grade per night. You can use this as a rule.
Non-linguistic representations is the next strategy. And here you can demonstrate relationships using words, visuals, and symbols. There's some great programs online to help you do this-- things like virtual manipulative programs. You can consider using models when appropriate, maybe physical models so students can use a hands on approach to their learning.
The next strategy is cooperative learning. And here it's important for you to teach the group about what their expectations are when they're in a group and each member's role. So maybe define the roles as a class, and model what that looks like before they even start working cooperatively. Be intentional as a teacher when establishing groups. Make sure that you know who is in each group and why you are putting the groups together that way. It's important to promote collaboration and positive social skills, not only when you're doing group work, but throughout your whole classroom environment and the time that you are together with your students.
The next strategy is, setting objectives and providing feedback. Here it's important for you, as a teacher, to communicate direction and objectives to your students, and set specific goals, and give clear expectations so students know what they're doing and what their task is at all times. One thing that sometimes we forget to do as teachers is to celebrate when students attain their goals. And this is important for keeping those levels of motivation high in your classroom.
The next strategy is, generating and testing hypotheses. And here, it's important to use objective research methods, as well as using scientific investigation methods throughout your activities.
Questions, cues, and advanced organizers is the last of the instructional strategies. Here, it's important for you to help your students make connections and transfer their learning from prior learning to their current content that they're working on. You can vary the style of advance organizers used before learning so that students have a tool box of resources that they can use, and they can pick which one works for them individually.
The next standards-based model that we'll look at is, Hattie's Visible Learning Model. We've taken a look at this chart in other lessons, but let's review. This is a chart of the influences-- and just a few of the influences-- both teacher and student that Hattie has looked at. He creates an effect size, or the numerical value to impact of this influence on student's achievement. These findings support ideas of Marzano. The average effect sizes is 0.4 and it's important to use those influences that are on the higher end that have greater impact. The higher the score for the effect, the greater impact that the influence makes. This numerical value gives teachers a way to intervene using information.
Let's take a look at some of the higher impacts-- things that especially you, as a teacher, can do in your classroom and throughout your units to get those levels of achievement higher for your students. You can see that the largest effect size here is feedback. So it's extremely important for you, as a teacher, to give your students consistent and immediate feedback. This will make a huge impact on levels of motivation and also higher achievement levels in your students.
Other higher impact sizes are the instructional quality-- which is important for you, as a teacher, that one's in red also-- and direct instruction. So making sure that you're really taking a good look at pedagogy and best practices for your groups of students, as well as making sure that you're using good planning methods. Understanding by Design is a great method to use so that you can keep those instructional quality levels high.
Let's look at some of the lower effect sizes. You can see down at the bottom some teacher effects that are lower are, team teaching and behavioral objectives. So even though team teaching has been something that many teachers have thought about and some schools have tried out, it's on the lower end of effect size. It's important to have those higher effects in place before we worry about bringing team teaching in.
Behavioral objectives is another of these. So setting objectives for behaviors in your classroom isn't always the highest motivator, and doesn't always lead to the highest levels of achievement. Even though that is something you should consider in your class, make sure that you have the higher effect sizes in place first.
Thomas Guskey is an advocate for nontraditional grading methods. These are extremely important to keep in mind when working with at risk students and those that have disabilities. Guskey looks at the benefits of using incompletes instead of zeroes, and being flexible with due dates. This will help hold students accountable to actually complete the missed work. And it also has less effect on the overall grade, therefore it's a more accurate picture of learning that you get.
He also believes that we should focus more on current assessment information that we have instead of dwelling on the entire large picture of grading and scores for a unit. Again, this helps paint a better picture of where students are right now with their understanding. And it allows learners that need more time to avoid that frustration and disappointment.
Lastly, Guskey believes that we should not use grades to penalize and punish students for unacceptable behavior. Instead we need to be finding ways to motivate and reward them.
So how can we implement these ideas into our classroom using technology? There are many tools and resources available and the list is continuously growing. Some examples of what you might see in classrooms that use a great deal technology are, things like digital graphic organizers, using leaderboards when you're bringing gamification into your classroom, things like Google Sheets and Google Docs that help students work in a collaborative environment. Blogs and Wikis are a great tool when you're having students create those authentic products and publish those authentic products as well as collaboration skills, things like virtual manipulative tools, online rubrics, and note-taking resources that are available online. These are all great tools and there's many more that you can use.
So let's talk about what we learned today. We looked at the following questions. How are the various theories and models related to standards-based instruction? And how can these theories and models be applied to units of study?
We discussed three individuals that influence the way we teach in standards-based environments. First Marzano, his nine high-yield instructional strategies can be used to guide your instructional activities. We looked at the work of Hattie and his Visible Learning Model where he has addressed teacher and student influences in the learning environment and given each an effect size that helps us, as teachers, know what is really impacting our student's level of achievement. Finally, we discussed Guskey who believes in the use of nontraditional grading methods that will help students.
Now that you have a better understanding of these theories and models, let's reflect. What are the benefits of using each of these three theories and models-- Marzano, Hattie, and Guskey? Who can you collaborate with to better understand how to apply theories related to standards-based instruction and evaluation?
Thanks for joining me today in discussing the lesson Applying Standards-based Instruction and Evaluation Theory. I hope you found value in this video lesson and are able to apply the theories and ideas to your own teaching.
Now it's your turn to apply what you've learned in this video. The additional resources section will be super helpful. This section is designed to help you discover useful ways to apply what you've learned here. Each link includes a brief description so you can easily target the resources that you want.
Student Self-Assessment: The Key to Stronger Student Motivation and Higher Achievement
This article connects theory and standards based instruction to increasing student achievement and motivation through student self-assessment. See page 47 for a useful implementation and planning chart.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ815370.pdf
Visible Learning, Tomorrow’s Schools, The Mindsets that make the difference in Education
This presentation offers a complete overview of the significance of John Hattie's research on how making learning visible in the classroom improves student achievement. It provides clear insights into strategies that work and those that do not, as well as connects those strategies to the teacher as facilitator.
http://www.vs-kombre.kk.edus.si/komercialist/visiblearning.pdf