Hello, and thank you for joining me for applying standards-based instruction and evaluation theory. By the end of today's tutorial, we will be able to answer the following essential questions. How can I apply Marzano's model to instruction? How can I apply Hattie's model to instruction? And how can I apply Guskey's recommendations for grading?
So, remember, Marzano identified nine high-yield instructional strategies to be implemented into lesson design. I've created a chart. Please feel free to it and take a look, because we're not going to necessarily go over each one. But on the left-hand side is the high-yield strategy, and on the right-hand side is the example of what you could do to incorporate it into your classroom.
So we will take a look at a few. Let's start with identifying similarities and differences. This is where you help students identify the similarities and differences in maybe something they're reading compared to something that they've learned in the past. You could do this through a number of ways. You could use metaphors, or you could maybe provide them with graphic organizers or help them make charts.
Another important high-yield strategy is homework and practice. It's important to remember when you're incorporating this into your lesson design that homework should be differentiated for students based on their levels. Just because you're teaching all students the same geometry concept doesn't mean they all need the same type of homework. For one student, the homework might be review. For another student, it might be advanced homework that's a bit of a challenge.
And try to remember that they only really need 10 minutes a night per grade level. So if you're teaching third grade, that means just about 30 minutes of homework a night. When you have cooperative learning in your classroom, you want to make sure that you have various groups, meaning the students aren't in the same group all day long. The groups change depending on the task. And the groups should be based on strengths of your students as well as needs of the students, so that you can have peer scaffolding and modeling going on.
When in groups, it's also important to instruct the students on the appropriate social skills and group skills. So this might be done by reviewing expectations of the group before they get into the group work or having jobs for the group, such as time keeper or leader, et cetera. And with questions, cues, and advanced organizers, this is just a fabulous way to help the students connect new material to prior knowledge. So you're going to do this by encouraging the students to question or by creating the questions yourself that the students can answer.
Cues is having reminder words, perhaps, on the board or that you just verbally say to the students. And advanced organizers are a nice way for them to organize all of their thoughts and make connections to everything they've learned throughout the year.
Now we're going to look at Hattie's work on effect size. So, essentially, his study on effect size reinforces what Marzano was saying about the high-yield instructional strategies. And it's important to remember that all the strategies listed here can have an impact. We want to use the high impact ones, because they are going to have a higher impact on student achievement, versus the low impact ones having a lower affect on student achievement. While looking at this, remember, the higher the effect score means that the strategy is more successful. And the effect score is essentially just a value that shows the power of an intervention.
0.4 is actually the average affect score. So we should be using instructional strategies that are above this size. So looking at the chart, on the left-hand side, I have the influence. And in the middle, I have the effect size. On the right-hand side, we have the source of the influence. So, again, I'm not going to go over every single strategy, but please feel free to pause your tutorial and look at the chart more in depth.
I highlighted every single strategy where the teacher was the source of influence, because I wanted to highlight for you guys the power of the teacher in the classroom. I feel like a lot of times, the teachers say, you know, I've done everything I can, but sometimes a student just has to want to learn. And that's true, especially if we look at the student's disposition to learn and the effect size that that has. But if you look at everything else that's highlighted in red, the teacher is the most important factor in the classroom that affects student learning.
So let's look at a couple of these in depth. Right off the bat, we have the highest effect size on feedback. So giving timely feedback that is specific to the learning task and that can help students be successful is probably the number one most effective thing we can do to help student learning. So to use this in our planning, you need to set aside some time to give feedback. This could be during small group work. This could be conferencing one-on-one with students on a paper they wrote while maybe they're working on a different assignment. Actually try to build that feedback time into your class period.
Another high effective strategy that we could use is direct instruction. So directly instructing our students. Now, this doesn't mean standing up in front of the group and lecturing. This can be done in a variety of ways. You can provide direct instruction in a flipped learning way, meaning that you make a video tutorial that students view at home. Or you could provide direct instruction to multiple small groups as the class works in small groups moving in rotation.
Another important thing is class environment, and this is another thing the teacher has control over. Class environment means just making a safe learning place that the students are comfortable in and that is a flexible space for the students to move around in. Another is homework, being intentional with what we're doing. It has a 0.43 effect size. So having meaningful homework for the students, not just homework for homework's sake.
If we look at some of the lower end strategies, I think it's really important to note that finances and money actually only has a 0.12 effect size on student learning. This is something that students and the teacher don't have control of. In fact, the school is the one that has control over that. So it's best, I think, as a teacher not to get bent out of shape when the finances and money aren't there that you feel like needs to be there.
Another one is physical attributes. It has a negative 0.05 effect size, and this simply is class size, for example. So while this is something we definitely want to keep low, because it helps us individualized that instruction better for our students, it is not the end of the world if we do have large class sizes. Because we know, from Hattie's work, that students are still learning.
Now we're going to look at Guskey and how we can implement his non-traditional grading structure into our classroom. So Guskey essentially is an advocate for changing the grading system and having different features of a grading system. Particularly, this would benefit children with disabilities, which we know a lot of our students have IEPs or a lot of our students have 504s for various reasons. And these shouldn't hinder them, and the grading system most certainly shouldn't punish them.
Then, it also is really good for at-risk students. Sometimes things are going on in our students lives that are beyond their control that make them an at-risk student. So let's not make school another area where maybe they're experiencing stress. There's a couple things we can do to help these students with disabilities are these at-risk students. And this helps all students, in general, as well.
One thing is giving more weight to recent scores rather than scores that were done at the beginning of the semester. Another one is being flexible with due dates, and don't give a zero when a student has a missed assignment. Guskey is a huge advocate of giving the incomplete, and the incomplete still has immediate consequences, such as attending a study session straight away when you have that incomplete. And make sure that you don't penalize behavior with grades, because we're assessing what the students can do, not their behavior in the classroom.
Let's reflect. Are you willing to use any or all of these in your classroom? Why or why not?
Today, we answered the following essential questions-- how can I apply Marzano's model to instruction? How can I apply Hattie's model to instruction? And how can I apply Guskey's recommendations for grading? As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you may want to explore the Additional Resources section that accompanies this video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skill set. Thanks for joining me, and happy teaching.
Overview
(00:00-00:20) Introduction
(00:21-02:47) Marzano
(02:48-06:29) Hattie
(06:30-07:48) Guskey
(07:49-07:59) Reflection
(08:00-08:29) Conclusion
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