Marzano's High-Yield Instructional Strategies

Video Transcription

Hi. Thank you for joining me today to talk about Marzano's high yield instructional strategies. Remember, this class is all about you, the learner, so please feel free to fast-forward, rewind, pause, or use any of the information from this presentation to help you in your classroom.

Let's get started by looking at the essential questions. Today, we're going to be able to answer, what is Marzano's high yield instructional strategies model? How can I use Marzano in my classroom? What research exists that supports Marzano, and how can I use technology with Marzano?

Before we get started, here's a couple of reminders. Today's application lesson is based on general lessons spanning grade levels. Each strategy includes a best practice. So these will be in pink, and the examples given will be in blue. There are no key terms today.

So Marzano's high yield instructional strategies defined. Marzano says there are nine high yield instructional strategies, and those are identifying similarities and differences, summarizing and note taking, reinforcing effort and providing recognition, homework and practice, nonlinguistic representations, cooperative learning, setting objectives and providing feedback, generating and testing hypotheses, questions, cues, and advanced organizers. Let's take a look at each of these strategies a little more closely. This is where you'll see the examples spanning across the grade levels and the curriculum, as well as the best practices.

Identifying similarities and differences is breaking down complicated problems based on student need. This practice helps students comprehend complicated problems by evaluating them with an easier method, such as graphic organizers or metaphors and analogies. An example of this would be classifying types of characters in a novel or evaluating a character's similarities and differences.

To evaluate the character's similarities and differences, we might use something like this Venn diagram. As you can see, character A would be in orange and character B in blue. In the middle, it would be all of those character traits that the two share. This is just an easy way to break down a potentially complicated subject matter, and it's also really great for visual learners. So it's a nice way to differentiate instruction.

Summarizing and note taking is just a nice way to encourage analysis and prioritizing. One way we can do this is to set clear guides for summarizing. We want our students to summarize at the end of each day, or even at the end of each mini lesson, what they've learned. It helps them make sense of it.

Another best practice is note-taking structure. We don't just want our students to arbitrarily take notes. We want to actually spend the time teaching them a proper structure to take them in. What this looks like in a classroom is posing essential questions at the beginning and having students answer them as exit tickets. This is a nice way for them to summarize, and it also gives them a clear guideline of what exactly they have to be looking for during the lesson.

In terms of a note-taking structure, we have Cornell notes, and I've included an example here. I actually use Cornell notes in my classroom, and you can find more information about them online. Basically, in the far left-hand corner, the students are writing cues or annotations. It's their own notes on what's going on. In the large center area is where the classroom notes are, and these can be taken in outline style. What I think is a really useful aspect of Cornell notes is the summary that goes on the bottom of the last page of the notes.

Reinforcing effort and providing recognition-- this shows the connection between hard work and high performance, and it promotes the importance of effort and flexibility to emphasize more hard work and higher performance. It's best if recognition is given in terms of achievement. It makes it more meaningful. Some best practices are to communicate how people persevere, to tailor rewards to the individual.

Another best practice is discuss, question, praise. For example, when a student is facing an obstacle, the teacher should discuss the obstacle with them and offer suggestions to promote improvement. Once the student is able to get past the obstacle, the teacher needs to be sure to praise the student.

Homework and practice-- homework and practice extends learning, but it should always extend learning in a meaningful way. And practice includes practice outside of the classroom. A couple of important things to remember here is that we should differentiate the homework and practice that we have. Not each of our students is going to be learning or comprehending on the same level. So we should have homework and practice that suits the different levels in the classroom.

As a general rule, homework should be about 10 minutes per grade per night. An example of this in the classroom is have students work on math problems for geometry. The depth of problems or complexity depends on the student. This is for 10th grade, so they can have up to 100 minutes of homework. I just really want to stress here not to give homework for homework's sake. We have to be sure that it reinforces the learning in the classroom and that it extends the learning so that it's not done arbitrarily or just for work's sake.

Nonlinguistic representations, basically, just helps students make connections. These can be in the form of symbols or models. So we can use models to show mathematical equations, or we can use symbols, like the example, to illustrate an idea, such as the Cosmogonic cycle. Here, I use the yin and yang.

Cooperative learning-- use group work to differentiate and scaffold. Make sure you teach the students the expectations of being in a group. Some best practices are to establish it based on the desired outcome. Base groups on strengths, weaknesses, and needs and coach for development of collaboration. Some examples of this in a real-life classroom are students with the same reading levels are paired together to read various texts while all reaching the same goals of exploring irony.

Another example is for students with different mathematical skill levels being paired together to work on a project. This is an example that would provide for scaffolding, because you might have a weak student with a strong student. Or you might have a student with a strong understanding of geometry paired with a student with a strong understanding of algebra 2. They could really work well together and help one another out.

Setting objectives and providing feedback is very important. It's important to have clear objectives and give specific feedback based on the objectives. The best practices are to communicate directions and objectives, et cetera. The way you might see this in a regular classroom is to write the objectives on the board, post them on the class website, and verbally explain them to the students. A way to reinforce the feedback we're giving and make sure it's directly connected to the objectives is to use a rubric.

Generating and testing hypotheses-- use objective research methods for inquiry. A couple of best practices are using prompts that require predictions and the scientific investigation strategies in the classroom. For example, you might have students make predictions before reading a text. These predictions could be based on the title, the cover, the key terms for a nonfiction text. You can also have them use scientific investigation and both science class and other classes to explore problems and extend their learning.

Questions, cues, and advanced organizers-- some of the best practices for this strategy are using wait time, and to have a toolbox of advanced organizers for students to pull from to make connections between their new material and their prior knowledge. Some examples of this in the real world classroom are to have students create a flow chart and geometry explaining how one theorem relates to another, or to pose a series of questions at the beginning of class to be answered during class or as an exit ticket.

So does this work? Well, actually, there's modern research showing that it does. John Hattie did a work on Visible Learning, and his Visible Learning study confirms Marzano's strategies. So what exactly is visible learning? Well, with Visible Learning, there's an influence and effect size and a source of influence.

It's important to note that 0.40, or 40%, is the average effect size. So anything above that effect size is really useful for the teacher to use in his or her classroom. However, there are strategies that have a below-average effect size. And we want to try to avoid those influences inside the classroom. And these include things like peer effects. So how do the peers affect learning? It ends up not as greatly as you would think.

Finances and money of an institution doesn't affect learning very much at all. Structural media also has a low one. Physical attributes of the classroom, such as class size, actually has a negative 0.05 effect. So even though big class sizes aren't the best thing in the world, we can still have effective teaching within those big classes.

Shifting our attention to instructional strategies that are above 4.0, I've chosen three that I think have really nice connections to Marzano. And we're also going to explore how we can incorporate technology with these three strategies. Feedback has the effect size of 1.13, so it meets the above 40% goal. The source of this is the teacher, and it relates to Marzano's setting objectives and providing feedback. If we would like to incorporate technology, we could give feedback via online discussion board. And for written assignments, we could use Google Docs.

Homework has an effect size of 0.43. This relates to Marzano's homework and practice. For technology, homework can be online, posted on the class website, and online research can be a part of the homework assignment. And lastly, we have the example of questioning, which has an effect size of 0.41. The source is the teacher, and it relates to Marzano's questions, cues, and advanced organizers. A way to incorporate technology with this one is that students can use online graphic organizers, such as generating mind maps, to help with their questioning.

Let's reflect for just one moment. Name one of Marzano's high yield instructional strategies you think you could incorporate into your classroom. Why do you favor this strategy? Which of Marzano's nine domains do you think best fits in with your current classroom? Why?

Let's review. Today, we learned a lot. We learned about what Marzano's high yield instructional strategies model was. We learned about how we can use it in the classroom, and we learned that there is new research that still supports Marzano. We also talked briefly about how we can use technology with Marzano.

To dive a little deeper and learn how to apply this information, be sure to check out the additional resources section associated with this video. This is where you'll find links targeted towards helping you discover more ways to apply this course material. Thanks for joining me, and happy teaching.