Marzano's High-Yield Instructional Strategies

Video Transcription

Welcome to a tutorial on Marzano's high-yield instructional strategies. In today's tutorial, we will discuss what is Marzano's Instructional Strategies Model? How could I use these strategies in my classroom? And how can I incorporate technology using the nine different strategies?

So let's start by talking about Marzano's nine instructional strategies. And here we have listed those nine strategies-- starting with identifying similarities and differences, summarizing and note taking, reinforcing effort providing recognition, homework and practice, nonlinguistic representations, cooperative learning, setting objectives and providing feedback, generating and testing hypotheses, and questions, cues, and advance organizers. So throughout this tutorial, I will walk you through all nine strategies, as well as give you some feedback and suggestions for incorporating technology into these strategies.

So let's walk through each of the nine instructional strategies together, starting with identifying similarities and differences. Here, we need to enhance understanding of complicated problems by using easier methods for evaluation-- such as comparing and contrasting strategies. We can use diagrams and charts. We can also help our students by using analogies and metaphors together. One way to incorporate technology into the strategy would be to use online graphic organizers or spreadsheet-- things like Venn diagrams or maybe an Excel document to record information in a more visual way. Here are some websites to use if you have not used online graphic organizers. These will give you a starting place to find some online graphic organizer tools.

The next of the strategies is summarizing and note taking. And here, we want to give students tools for identifying and understanding the most important aspects of what they're learning-- those key ideas or main ideas. As well, we want students to analyze by prioritizing. And we need to encourage them to do this. We can do this by teaching strategies and structure for both note taking, as well as writing summaries that are successful. We can consider preparing notes ahead of time if our group might benefit from that. One way to incorporate technology into the strategy would be to use word processing to record summaries. We could also have our students podcast, use class blogs, or maybe use Google documents.

The third instructional strategy is reinforcing effort and providing recognition. Here, as teachers, we need to really teach that connection between hard work and the high levels of performance. We need to promote effort and flexibility so that our students understand the connection between their effort, which leads to hard work, and then leads to high levels of performance. We can do this by discussing stories about perseverance. Who are some individuals that have persevered and have been successful? We also can personalize rewards for our students. Some ways to incorporate technology into this step would be to create an effort rubric together. And here are some examples of websites that have some online rubrics that you might use.

The next of the instructional strategies is homework and practice. As teachers, we need to extend learning and practice outside the classroom day, as well as provide students with opportunities to refine and extend their knowledge. It's important to differentiate homework for our students, as well as explain the purpose before we give out homework and give feedback after, in a timely manner. Some ways to incorporate technology into this strategy are to assign games or activities from different websites, or maybe use class blogs or websites together, that students can access from home.

The next of the instructional strategies is nonlinguistic representations. Here, we must demonstrate relationships using words, visuals, and symbols. We could consider using models when appropriate. Physical models are great tools. Physical movement is also a great tool-- thinking about our kinesthetic learners. Some ways to incorporate technology into the nonlinguistic representations are to use virtual manipulative tools for students to practice those math concepts with models online. One website to do this with is mathplayground.com.

The next of the strategies is cooperative learning-- thinking about those groups. It's important that we teach group expectations and member's rules before group activities. As well, we need to be intentional when establishing our groups and promote collaboration and positive social skills into our classroom environment. Considering the strengths and weaknesses of our students will help us to be intentional when establishing our groups. And varying group sizes and objectives will help our groups remain successful. Ways to incorporate technology into this strategy are to incorporate different technology tools into our group work-- blogs, wikis, Google Docs for collaborating and editing together are all great tools to use in this strategy.

The next instructional strategy is setting objectives and providing feedback. And here, we need to communicate that direction and objectives from the very beginning by setting specific goals and giving clear expectations for our students. It's also important to remember to celebrate the attainment of goals. We need to encourage our students to personalize their goals, as well, we can use questioning techniques to help promote that thought process and make sure that we give prompt and meaningful feedback as a really important part of this step. Some tools and technology for this would be to monitor our progress using spreadsheets. We can use online rubrics, as well, in this instructional strategy.

The next instructional strategy is generating and testing hypotheses. It's important that we use objective research methods and scientific investigation tools during our class time. We can do this by creating prompts that require predictions or require clear explanations of hypotheses and conclusions. Some ways to incorporate technology would be to document data with spreadsheets. As well, we can use the internet to research ideas. There are so many tools available on the internet.

The last of the instructional strategies is questions, cues, and advanced organizers. It's here that we need to help students make connections to prior learning, as well as vary the style of advanced organizer used before learning. Some things to think about during this strategy are to use pausing techniques. So ask a question to generate some ideas and thought, and then pause for a moment to let students digest the information before moving on. So giving that wait time is really important.

We need to build a tool box of organizers with our students. So tools that students have accessible that work for them. Some technology tips for this strategy would be to consider using Web 2.0 tools from Digital Bloom's. And this is something we'll discuss further in this pathway. Essentially, we can use different levels of understanding, such as basic understanding, by having students do a Google search. If we want a more advanced level of thinking or understanding, such as creating something using ideas and knowledge, we can have students create a wiki.

So let's take a minute to connect these ideas to John Hattie. John Hattie's Visible Learning confirms the effectiveness of Marzano's strategies. John Hattie assumes that strategies above 0.40, or 40%, are the most successful. And these are the ones we want to use as teachers. He has a long list of different strategies and their connections. I will demonstrate using just three. We can use feedback, class environment, and homework.

And here you can see that the effect size of feedback is 1.13, so well above that 40% percent. Class environment is 0.56. And homework is 0.43. And all of these connect to Marzano's strategies. The feedback connects with the instructional strategy of setting objectives and providing feedback. The class environment connects to several of the strategies, including nonlinguistic representations and generating and testing hypotheses. Homework, of course, connects to the homework and practice strategy of Marzano's nine instructional strategies.

So now that we've learned about the nine instructional strategies of Marzano, I would like you to think about these three questions. What would the challenges be in applying these strategies for you personally? Can you think of ways to integrate technology with tools other than the ones that I've given you as examples? Who could you collaborate with to get additional ideas or to learn more about Marzano's nine instructional strategies?

Let's now talk about what we learned today. We discussed what is Marzano's Instructional Strategies Model-- what are those nine high yield instructional strategies of Marzano's. We also talked about how you, as a teacher, can use these strategies in your classroom. As well, we talked about some tools and technology that you could use to incorporate into these nine instructional strategies in your classroom.

Thanks for joining me today. As always, I've enjoyed talking about these ideas with you, and I hope you're able to apply them in your own classroom. For more information on how to apply what you've just learned in this video, please view the additional resources section that accompanies this video presentation. The additional resources section includes hyperlinks useful for applications of the course material, including a brief description of each resource.