In this post I want to focus on Marzano and his 9 instructional strategies for effective teaching. These strategies were created to improve student learning and reach those higher levels of DOK (Depth of Knowledge). Firstly, we as teachers need to be able to break down concepts in more simple forms. We can do this by Identifying similarities and differences characteristics to allow the students to understand complex problems by exploring them in a more simple way. Secondly, we need to teach our students how to summarize and note take! If my teachers would have taken the time to teach me how to properly summarize and note take It would have saved me so much time and confusion. These skills are important to have because they allow the student to increase comprehension by picking out the essential parts and put them in their own words. Thirdly, we need to recognize our students when they put fourth effort. This can be done by recognizing effort and providing recognition. If we show our students the relationship between effort, achievement, and recognition it will help motivate them to put in more efforts into their daily lives, not just in school but outside of school. So, the next strategy talks about homework and practice. Teaching our students that practice helps their learning this will create a purpose for their practice and they will feel like it is useful to them. If we do not teach our students that practice is important they will see it as pointless and a waste of their time. I really like the next strategy, it talks about the use of non-linguistic representations. This simply means using visuals, images and so on, to reinforce concepts and vocabulary. By using these non-linguistic representations new concepts are more thoroughly and easily understood because they can link them to prior knowledge. Next, Marzano encourages the use of cooperative learning. I believe this is something every teacher should use somehow in their classrooms. Using cooperative learning builds positive relationships between students– which helps create a classroom that values diversity and students will also be developing good social and learning skills. This next step is vital to your students learning, read closely. Set objectives and provide feedback to your/for your students! If the students do not know what it is they are supposed to be learning they will not understand the purpose in learning the concept and if we do not provide our students with (growth mindset) feedback they will not know what they need to improve upon nor how to improve. The next strategy talks about letting the students create their own predictions and explaining upon them. This is a good strategy to learn because it will really help develop your students inferencing skills. The last step talks about how teachers need to use questions, cues and advance organizers. By using these tools we will help the students tap into their prior knowledge and add the new knowledge onto that previous knowledge.
I think these strategies can be very helpful to teachers. It’s important that we do not forget we are the most important contributing factor to our students achievement, because although there are many other factors that contribute the teacher plays the biggest role. That’s an awesome and scary fact. It puts a lot of pressure on us as teachers but there is a reason we chose the profession, we know we can help our students reach their highest potentials and we have a passion for hard work. Teaching isn’t just a job, but a lifestyle!
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