Similarities and Differences

From Classroom Instruction that Works

In the blog entry for January 8, I wrote about instruction that asks kids to look at “similarities and differences,” based on the research of Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock, in their book Classroom Instruction that Works (ASCD: 2001). This great resource gives strong evidence for the effect that the individual classroom teacher has on student achievement. In this researched-based book, the authors describe 9 instructional strategies that affect student achievement. Following is a brief overview of those 9 essential strategies:
1) Identifying similarities and differences (see Jan. 8 blog)
2) Summarizing and note taking
3) Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
4) Homework and practice
5) Nonlinguistic representation
6) Cooperative learning
7) Setting objectives and providing feedback
8) Generating and testing hypotheses
9) Cues, questions, and advance organizers
For the next few weeks, I’ll discuss a different strategy per blog entry.

The second strategy Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock discuss is summarizing and note taking. Being able to summarize is critical to academic success, and most students need help sorting out the important information from the minor details. Helping kids locate important information and then restate it briefly and concisely improves their comprehension.
How can we help our students understand that summarizing is not just rewording a text or information, but synthesizing and “translating” it into a form they understand? According to the authors of Classroom Instruction that Works, “both [note taking and summarizing] require students to distill information into a parsimonious, synthesized form” (30).
Good summarizing requires a reader to delete some material, substitute some words or phrases for others, and keep some things. Marzano et al. use Brown, Campione, and Day’s “rules” for summarizing (32):
1. Delete trivial material that is unnecessary and material that is redundant
2. Substitute superordinate terms for lists (e.g., “pets” for “dogs, cats, birds, guinea pigs”)
3. Select a topic sentence or invent one if a topic sentence is missing
Modeling and having students work in pairs to practice these three rules with specific passages is an effective way for students to begin to learn how to summarize. It is also important for students to practice summarizing with a variety of differently structured texts. Is the passage structured by cause/effect, problem/solution, narrative, argumentation, definition, etc.? Knowing the organizational pattern of a passage can make summarizing much more efficient.
Marzano et al. suggest that teachers use “summary frames” to help students understand the structure of texts. Their text includes models of 6 different summary frames, series of questions that are designed to highlight critical elements in different types of text.

Note taking is related to summarizing, as in order to take effective notes a reader needs to determine what information is the most important and state it in a brief form. An effective teacher can make the difference in his/her students’ note-taking abilities by providing scaffolding of some sort: outlines of reading to guide note taking, graphic organizers appropriate to the text or lecture, modeling of note-taking techniques, etc. Marzano and colleagues conclude their chapter on summarizing and note taking with this statement: “Although we sometimes refer to summarizing and note taking as mere ‘study skills,’ they are two of the most powerful skills students can cultivate. They provide students with tools for identifying and understanding the most important aspects of what they are learning” (48).