From Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (Classsroom Instruction that Works)
The chapter in Classroom Instruction that Works (ASCD 2001) was one that gave me many opportunities for self-reflection and evaluation of my own practices. Using convincing research, Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock review what best practices say should be the purpose of homework and offer very practical, common-sense advice for teachers to make the most of their homework assignments.
A most compelling fact is the research on the benefits of appropriate homework: the authors use research from Harris Cooper that shows that at the high school level, homework produces “a gain of about 24 percentile points” (61).
They state two common purposes of homework. The first is practice, but when assigning homework for this purpose, the teacher must insure that the work be “structured around content with which the students have a high degree of familiarity” (63). Practicing a skill with which the students are not familiar can create misconceptions, reinforce errors, and frustrate students. The second common purpose is to prepare students for new content or have them elaborate on material that has been introduced.
If homework is assigned, it should be commented on, say Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock. One study they used reported that the effects of homework vary greatly, depending on the feedback that the teacher provides (64).
Finally, the authors give several tips to guide teachers in their homework planning:
1) Establish and communicate a homework policy to both students and parents. The authors give suggestions for parents to make homework more productive.
2) Design homework assignments that clearly articulate the purpose and the outcome of the work. It’s important for students to know the point of the assignment: Are they supposed to practice what they’ve learned in class or prepare for new information that’s been introduced?
3) Vary the approaches to providing feedback. This doesn’t mean that the teacher needs to grade every piece of homework students do, but some sort of feedback helps reinforce the value of the work. In fact, when the purpose of an assignment is to do help students practice a skill, students can often provide their own feedback of the progress by tracking and monitoring their success.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
From Classroom Instruction that Works
As part of a weekly installment highlighting the 9 instructional strategies that increase student learning and achievement from Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock’s book Classroom instruction that Works (ASCD: 2001), this blog focuses on the chapter on reinforcement and recognition. In this chapter, the authors offer a refresher course on the power and importance of effort and how we as educators can influence our students simply by how we respond to their work.
The first striking point they make is that we as classroom teachers can explicitly teach students about effort and the connection between effort and achievement. One way to do this is to talk about effort and its rewards, to give students concrete examples and encourage their own observations and connections. A second thing we can do is to ask students to periodically keep track of their own effort and its relationship to achievement or success. On pages 52-53 of Classroom Instruction that Works, the authors include a rubrics and tracking charts that might be tools to assist students in their self-reflections of their efforts.
The second important part of this chapter is a discussion of the research and theory behind providing recognition of student progress. Marzano et al. say they prefer the word “recognition” over “reward” or “praise,” as they feel “recognition” more appropriately identifies the purpose and intent of teacher comments about student effort and work. The research these authors quote is compelling. For instance, using Cameron and Pierce, they quote: “Rewards can have a negative impact on intrinsic motivation they are offered to people for engaging in a task without considering any standard of performance” (Marzano, p. 56). Thus, if teachers reward students for just “doing” the work, student performance is not improved. Instead, they suggest that recognition makes the most difference when it is personal and specific. The authors include a very informative chart called “Guidelines for Effective Praise” (p. 56). This chart makes a great self-reflection tool for educators to evaluate their own responses to their students.
A few other tidbits from this chapter:
*Abstract symbolic recognition is more effective than tangible rewards (p. 57).
*Rewards are more effective when they are linked to specific standards of performance. (p. 56)
*Verbal praise is a powerful motivator that positively alters student attitude and behavior (p. 57)
If you'd like to check out the other blogs using information from Classroom Instruction that Works, here are the blog entry dates:
Jan 8: Similarities and Differences
March 10: Summarizing and Note-taking
As part of a weekly installment highlighting the 9 instructional strategies that increase student learning and achievement from Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock’s book Classroom instruction that Works (ASCD: 2001), this blog focuses on the chapter on reinforcement and recognition. In this chapter, the authors offer a refresher course on the power and importance of effort and how we as educators can influence our students simply by how we respond to their work.
The first striking point they make is that we as classroom teachers can explicitly teach students about effort and the connection between effort and achievement. One way to do this is to talk about effort and its rewards, to give students concrete examples and encourage their own observations and connections. A second thing we can do is to ask students to periodically keep track of their own effort and its relationship to achievement or success. On pages 52-53 of Classroom Instruction that Works, the authors include a rubrics and tracking charts that might be tools to assist students in their self-reflections of their efforts.
The second important part of this chapter is a discussion of the research and theory behind providing recognition of student progress. Marzano et al. say they prefer the word “recognition” over “reward” or “praise,” as they feel “recognition” more appropriately identifies the purpose and intent of teacher comments about student effort and work. The research these authors quote is compelling. For instance, using Cameron and Pierce, they quote: “Rewards can have a negative impact on intrinsic motivation they are offered to people for engaging in a task without considering any standard of performance” (Marzano, p. 56). Thus, if teachers reward students for just “doing” the work, student performance is not improved. Instead, they suggest that recognition makes the most difference when it is personal and specific. The authors include a very informative chart called “Guidelines for Effective Praise” (p. 56). This chart makes a great self-reflection tool for educators to evaluate their own responses to their students.
A few other tidbits from this chapter:
*Abstract symbolic recognition is more effective than tangible rewards (p. 57).
*Rewards are more effective when they are linked to specific standards of performance. (p. 56)
*Verbal praise is a powerful motivator that positively alters student attitude and behavior (p. 57)
If you'd like to check out the other blogs using information from Classroom Instruction that Works, here are the blog entry dates:
Jan 8: Similarities and Differences
March 10: Summarizing and Note-taking
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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).
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).
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