Class Session 1
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Instructional Impact Posting – Blog Entry #1
How can you use the Nine Instructional Strategies as derived from the works of Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock to impact your classroom instruction and/or student achievement?
Posting due on or before 9/28/09 for Cohort B
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“Jake, are you paying attention?”
How many of us have found ourselves addressing a student in this manner?
While reflecting on the blog entry prompt, I reviewed the chart on page 8 of the instructional strategies and began to think about my own classroom. Some lessons require you to hold the spotlight in your classroom… we all know that to be true. However, there are lots of things that we can do as educators to ensure that our students are engaged and not just sitting there playing with his or her pencils or coloring in their notebook (like Jake).The instructional strategies are all excellent ways that we can use to plan for instruction and make sure our students succeed.
I use a lot of the instructional strategies already. In my classroom I use cooperative learning on a daily basis, usually more than once and in more than one subject. I use thinking maps to help students organize their thinking to organize information or respond to reading. Homework is given daily to review what was learned in class. I provide opportunities for students to use nonlinguistic representations in a variety of subjects and activities. I can definitely see a student who might be losing focus immediately be drawn back in if I provide instant feedback on what they are doing. I write my objects daily on my board so my students know what is expected.
I think that now I will look more closely at the strategies I may not use as often and try to incorporate them into my lesson plans and daily activities. However, it is nice to see that what I am already doing is good practice and proven to work.
After analyzing the position and definitions of the nine instructional strategies, I recognize that in my classroom instruction I can implement all of these strategies throughout a given unit of study. The interesting aspect to me is the position of the nine instructional strategies. I feel that one of the strategies that I implement the least is summarizing and note taking. This is because I have never been a very efficient note taker myself. As a result, I find that I do not encourage or teach proper note taking skills to my students. I don’t recall having been taught note taking or summarizing strategies in my early education. It was just something that was expected. I am a hands-on learner so the strategy that I am most comfortable implementing in my classroom instruction is cooperative learning. I feel that in order for these instructional strategies to impact my students’ achievement, I need to recognize the most effective strategy for a particular student given a specific unit of study.
I think of learning styles when I look over these nine strategies as well. Although, it is important to implement specific strategies that lend themselves to specific units, I need to be in tune with my individual students’ learning styles. In doing so, it is important for these nine strategies to be woven into my lessons in order to impact student achievement.
Finally, an area that caught my attention was the position of ‘Reinforcing effort and providing recognition’. I thought this was a strategy that I don’t even have to think about implementing because reinforcing effort comes natural for me. It is so important that it is third on the list. After analyzing the definition more closely, I realize that in order for me to really impact my students’ achievements I need to make a conscious effort to be specific in praising accomplishments. This will support my students’ efforts in attaining set goals.
As I reviewed the nine instructional strategies found on chapter 8, I was reminded of the discussion we had in class about #2: Summarizing and note taking and how that is probably really important since it is near the top of the list. District Five implemented learning focused instruction about 4 years ago. Learning Focused is big on summarizing! In fact, we are to stop our lesson several times as use a summarizing strategies as well as at the end of each lesson. The thought process/research behind this is that students are held more accountable for their learning because they are going to be asked about their thoughts and to summarize the learning throughout the lesson. As good summarizing takes place, more meaningful learning takes place. So this is an area that I feel very comfortable in because I do it several times on a daily basis. I do see a positive impact on students’ learning since I began implementing consistent summarizers. Since I teach 2nd grade, I don’t use note taking very much unless it is in a modeling capacity.
District Five is also a Thinking Maps district, so we use all the thinking maps as a way to organize and present information. We use the maps to compare and contrast information and then to come off the map and write about those similarities and differences as our writing program is modeled from Thinking Maps. I also use cooperative learning in my classroom. Both of these strategies are great and we see increased achievement from using them.
The one area that I feel like I use the least out of the list of instructional strategies would have to be generating and testing hypotheses. I do need to continue to be more specific about praise. I am specific in my guided reading lesson (my lesson plan format calls for that specifically), but in other areas of the classroom, that is an easy area to work on with quick results.
@ssmith
okay…so I meant page 8
When I look over the nine categories, I find myself thinking about how I do and can implement them in lessons in the media center. Many times, when I am asked to help a classroom teacher with a research project, note taking lends itself nicely as a starting point. I go over with the class about finding information and organizing it into notes they will use as part of their final project. Since the school where I teach just goes to third grade, the note taking strategies I use are very basic.
When I have a class in the media center for their scheduled time and they are not working on a specific project, I use some of the other strategies. I think that the identifying similarities and differences strategy is the one I use most often and the one that is heavily relied on during reading instruction in the classrooms. Reading books on similar topics allows me to use that strategy over and over. During a lesson, I often have students compare books and story elements. The comparisons take place in a variety of ways, from illustrating to making a Venn diagram. Students are also encouraged to make text-to-self, text-to-world, and text-to-text connections to the literature. Sometimes they identify similarities and differences without even realizing it!
I would have to say that the strategy I use the least is homework because I don’t have the same kids everyday. The strategy I use the least but could use more is cooperative learning. I can think of many lessons where I could have used cooperative learning, but I chose a whole group or individual activity. That is a strategy I can work on using more often.
It is annoying, and it is no exaggeration to say that many teachers at our school view the TAP program as the bane of their existence. TAP (Teacher Advancement Program) is the federally funded program that promotes teacher performance, using as its premise the fact that effective teaching is the single most important factor in improving a school’s academic performance. Using a detailed rubric and collaborative work to encourage and gauge teacher performance, TAP has become the driving force in setting the direction of teaching and learning activities at our school.
Time-consuming as TAP is, no one doubts its efficacy in bringing good teaching strategies to the forefront of our thinking. Moreover, in looking at the TAP rubric recently, I have realized how many of Marzano’s nine instructional strategies it reflects. For instance, at our recent TAP meeting, we discussed the need for exact and measurable objectives, a lesson that dovetailed amazingly with our Monday night class discussion about “setting objectives and providing feedback.”
Making objectives clear in library lessons is a strategy on which I need to focus. Too often, I present the overarching standards of information literacy and neglect to pinpoint the exact task and skills that I want the students to learn. In thinking about research objectives, I now realize that I cannot neglect “summarizing and note taking” or “nonlinguistic representation” either. I tend to slide over these strategies as well, especially if the teachers are not focusing on them. How much clearer my own teaching will be when I define exactly where the students and I are going. How much better served these students will be when, through collaboration with their teachers, I help them take notes and learn new ways to create projects. Moreover, I will be fulfilling that TAP goal of fostering teaching and student achievement in the process!
Have you ever wondered what you can do to spice up your classroom instruction and boost your student performance? I certainly have. By incorporating nine successful S.T.R.A.T.E.G.I.E.S. in the classroom, I will see great change.
Similarities and differences is one of the most successful strategies. This is one that I plan to do more of in my classroom. Learning Focus has this strategy as one of its extending and refining lessons that provides higher level thinking. Thinking Maps provides a Double Bubble Map to help organize this information. So…Double Bubble here we come!
Taking notes and summarizing is another important strategy. Our district uses Learning Focus as a framework for teaching. This framework supports the use of summarization. Having a very talkative group this year, I plan to use that for my advantage. Turn and Talk or Pair Share is a great way to get students to summarize and get those talkers engaged and put that talking to good use.
Reinforcing effort and providing recognition is also great to use in the classroom. I plan to have more student and class celebrations are a great way to celebrate student and classroom goals.
Assign homework and allow practice that so that students can reach proficiency. Homework will always support classroom learning but will not be assigned until enough instruction has taken place to insure that the student can complete it independently.
Taking time to use nonlinguistic representation is a great strategy to use with first graders. Max Thompson stresses the importance of nonlinguistic representations in vocabulary development. So let’s get drawing and developing those mental images.
Enhance their learning with cooperative learning. Let students work together and have those productive conversations. Sometimes students can learn so much more from each other.
Goal setting and providing feedback allows the student to know how well they are performing towards a particular learning goal. I used to use goal setting when I taught older students. Now that I am teaching younger students, I have not used it as much. These younger children need it as much as the older ones. So I plan to get that going again.
Incorporating more opportunities to generate and test hypothesis. This is something that I do not use that much in the classroom. Having more of a constructivist classroom where students generate and test their own ideas would be one way of using this strategy. When students come up with the learning on their accord, it is more meaningful learning for them.
Enhance students’ ability to retrieve, use, and organize what they already know about a topic. KWHL and Thinking Maps are great ways to allow students to do this.
Success is definitely what I will see if these strategies are used more often and more effectively. The students in my classroom will retain information presented and test scores will certainly go up!
Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock’s research concludes that by integrating the 9 strategies into classroom instruction, student achievement can be enhanced. By integrating these strategies into lessons that I already teach using various forms of technology and the 6 components of The Comprehension Toolkit, it opens a door of opportunities for my students to achieve at their highest potential.
Identifying similarities and differences & Summarizing and note taking: With identifying similarities/differences, the first thing that popped into my mind was comparing and classifying. In SS we spend a lot of our time discussing different ancient civilizations. By using interactive Venn Diagrams and programs like Inspiration (Kidspiration), students will be able to identify similarities and differences among things or ideas and group things that are alike into categories. With summarizing/note taking, students need to decide what information needs to be deleted/substituted and what information to keep. Students can be taught how to use summary frames and a note taking format that best suits their learning style.
Reinforcing effort and providing information & Homework and practice: In reinforcing effort and providing information, this strategy should be focused on student motivation. The goal is to help them reach their highest potential. My students enjoy ANYTHING interactive, so I always allow them to use my Promethean Board in class and during recess or any free time they are allowed to get on certain websites that still reach them academically (like Funbrain) where they can still receive praise for their efforts. For homework and practice, I post my assignments online and parents (as well as students) can email me with questions. We also use the Promethean Activote pods to reinforce instruction on a weekly basis.
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