Did You Know?

Marzano's 9 is not really Marzano's 9.  Interesting little fact we learned recently during professional development.  Our district has an initiative this school year - everyone will instruct with effective instructional strategies.  Part of that process was to seek staff development to help administration and district leadership to fully understand Marzano's 9 so we brought in Elizabeth Hubbell with McRel from Colorado.  Dr. Robert Marzano was initially with this company before he left and started out on his own.  While he was with McRel, he developed the 9 Effective Instructional Strategies; however, when he left the company the Marzano 9 stayed with McRel so instead of Marzano's 9 they are Classroom Instruction that Works - research-based strategies for increasing student achievement.

source

 Recognize this book? It is the first edition of Classroom Instruction that Works.  This is the research based strategies that Marzano was apart of.

source

This book? It is the 2nd edition of Classroom Instruction that Works.  If you look at the authors, Marzano is not part of the 2nd edition.

Why the 2nd edition?  Initially in edition 1, the strategies are the high yielding instructional strategies.  Those that yielded the highest gain were put at the top of the list as important.   However, there is a particular order that the strategies should be implement into your instruction.  Take for example "Setting objectives and Providing Feedback."  This strategy only yields a 23% gain.  "Summarizing and Note Taking" yields a 34% gain.  One would think the higher the gain the quicker I need to use it, but can you summarize and take notes prior to setting your objective?  Makes sense, right?

Our instructional coaching team had already sat down prior to this professional development and mapped out the strategies in the order we wanted to focus on them each month with our teachers.  After a pat on the back, we were pleased to announce that we only needed to move one strategy in our order to match the order that McRel recommends in Classroom Instruction that Works: edition 2.

This is the recommended order of emphasis for this research based instructional strategies:

Step 1 - Create the Environment for Learning

• Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
• Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
• Cooperative Learning

Step 2 - Helping Students Develop Understanding

• Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers
• Non-linguistic Representation
• Summarizing and Note Taking
• Assigning Homework and Providing Practice

Step 3 - Help Students Extend and Apply Knowledge

• Identifying Similarities and Differences
• Generating and Testing Hypotheses