Marzano, Hattie Research and follow up articles

“We will never channel productive energy into creating the schools we really want unless we give up the magical belief that test preparation is a suitable surrogate for education. It’s time we replace magical thinking with the real thing: research based… instruction."           Jacqueline Grennon Brooks

Talk of school reform, the importance of early childhood and the common core are all hot topics these days.  Educators and experts in the field of childhood psychology understand brain development, what is developmentally appropriate at each age group, and what schools  need to provide for students to have success and grow into adults who are contributing members of society.

Due to rapidly changing developments in technology, teachers are faced with the challenge of preparing students for a global economy and a future one cannot possibly foresee.

My own belief is that in order for children to have success in school and beyond, is to have a secure base attachment with a consistent, nurturing caregiver birth - age 3; that teachers must be intentional, understand developmentally appropriate practice, and have regular, ongoing professional development and coaching in technology, brain development, child psychology and content areas, standards, strategies and serving special needs; and understand the importance of the relationship between the teacher and student as an important element for student success, now and for the child's future.

In early childhood education we focus on a process called the cycle of intentional teaching, from the CT SDE. This research based approach guides teachers toward meeting the individual needs of every student by observing, documenting and planning each week based on children's needs and interests, focusing on developmentally appropriate standards for development.

Research based High Yield Instructional Strategies as defined by Robert J. Marzano: Together Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, and Jane E. Pollock wrote Classroom Instruction That Works. In their work the authors outline the 9 strategies for high yield instruction as:

• (1) Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
• (2) Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
• (3) Cooperative Learning
• (4) Cues, Questions, and Advanced Organizers
• (5) Nonlinguistic Representations
• (6) Summarizing and Notetaking
• (7) Homework and Practice
• (8) Identifying Similarities and Differences
• (9) Generating and Testing Hypotheses

However, in an article written by Marzano in 2009 the author states: "Watching your work adopted by educators across the nation is flattering, but not if it’s widely misinterpreted."  He warns that there are many strategies for teachers to scaffold students' learning, and many teachers make the mistake of using his work as a one size fits all solution to a variety of problems in education.  Marzano says schools and districts that overemphasize the nine strategies are making 3 mistakes:  

1. Focusing on a narrow range of strategies;
2. Assuming that high yield strategies must be used in every class;
3. and assuming that high yield strategies will always work.

(FULL ARTICLE) In this article, Marzano presents a broader set of strategies related to instruction, management, and assessment and demonstrates how those can be used to broaden and deepen instruction that leads to improved student learning. Marzano states:

• "I therefore suggest that we should focus on the greatest source of variance that can make the difference – the teacher."

• "Students -- which account for about 50% of the variance of achievement. It is what students brings to the table that predicts achievement more than any other variable."  

In John Hattie's research: Visible Learning,Tomorrow’s Schools Tomorrow’s Schools,

The Mindsets that make the difference in Education, he presents extensive data collection of studies on the many variables and their affects of achievement.  For example, how much do class size or parental involvement or socioeconomic status, among many others, effect student success over time. Sifting through the data for the inention of his research is difficult, so I refer you to supporting documentation:  Glossary of Hattie’s influences on student achievement; Professor John Hattie's Table of Effect Sizes.

After reading several articles, I focused on two statements from Hattie as his final articulation:

Essentially, what my takeaway from my readings of Hattie's and Marzano's works is that there is no Magic Bullet, so to speak.  Teachers must be educated extensively in instruction, be coached and mentors for strategies that work under a variety of circumstances for a diverse student population.

In searching for a way to summarize my findings, I found this quote from the Meteri Group regarding this research:

Researchers find that extracting the full learning return from a technology investment requires much more than the mere introduction of technology with software and web resources aligned with the curriculum. It requires the triangulation of content, sound principles of learning, and high-quality teaching—all of which must be aligned with assessment and accountability." What the Research says: Metiri Group
Though I am not a classroom teacher, I did present the following suggested plan for Pre-K teachers based on Marzano's work, integrating technology into the intentional teaching model.

• Marzano:  Identifying similarities and differences
• Standard:  CT ELDS (Pre-K) C.48.7 Identify similarities and differences in objects, people, events, sounds based on one attribute.

• To reinforce skill of recognizing Same/Different, Students will take turns on ipad/desktop with these apps I Can Do App, ABA Game, What’s Different?

• Teacher will take anecdotals while students work on drawing, asking questions to promote deeper learning (Bloom’s taxonomy), assistant will monitor students on computers/tablets guiding and facilitating as needed, and taking anecdotal notes. Students will share their drawing at pm circle.
• Teacher will Read Aloud Same, Same But Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw to the whole group and ask students to identify how the two boys are the same or different. Teacher will write students comments onto a Venn Diagram on the Smartboard, and facilitate discussion. Students will move to tables and draw a picture showing their understanding of the similarities and differences discussed. Students can use Drawing Pad on an ipad to create their picture, or choose from colored pencils, markers or crayons to draw and color.

Also sharing two excellent presentations on Marzano's Similar and Different concepts by teachers Jennifer Jones: http://www.slideshare.net/hellojenjones/identifying-similarities-differences-8470284 

and "eightiesLingo" a Kindergarten Teacher at Crowley ISD: http://www.slideshare.net/eightieslingo/marzano-identifying-similarities-and-differences.