BOOK DISCUSSION
What Works in Classroom Instruction
by Robert J. Marzano, et. al.
We've posted several resources to support our discussion of Classroom
Instruction That Works. Go to the main page
for this discussion to see all of the resources.
Some Notes from Our Discussion Leaders
Ann Barysh and Marsha Ratzel have volunteered to serve as co-moderators
during our discussion about Classroom Instruction That Works.
Ann and Marsha have discussed each chapter in the book with each other and
will offer some of their thoughts as discussion-starters as we go along.
To kick things off, here is some of their "big picture" thinking
about the book. These notes can help guide our discussion. They're informal
and not directive. The stream of our conversation will be up to you!
Ann writes:
My interest in this book is to engage in an exploration of lesson design
that asks the basic question: "What is the overall purpose of a given
lesson and how is this lesson going to move students to an end goal?"
In the case of the Marzano book, the question might be: "How will the
specific instructional practices that you will sculpt from this book help
your students?'"
The second underlying question I find to be: What makes Marzano's nine
discrete strategies so effective? What are some of the common beliefs
about learning, human nature, and the student-teacher relationship that
are embedded in these nine practices?
To begin our discussion, I'd suggest that we glance through the book and
share with the List our answers to these two questions:
1. What do you hope to learn from the Marzano book listserv discussion?
2. The book tells us that "an individual teacher can have a powerful
effect on her students even if the school doesn't." In your opinion,
what is the nature of this impact?
Marsha responds:
I think the overall question of "how will you....sculpt from this chapter..."
is an excellent one. I hope we can use it to guide our thinking and disucssion.
Your second underlying question dissects the task at hand into finite pieces
that we can handle, I think. A companion question here might also be ...."Well,
you've seen all these strategies time and again. Why are these nine
strategies preferred over another other set of nine? What makes these nine
the "magic" ones that you should more seriously consider over
others?"
I think one of main points of the book is to convince teachers to become
more "scientific" about our instructional practices. Marzano's
book did all the dirty work for me (from a statistical analysis viewpoint)
by compiling this metaanalysis which sifted through all the strategies about
which we had hard cold data. Then he used this data to pull out the best
ones. By best, I mean the strategies where the empirical data shows we have
the most opportunity to impact student learning across the board.
Without considering Marzano's evidence, a person reading this book
might conclude that it was a wonderful persuasive essay on these nine strategies
and then go back to using their personal favorites.
By adopting a willingness to look at data-driven decision making --- by
looking at student work, statistical studies, testing norms etc etc etc
--- we can become more effective in delivering learning inside our classrooms.
I think that's the message in this book that's most important to explore.
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