point a to point b » Marzano

Linking Design Questions, Instructional Strategies and Technology Tools

Michael — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:47:08 +0000

This coming school year our professional development program is focused on Marzano’s Art & Science of Teaching. Cross-district teams organized by grade or subject area (“Design Teams”) will be meeting to focus on design questions brought up in the book. Over the course of the next 3-4 years we will undergo district-wide conversations around the following design questions:

What will I do to…

…establish and communicate learning goals, track student progress, and celebrate success?
…help students effectively interact with new knowledge?
…help students practice and deepen their understanding of new knowledge?
…help students generate and test hypotheses about new knowledge?
…engage students?
…establish or maintain classroom rules and procedures?
…recognize and acknowledge adherence and lack of adherence to classroom rules and procedures?
…establish and maintain effective relationships with students?
…communicate high expectations for all students?
…develop effective lessons organized into a cohesive unit?

Woven into these questions are Marzano’s strategies for Classroom Instruction that Works. My role as a design team facilitator is to help link strategies to technology tools that improve learning.

Last year I did an extensive book analysis of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, where the strategies are analyzed for which types of technology tools can support them. Click here to review the final summary, along with links to individual strategies.

As we move into the design team process, I am thinking more about the link between strategy and tool. I just recently came across a very nice interactive graphic that depicts Marzano’s 9 strategies for classroom instruction that works, from a website titled Curriculum Portal (click the image below to go to the interactive graphic at the site:

We have an extensive toolset to help students learn within the strategies. Here is a sampling of the tools we have:

These tools fall withing the categories of technology as defined in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works:

Word processing applications
Spreadsheet software
Organizing and brainstorming software
Multimedia
Data collection tools
Web resources
Communication software

For me the important thing is that questions about learning begin with the need, not the tool. A question that begins with, “How can a (wiki, blog, etc.) help students…” is incorrect in my book. A question that begins with, “How can students deepen their understanding with a (wiki, blog, etc.)…” is more like it.

I’m looking forward to some great conversations!

The Writing Process

Michael — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:58:34 +0000

Clear, articulate, concise writing is important for our students. The mind of a middle schooler may often be anything but clear, articulate and concise (and that is OK). What strategies can we use to help students acquire and integrate learning of the writing process?

Better Answers is a writing program we are working on here at Heim. It is a structured writing response model that builds on the strategy of cues, questions and advance organizers. The “Better Answer Sandwich” graphic sums it up best (click to enlarge):

Using this organizer, students are directed through the writing process using specific, direct organizational ideas. The program has been used in lower grades in the past, and is now being rolled out across the school.

How might technology support this process? One way is with a new web resource we are piloting, the Glencoe Online Essay Grader. Teachers can assign essay topics to students, and students complete the essay online. In my first looks at the resource, there are tools that can be provided to students to formulate answers very much like the sandwich model. Additional supports (if desired) for students in this environment are sentence structure advice, spell and grammar check, and sentence diagramming.

Other technology resources to support the writing process include:

Create a template in a word processing document that includes the steps of the Better Answers process. Students download and complete an essay using the steps as a framework.
Use brainstorming and organizing software (such as Inspiration) to have students graphically complete the steps of the process, and then convert the graphic diagram to a word processing document.

Better writing is always a goal, and there are many technology tools to support it.

Worksheets and the Internet

Michael — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:16:29 +0000

Content Tech
Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom

Using a worksheet to research information on the Internet and fill in the blanks is a popular activity. In its most fundamental state, this is a form of the strategy cues, questions, and advance organizers. Students use questions on the worksheet to (hopefully) guide them through a website and acquire the necessary information.

When a worksheet is fill-in-the-blank, it tends to be a regurgitation of information found on the web. How might the strategy be more beneficial to the students in order for them to be not only exposed to the information, but begin to acquire, integrate and personalize the knowledge?

A word processing document set up as a KWL chart is one option. Since the students will be using the Internet for the research, using the computer to create the document is easy. Begin with a brief warm-up where students type what they know about the topic. After some sharing, move on to having them type what they want to know. Through the use of questioning, direct students to note any other information they should want to know if they did not come up with the questions on their own. During the investigation process, students look for the information based on their own inquiry, making the process more meaningful. At the end of the lesson, students indicate on the word processing document what they have learned. The entire document can be submitted or posted electronically with ease.

Worksheets structured to use the technology available can help to increase the acquisition of knowledge in many ways. Other thoughts/ideas most welcome!

Image courtesy of christopherl on Flickr

Flashback Friday: What Matters?

Michael — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:00:35 +0000

In this month’s flashback, one of the posts I wrote in August 2004 is What Matters? The two questions I posed regarding if using technology in a lesson are appropriate were:

Does the technology allow for new and unique learning experiences that are not possible without it?
Does the technology allow for increased, more efficient learning that is not be possible without it?

Those questions are still applicable, but as I think about how technology fits into the learning process, I believe the better questions are:

What is the learning goal?
How will you know when students achieve the goal?
How will you foster progress toward the goal?
How will you help students practice, review and apply the learning?

These questions look amazingly similar to the planning questions for instruction (courtesy of Robert Marzano), because that is where they come from. What is most important about these questions? The word technology is not used at all. From these goals, specific strategies for instruction are formulated, and from those strategies, technology tools can be selected to match the strategy (or not selected if appropriate). If a technology supports the strategy, then it is an appropriate use. Technology use because it is slick, new, or a substitute for real learning is not appropriate.

What Matters? Learning. Technology does not (a hard thing for a technology integrator to say…).

Image by Spitzgogo on Flickr