Nine Instructional Strategies From Marzano’s Classroom Instruction that Works & McREL

Identifying Similarities and Differences Classroom Practices Key Idea *Ask students to compare, identifying similarities & Identifying similarities and differences among concepts. differences may well be the *Help students classify, grouping things that are alike “core” of all learning. Using into categories. this strategy can deepen *Encourage students to create metaphors, identifying a students’ understanding & a basic pattern in one item that’s reflected in another item enhance their ability to apply *Ask students to create analogies, finding relationships new knowledge. between pairs of concepts (A is to B as C is to D)

Summarizing and Note Taking Classroom Practices Key Idea *Teach students the rules to summarizing and use summary frames (narrative definition, problem-solution) Helping students sort out to highlight important text elements. important information & restate *Give students teacher-prepared notes & explicitly teach it in a concise form improves them a variety of note taking formats their comprehension. Note taking that is not verbatim *Verbatim note taking is not effective results in higher achievement.

Reinforcing Effort & Providing Recognition Classroom Practices Key Idea *Explicitly teach students the importance of effort. *Stop frequently at students’ desks to “pause, prompt, Not all students realize the & praise.” importance of effort, therefore one *Use concrete symbols, words and various forms of of the most important things you recognition. can do is help them understand how more effort creates better results. Homework and Practice Classroom Practices Key Idea *Give students time to practice in class, review, & apply Homework shouldn’t be knowledge to become efficient in a skill or process. assigned as just more work to *Establish a homework policy do. Rather, it’s a way to extend *Design homework that has a clear purpose and outcome learning & help students master and focus on specific elements, skills or processes a skill or deepen understanding of what is taught in class.

Nonlinguistic Representation Classroom Practices Key Idea

*Use pictures or pictographs to represent students’ Psychologists believe we store knowledge knowledge in two forms: *Help students generate mental pictures of what they’re linguistic & imagery. The learning. more students process *Use physical models & manipulatives to convey information using both forms, concepts the better they’ll understand & recall what they’ve learned. *Engage students in kinesthetic activities

Cooperative Learning Classroom Practices Key Idea *Place students in small groups with well-structured cooperative learning activities *Vary grouping patterns Cooperative learning is more *Avoid ability grouping effective than individual competition or learning. While in groups, students should be interdependent yet accountable for individual contributions. Setting Objectives & Providing Feedback Classroom Practices Key Idea *Help students set learning goals that are specific and personal Telling students their answers *Provide students with feedback that is immediate, are incorrect without specific, coaches for growth, provides cause/effect,& explaining why can adversely preserves dignity affect learning. Giving feedback that’s specific and

timely is a powerful strategy.

Generating & Testing Hypotheses Classroom Practices Key Idea *Encourage your students to generate hypotheses by using both deductive (general rule) and inductive Generating & testing (developing rule) reasoning. hypotheses is not just for *Ask students to clearly explain their hypotheses & science, it is a basic cognitive Hypotheses Fact conclusions skill that helps students apply *Use a variety of structured tasks (systems analysis, knowledge & develop higher problem solving, invention, investigation) to develop order thinking skills in all students’ higher-level thinking skills subject areas.

Cues, Questions, & Advance Organizers Classroom Practices Key Idea *Use cues to help students retrieve, use & organize Helping students connect what what they already know they are about to learn with what *Instead of asking students to recall info, ask them they already know accelerates analytic questions that encourage higher level learning. Cueing and questioning thinking accounts for as much as 80% of *Wait time what teachers do in class, so ask *Use advance organizers (stories, videos, skimming, the right kinds of questions in graphics) to prepare students to learn new content order to elicit higher order thinking and deeper level answers from students.