Final Reflection II

What?

After completing the study on Classroom Instruction That Works by Robert Marzano, I learned an abundant amount of strategies to implement in my classroom to aid in boosting student achievement. I had a hard time deciding on just one strategy from his book to discuss for my final reflection. He had many brilliant ideas that I utilized in my classroom and enjoyed. So I couldn't decide on just one strategy. Therefore, I decided on the top three strategies that I really enjoyed and continue to use in my classroom.

The following instructional strategies worked for me because I was able to apply them in my classroom. These strategies also revealed an increase in learning and excitement in my students’ class work. These strategies were also the easiest for me to implement without a great deal of preparation.

Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
Non-Linguistic Representation
Cooperative Learning

So What?

Reinforcing effort and providing recognition are strategies used to address students’ attitudes and beliefs. Psychologist Bernard Weiner believed that the notion of pay offs enhances achievement in students. If a person believes he or she has ability he or she can tackle anything. I have taken this strategy and utilized it in my everyday routine. I had trouble getting my students to respond to questions aloud in class when I was lecturing. I would even ask them the simplest ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question and I still couldn’t get them to speak. So I decided to start awarding extra credit points to those students who answered my questions. At first the strategy didn’t seem to make that much of a difference, but then after implementing it for about a week the other students started noticing that the students who were responding were getting free 100’s. Since reinforcing effort among my students I have started observing an increase in the responses I received in the past. However, I still have a couple of students who have yet to respond to this strategy. When providing recognition I verbally praise my students for doing well. For instance, when students turn their work in to me I make it a point to express my appreciation of their effort and I tell them thank you for turning in their work. I have found that it keeps the habit of turning in work from those students consistent.

Non-linguistic representation has become my favorite strategy. It is a strategy that involves mental processing in which students create information into pictures that stimulates and increases brain activity in them. The most popular form of a non-linguistic representation is graphic organizers. I used to have my students complete a graphic organizer on easier tasks such as what new foods were introduced during the colonial days by the Indians and the colonists. Since learning the importance of graphic organizers in student retention I have asked my students to create graphic organizers about the beliefs of Hinduism, Christianity, the causes of WWI and WWII, the advantages of the North and South during the Civil War, and many others. When I grade their graphic organizers I have seen an increase in the amount of understanding each student portrays. I have even researched fun, creative graphic organizer templates and I have been amazed at the number of resources available. My favorite place to get graphic organizers is from Edhelper.com.

Cooperative learning is a strategy that allows grouping of students to work together on an assigned task. It wasn’t until reading Marzano’s book that I realized I was doing cooperative learning wrong the whole time. I didn’t put students into any particular group. I just allowed them to work with their friends and pick their own groups. My reason for doing this resorts back to when I was in school. I always hated it when the teacher would stick me with a group of students who didn’t care about the assignment and I ended up doing all the work. I would rather have been grouped with my group of friends whom I knew would help do the work. I never understood why my teachers assigned us to groups. I am assuming that they must have read Marzano’s book. It all makes more sense now. I found that by allowing my students to group themselves other groups suffered because they went to their friends who made the same low grades as they did. Once I realized I was doing my students’ an unfair injustice, I started pairing them up according to a homogeneous grouping. The students who made higher grades were put with students who made lower grades. As an end result I noticed that all my students worked well together overall and each group was successful.

Now What?

Robert Marzano’s book study has enabled me to be better teacher. I feel like I have more experience and “tricks up my sleeve” than I did before reading the book. All of the strategies I discussed above have helped make teaching easier and more rewarding. I have found that my students enjoy the activities just as much I did. I will continue to implement Marzano's strategies into my teaching assignments for the rest of my teaching career.