Marzano 101
Who is he? What is he
about? Why should we care?
First Things First
 What’s
 Why
an
are
important?
Who is Robert Marzano?
Past: professor at University of Colorado;
high school English teacher; department
chair
 Present: international trainer and speaker;
author of over 20 books; private consultant
 Impact: responsible for translating
research and theory into proven classroom
practices for K-12

What is he about?
Applying the research on instruction to
instructional practices
 Identifying instructional strategies that
have a high probability of increasing
student achievement for all students in all
subject areas at all grade levels

Marzano’s Essential Nine
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Similarities and Differences
Note taking and Summarizing
Reinforcing Efffort and Providing Recognition
Homework and Practice
Nonlinguistic Representations
Cooperative Learning
Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
Generating and Testing Hypotheses
Questions, Cues, and Advanced Organizers
Why should we care?
The “art” of teaching is becoming the
“science” of teaching
 Findings support the most important factor
affecting student learning is the ________
 The goal of the research is to make the
teacher as effective as possible by
providing proven instructional strategies
 Getting more bang for your buck

Strategies That Most Impact Student Achievement
Category
Rank
Percentile
Gain
Identifying Similarities &
Differences
1
45
Summarizing & Note taking
2
34
Reinforcing Effort & Providing
Recognition
3
29
Homework & Practice
4
28
Nonlinguistic Representations
5
27
Cooperative Learning
6
27
Setting Objectives & Providing
Feedback
7
23
Generating & Testing Hypotheses
8
23
Questions, Cues, & Advance
Organizers
9
22
Essential Question:
How do Marzano’s Nine Best Practices
increase student achievement?
1. Similarities and Differences
What do you need to know?
Involve identifying how items, events,
processes, or concepts are similar and
different based on characteristics
 Graphic and symbolic representations are
often used, and they promote long term
memory for students
 A life skill

Similarities and Differences
Strategies
http://gotoscience.com/Graphic_Organizer
s.html
 Variations of the Venn Diagram*
 Compare/Contrast with Summary
 Comparison Matrix
 Compare and Contrast: Narratives

VENN DIAGRAM
Features Unique to A: ______________ Features Unique to B:_____________
Features Common
to A and B
2. Note taking and Summarizing
What do you need to know?
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Both require students to do something with
information
Both seem straightforward but are actually
complex
Note taking: synthesizing material, prioritizing
pieces of data, restating some information, and
organizing concepts, topics, and details
Summarizing: deciding which parts of material
are important or trivial, rewording some ideas,
deleting and reorganizing information
Both involve numerous mental processes
Note taking and Summarizing
Strategies

http://www.greece.
k12.ny.us/instructio
n/ela/612/Tools/Index.htm
Note taking
Summarizing
Q-Notes
Tic-Tac-Know
Webs*
I Have, Who Has
Interactive
Notebooks
Password
Character Cards
Exit Tickets
CEI
Last Word
Acrostic
Web Title
3. Reinforcing Effort and Providing
Recognition
What do you need to know?
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Both focus on student motivation
Added effort increases student achievement
Students’ attitudes and beliefs impact their
achievement
Reinforcing effort: notice the effort the student has
made and motivate the student to make further effort
Providing recognition: praise, rewards, awards, or
teacher acknowledgement to a student for a specific
accomplishment (big or small as long as it’s specific)
Reinforcing Effort and Providing
Recognition
Strategies
Reinforcing Effort
Providing Recognition
Teach students that effort can
improve achievement
Focus recognition on particular
accomplishments and praise on
particular students
Share personal examples of times
you succeeded by not giving up; ask
students to share and/or reflect on
their own experiences
Use symbolic tokens to recognize a
reached specific learning goal of a
student (stickers, certificates, token,
colored strings)
Share stories about people who
succeeded by not giving up
Brainstorm with your class ways to
provide personal recognition
Ask students to chart effort and
achievement regarding your class*
“Pause, Prompt, and Praise”
Technique
Effort and Achievement Chart
Student: Jack
Date:
Assignment
Effort
Achievement
Fri., Oct. 20
Homework: Practice
solving linear equations
2
1
Wed., Oct. 25
Quiz: Graphs of linear
functions
4
2
Thurs., Oct. 26
In-class practice: Solving
linear equations
4
3
Fri., Oct. 27
In-class assignment:
Properties of linear
equations
3
2
4. Homework and Practice
What do you need to know?
Both should provide students with chances
to deepen understanding and skills relative
to content that has already been
presented to them
 Both can be used as powerful instructional
tools when used purposefully
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Homework and Practice
Strategies
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Less homework should be given in lower
grade levels
Students use a log to identify and articulate
the purpose of the homework: practice,
preparation, or elaboration*
Design practice assignments that focus on
specific elements of a hard/complex skill or
process
Realize the power of your feedback
Student Homework Log
Topic:
 Due Date:
 What I have to do tonight:
 Purpose of assignment:
 What I have to already know or be able to
do in order to complete the assignment:
 This homework helped me to…
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5. Nonlinguistic Representations
What do you need to know?
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Research supports that knowledge is stored in two
forms: a linguistic form and an imagery form
Teachers overuse the linguistic format for learning
Engaging students in the creation and use of
nonlinguistic representations of knowledge
increases activity in the brain
Incorporating more and more of these in your
classroom increases student understanding of the
content
Nonlinguistic Representations
Strategies
Graphic organizers
(http://gotoscience.com/Graphic_Organize
rs.html)
 Physical models, representations (Vocab.)
 Mental pictures (Imagine that…)
 Drawing pictures, pictographs*, glyphs
 Kinesthetic activities (Human graph)
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Examples of Pictographs
Imagine that it’s a beautiful day on a Caribbean Island,
and you are lucky enough to be sitting in one of these two
chairs. From the below selections choose who you would
want to be sitting in the chair right beside you as you
enjoy your time in paradise.
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McDreamy
Jamie Foxx
Tom Brady
Jennifer Aniston
Beyonce
6. Cooperative Learning
What do you need to know?
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It’s more than group work
Use a regular structure for students to follow, and
train students in that structure
Include the below elements to have constructive
Cooperative Learning
 Positive
interdependence
 Face-to-face promotive interaction
 Individual and group accountability
 Interpersonal and small group skills
 Group processing
Cooperative Learning
Strategies
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Vary grouping criteria
Remember the “smaller the better”
Assign specific roles to specific students within
each group. Rotate the roles often.
 Facilitator
 Time
keeper
 Recorder
 Materials Manager
7. Setting Objectives and Providing
Feedback
What do you need to know?
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Both give students direction and help them think
about their own learning
Objectives: these can narrow a student’s focus;
they should be flexible and personal to the
student
Feedback: explaining to a student what he is
doing correctly and incorrectly; should be timely;
refers to a specific level of performance
Setting Objectives and Providing
Feedback
Strategies
Use a Learning Objectives Sheet*
 Student-created checklist of his own
learning objectives
 Timely and specific assessment feedback
 Student/teacher conference
 Peer conference
 Student self assessment
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My Learning Objectives

Our learning objective for this unit: Understanding
the basic purposes of government in the United States

Complete the following sentences to set your
personal learning objectives:
I know… one purpose of our government is to protect
individual rights.
I want to know… what does the common good mean?
I want to know more about… what laws the
president makes and what laws a governor makes.
8. Generating and Testing Hypotheses
What do you need to know?
When a student generates and tests
hypotheses he is applying knowledge
 We ask all the time “If I do this, what might
happen?”
 Asking a student to explain his hypotheses
and conclusions enhances his learning
process
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Generating and Testing Hypotheses
Strategies
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Students predict what would happen if an
aspect of a familiar system (government,
transportation, ecosystem, soccer match)
was changed
Students build something using limited
resources and generate questions and
hypotheses about what may or may not work
Students use a results template to explain
their work and what they learned from their
experience*
Results Template
My hypothesis about what will happen…
 I think this will happen because…
 After I completed the systems analysis, I
found…
 As a result of doing this task, I learned…
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9. Questions, Cues, and Advance
Organizers
What do you need to know?
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All help students use what they already know
about a topic to enhance further learning
Questions: focus more on higher level questions;
allow for wait time; can be asked before new
content is given
Cues: reminders or hints about what students are
about to experience; purpose is to trigger memory
Advance Organizers: framework given prior to
teaching new content to prepare students for
upcoming material
Questions, Cues, and Advance
Organizers
Strategies
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Vary the type and format of questions used and
represent the different levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy
Use explicit cues as in the KWL structure*
Allow students to preview important information by
skimming material before reading it
Provide extra text or pictures of complex material
before covering it
Share a story (real or made up) relating to new
material
KWL Chart
Know
Want to Know
Learned
Final Thoughts
Provide a structure at first for a new
strategy
 Teach and model each new strategy
 Many of these are also life skills; show the
value of each in and out of your classroom
 Remember quality over quantity

Time to Process:
Implementation Plan
Summarizer: Password
Robert
Marzano
Similarities
and Differences
Best
Practices
Homework
Strategy
Summarizing
Graphic
Organizer
Results
Feedback
Teacher
Our Contact Information

theresa.cowart@cobbk12.org
 amy.riggins@cobbk12.org