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When students begin to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning, they develop self-regulation and can set more ambitious goals.

Davor Pavelic / Ikon Images

As a special education teacher and K-12 tutor, I found that students were often told what to learn but were rarely taught how to learn, which had the potential to leave them stuck, anxious, and disengaged. My desire to teach students strategies they could use to develop their own agency and independence led me to write my book, The Independent Learner.

Metacognition refers to a student's knowledge of their own thought process. A metacognitive thinking process allows students to self-regulate and direct their thoughts, behaviors, and actions toward their goals. As early as kindergarten, teachers can instruct students in how to build their metacognitive skills through a process of planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning. Once students reach third grade, they can begin to use these strategies with increased choice and independence.

When students begin working without a plan, they become easily confused and overwhelmed by the task. They may give up, get distracted, or become off-task very easily. Taking time to plan can help students avoid these issues. Planning can include previewing the task, setting goals, deciding how to approach the task, and connecting to previously learned information. The following strategies help students to plan.

Building prior knowledge: Teachers can help students build prior knowledge by connecting new information to what students already know. This might look like having students brainstorm in groups to answer a question, watch a short introductory video clip or demonstration, or look at and discuss pictures or objects related to the topic that will be studied. A strong foundation of background knowledge can help students to accurately make predictions and prioritize information during the lesson.

Goal setting: Having students set goals and track progress is linked to a 32 percent increase in achievement. Teachers can help students to set short-term goals related to the skill they are learning as well as the student's long-term personal goals and values.

Planning the process: We have all had the experience of setting goals, only to lose the motivation and follow-through necessary to make them a reality. Teachers can help students think about the changes they need to make in their daily behavior and habits in order to get from where they are now to where they want to be. Students can make a plan or checklist and use this to monitor their daily progress or the baby steps toward their goal.

Students who are having trouble monitoring don't know when to seek help or may be overly dependent on the teacher to make sure they are doing their work correctly. They may lack a sense of self-efficacy or the belief that their efforts affect their actions or fail to change their approach when it is not working. When a student is monitoring their learning, they are assessing their level of understanding and trying to determine whether the strategy they have selected is working. The following strategies help students monitor.

Metacognitive talk: When students are learning a new skill, the teacher can model thinking aloud to make the thought process visible for students. This helps them to develop the complex thinking skills necessary for that subject area. The teacher can encourage students to use discussion to construct knowledge instead of just participating to display what they know. Strategies like think-pair-share or visually explaining the steps of their thinking help students to understand that there are many ways to approach a particular problem or task.

Analyze, prioritize, summarize: Students can be taught various methods of summarizing information and isolating key facts, details, and keywords. One method that students enjoy is a one-pager.

Diversify: When approaching a new learning task, it is important for students to know many ways to solve a problem or approach the skill. Strategies that mix verbal and visual information make learning more memorable. When students are familiar with many strategies, they have the tools necessary to exercise their own agency in selecting what works best for them.

If students are not evaluating their learning, they often do not understand how to use strategies in other contexts or for future problem-solving. They may know that they got something wrong but are not able to tell you why or what they should do differently next time to avoid that same issue. To evaluate their learning, students consider whether the strategy they chose worked and what they would change for next time. The following strategies help students to evaluate.

Assess: Testing should be used during learning, not just once learning is complete. Students can create their own practice tests or test questions, or teachers can use pre- and post-tests with clickers to find out what students know, help students to prioritize important information, and assess learning during the lesson.

What am I working toward?

What progress have I made so far?

Where do I go from here?

Seek feedback: In the classroom, the teacher acts as a coach to students, providing information about learning goals and progress. Successful feedback should not shame students or focus on personal qualities but instead should answer these questions:

Reflect and revise: After assessment, self-assessment, or feedback, students reflect on whether the strategy they are using is working. Then they decide what changes they need to make. Students may also consider areas where they need to seek out help. When they revise, students consider what did not go so well and fix it. They should be able to explain their mistake or what did not work and then select a strategy to correct their work. As you might notice, this starts the metacognition cycle back at the planning stage.

The only way to make learning truly relevant to each student is to teach the tools and strategies they will need to take a more active role in their learning. Incorporating metacognitive skills and self-regulated learning strategies has helped my students to become more independent, engaged, and capable of exercising their own agency.

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How to Get Students Thinking About Their Own Learning

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When students begin to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning, they develop self-regulation and can set more ambitious goals.

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Promoting relationships and a positive mindset toward learning has a bigger impact on students' long-term success than raising test scores, new research shows.

Allison Shelly/The Verbatim Agency for American Education: Images of Teachers and Students in Action

Test scores are often touted as an objective way to measure how good a school is. And while this is true to a degree, they don't tell the whole story. For students who come from disadvantaged or minority backgrounds, schools that emphasize the social and emotional dimensions of learning-relationship-building, a sense of belonging, and grit, for example-may do a better job of improving long-term outcomes than schools that focus solely on high test scores.

In a new study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, C. Kirabo Jackson, a professor of education and social policy at Northwestern University, and his colleagues found that schools with robust impacts on student well-being may be helping students in ways that aren't picked up by standardized tests. These schools may not have the highest test scores, but they're the most likely to motivate students to graduate and attend college, especially those students who are less likely to do so in the first place.

"Test scores aren't everything, and schools that promote socio-emotional development actually have a really big positive impact on kids," Jackson told me. "And these impacts are particularly large for vulnerable student populations who don't tend to do very well in the education system."

Working to See the Bigger Picture

This is the latest in a series of studies examining the broad impact that teachers and schools have on students. Jackson's previous research looked at the impact that teachers had on noncognitive skills such as self-regulation, and found that teachers who improved these skills improved their students' long-term outcomes, boosting not only grades, but also attendance and high school graduation rates. The skills that are valuable for future success aren't usually measured on tests, Jackson points out. So while teachers and schools are often evaluated by their ability to improve students' test scores, broader measures should be used.

In the current study, Jackson and his colleagues looked at over 150,000 ninth-grade students who attended Chicago public schools between 2011 and 2017, analyzing test scores and administrative records. They also examined responses on an annual survey students completed on social and emotional development and school climate. The survey covered a range of topics, including peer relationships, students' sense of belonging, how hard they studied for tests, and how interested they were in the topics they were studying. The data were then combined into a three-part index: one that included test scores and other academic outcomes, a "social well-being" index, and a "work habits" index.

Jackson's team found that schools that scored high on the latter two indices-those that promoted social and emotional development-were also the most effective at supporting long-term student success. In these schools, there were fewer absences, and more students graduated and went on to college. And perhaps more importantly, the benefits were greatest for student populations who struggled the most in school.

"These results are broadly consistent with studies that have found that psychological interventions, specifically things like belonging interventions, tend to have the largest impacts for lower-income students or underrepresented minorities," Jackson told me. "So the data that we're finding are consistent with the idea that these particularly vulnerable populations are the ones that benefit the most from the socio-emotional interventions."

Why Noncognitive Skills Matter

Although all students benefit from attending high-performing schools, it's the schools that provide a well-rounded education that drove the differences that Jackson and his colleagues observed. They discovered that a school's impact on the noncognitive dimensions of learning-healthy relationships and a growth mindset, for example-were much more predictive of long-term success than a school's impact on test scores.

For example, Jackson found that high schools that were effective at improving students' feelings of connectedness and belonging had the biggest impact for disadvantaged students, improving their graduation rates by 3.1 percentage points. In contrast, graduation rates for advantaged students at these high schools increased by 0.6 percentage points.

Schools that were effective at raising test scores had a much smaller impact on graduation rates, improving them by 1.8 points for disadvantaged students and 0.2 for advantaged ones.

Disadvantaged students, Jackson told me, "were likely to be relatively lower on the socio-emotional measures" when they started high school. "They were less likely to have strong feelings of belonging in their schools, less likely to have the persistence or academic engagement that students from more affluent homes may have had. So these are the students who would have benefited the most from schools that improve these things."

So what's the big takeaway? Some high schools are better than others at fostering healthy relationships and the skills and mindsets-like grit and good study habits-that promote long-term success. So for Jackson, success shouldn't be measured in terms of test scores alone.

"If you look at people who are successful in life, oftentimes they have attributes that are really positive, in addition to being really smart," Jackson told me. "They're very smart, very knowledgeable, but they also seem to be well-adjusted, for the most part. They tend to be engaged, highly motivated. So there are a lot of other traits that aren't measured by test scores, but if you look at successful individuals, you see that they have those things."

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A Fuller Picture of What a 'Good' School Is

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Promoting relationships and a positive mindset toward learning has a bigger impact on students' long-term success than raising test scores, new research shows.

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Every kid needs a champion | Rita Pierson | TED

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ARCHIVED CONTENT: As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date each article was posted or last reviewed. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
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Have you ever found yourself listening to something really boring, then wafting off into your own mind, your hand scribbling random things on a piece of paper in front of you? Whether it's a conference call or a tedious lecture, being all ears can be a challenge when your hands want to be a part of the moment. Nobody is immune to this either. Even American presidents have found themselves sketching away: 26 of 44 American Presidents doodled, from Theodore Roosevelt, who doodled animals and children, to Ronald Reagan, who doodled cowboys and football players, and John F. Kennedy, who doodled dominoes. Traditionally, we have thought of these doodles as a sign of distraction - an indication that your mind was not where it was supposed to be. Yet, recent research has shown that doodling is not an enemy of attention; it may in fact be a friend.

Doodling and memory

In 2009, psychologist Jackie Andrade asked 40 people to monitor a 2-½ minute dull and rambling voice mail message. Half of the group doodled while they did this (they shaded in a shape), and the other half did not. They were not aware that their memories would be tested after the call. Surprisingly, when both groups were asked to recall details from the call, those that doodled were better at paying attention to the message and recalling the details. They recalled 29% more information!

While there are no definitive reasons for why this occurred, we are learning more about how this can happen. When you're bored, your fight-or-flight system will do all that it can to rally and stay alert. Doodling (a form of fidgeting) may be a last-ditch attempt at staying awake and attentive. Doodling keeps you from falling asleep, or simply staring blankly when your brain has already turned off. The permission to "free-draw" keeps your brain online just a little while longer.

In addition, paying continuous attention places a strain on the brain, and doodling may be just the break your brain needs to keep attending without losing total interest. A report on the learning styles of medical students (who generally have to absorb large amounts of information) indicated that even they may find doodling helpful, as long as they limit the time they do it. A simple 30-minute doodle helps them remember information, fills in gaps in their thinking, and provides a much-needed reprieve from the loads of information they must wade through.

Doodling for stress relief and improved focus

Spontaneous drawings may also relieve psychological distress, making it easier to attend to things. We like to make sense of our lives by making up coherent stories, but sometimes there are gaps that cannot be filled, no matter how hard we try. Doodles fill these gaps, possibly by activating the brain's " time travel machine," allowing it to find lost puzzle pieces of memories, bringing them to the present, and making the picture of our lives more whole again. With this greater sense of self and meaning, we may be able to feel more relaxed and concentrate more.

Although doodles may look like a scribble, random words that make no sense, or a partial face that suddenly becomes something extraterrestrial, they are not quite as random as we might think. Dr. Robert Burns, the former director of the Institute for Human Development at the University of Seattle, uses doodles to diagnose the emotional problems of his patients. He believes that doodles can reveal what is going on in the unconscious. He asserts that, in the same way that EEG leads transmit brain activity to a piece of paper, your hand also does the same. Many other doodle researchers would agree.

It seems then that if you're struggling to concentrate, find yourself stuck or feeling "incomplete," a time-limited doodle expedition could be just the thing you are looking for. It will likely activate your brain's "unfocus" circuits, give your "focus" circuits a break, and allow you to more creatively and tirelessly solve a problem at hand.

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The "thinking" benefits of doodling - Harvard Health Blog

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ARCHIVED CONTENT: As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date each article was posted or last reviewed. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

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Cognitive and Metacognitive Base Slide Deck

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Cognitive and Metacognitive Base Slide Deck

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Short-term memory tends to be limited in duration and capacity. In fact, the human brain can store short-term memories for only about 30 seconds-so it must move important information into long-term memory to retain it. That's where memory consolidation comes in.

What Is Memory Consolidation?

Memory consolidation is the process in the brain that converts short-term memories into long-term ones.

Building Long-Term Memories With New Information

Memory consolidation relies on synapses in the brain. In something akin to an electrical system conducting a current,r the synapses pass signals from neuron to neuron with the help of neurotransmitters.

The more frequently signals are passed, the stronger the synapses become. This process, called potentiation, is believed to play a major role in learning and memory processes.

When two neurons fire at the same time repeatedly, they become more likely to fire together in the future. Eventually, these two neurons become sensitized to one another.

As you acquire new experiences and memories, your brain creates more and more of these connections. Essentially, the brain rearranges itself, establishing new connections while weeding out old ones.

How Memory Consolidation Works

By rehearsing or recalling information repeatedly, these neural networks strengthen. For example, if you study the same material regularly over a long period, the pathways involved in remembering that information become stronger. The repeated firing of the same neurons makes it more likely that those same neurons will be able to repeat that firing in the future. As a result, you'll remember the information later with ease and accuracy.

Here's another way to think of these synaptic pathways: They're similar to a path in the woods. The more often you walk the path, the more familiar it becomes and the easier it is to traverse.

Influences on Memory Consolidation

Although we often think of the brain as a filing cabinet or a computer with individual files of memories carefully stored away, the reality is that memories are spread out across the entire brain.

Through the consolidation process, the brain creates a sort of neural map, allowing memories to be retrieved when needed.

Sleep can play an important role in the consolidation process. One of the major theories of sleep suggests that it's a way to process and consolidate information we acquire during our waking lives.

People often think of memories as permanent, but just because a memory has been consolidated does not mean you can't lose it. Researchers have found that memories often need to be reconsolidated once they have been recalled. The process of recalling and reconsolidating a memory can help maintain and strengthen information in long-term memory.

Researchers have also found that memories must be reconsolidated every time you access them. This process, however, can transform and change the memory itself. The very act of remembering, it seems, can lead to some things being forgotten.

Speeding Up Memory Consolidation

It is also possible to speed up the consolidation process when learning new information. Rehearsal and memorization strategies, such as using mnemonic devices and studying are a few techniques. One of the best ways to ensure that information is consolidated into long-term memory is to rehearse it over several spaced intervals repeatedly.

That's why going over your class notes once a week for several weeks will lead to greater memory retention than cramming the night before an exam.

A Word From Verywell

By understanding how consolidation works, you might be able to adapt your memorization strategies to boost the process. Repetition/study and sleep are good places to start.

Additional Reading

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How Consolidation Turns Short-Term Memories Into Long-Term Ones

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Learn about how the psychology of memory consolidation transfers information from short-term memory into long-term memory.

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In some circles, Ben Hogan is credited with "inventing practice."

Hogan was one of the greatest golfers of the 20th century, an accomplishment he achieved through tireless repetition. He simply loved to practice. Hogan said, "I couldn't wait to get up in the morning so I could hit balls. I'd be at the practice tee at the crack of dawn, hit balls for a few hours, then take a break and get right back to it." 1

For Hogan, every practice session had a purpose. He reportedly spent years breaking down each phase of the golf swing and testing new methods for each segment. The result was near perfection. He developed one of the most finely-tuned golf swings in the history of the game.

His precision made him more like a surgeon than a golfer. During the 1953 Masters, for example, Hogan hit the flagstick on back-to-back holes. A few days later, he broke the tournament scoring record. 2

Hogan methodically broke the game of golf down into chunks and figured out how he could master each section. For example, he was one of the first golfers to assign specific yardages to each golf club. Then, he studied each course carefully and used trees and sand bunkers as reference points to inform him about the distance of each shot. 3

Hogan finished his career with nine major championships-ranking fourth all-time. During his prime, other golfers simply attributed his remarkable success to "Hogan's secret." Today, experts have a new term for his rigorous style of improvement: deliberate practice.

What is Deliberate Practice?

Deliberate practice refers to a special type of practice that is purposeful and systematic. While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance. When Ben Hogan carefully reconstructed each step of his golf swing, he was engaging in deliberate practice. He wasn't just taking cuts. He was finely tuning his technique.

While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance.

The greatest challenge of deliberate practice is to remain focused. In the beginning, showing up and putting in your reps is the most important thing. But after a while we begin to carelessly overlook small errors and miss daily opportunities for improvement.

This is because the natural tendency of the human brain is to transform repeated behaviors into automatic habits. For example, when you first learned to tie your shoes you had to think carefully about each step of the process. Today, after many repetitions, your brain can perform this sequence automatically. The more we repeat a task the more mindless it becomes.

Mindless activity is the enemy of deliberate practice. The danger of practicing the same thing again and again is that progress becomes assumed. Too often, we assume we are getting better simply because we are gaining experience. In reality, we are merely reinforcing our current habits-not improving them.

Claiming that improvement requires attention and effort sounds logical enough. But what does deliberate practice actually look like in the real world? Let's talk about that now.

Examples of Deliberate Practice

One of my favorite examples of deliberate practice is discussed in Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. In the book, Colvin describes how Benjamin Franklin used deliberate practice to improve his writing skills.

When he was a teenager, Benjamin Franklin was criticized by his father for his poor writing abilities. Unlike most teenagers, young Ben took his father's advice seriously and vowed to improve his writing skills.

He began by finding a publication written by some of the best authors of his day. Then, Franklin went through each article line by line and wrote down the meaning of every sentence. Next, he rewrote each article in his own words and then compared his version to the original. Each time, "I discovered some of my faults, and corrected them." Eventually, Franklin realized his vocabulary held him back from better writing, and so he focused intensely on that area.

Deliberate practice always follows the same pattern: break the overall process down into parts, identify your weaknesses, test new strategies for each section, and then integrate your learning into the overall process.

Here are some more examples.

Cooking: Jiro Ono, the subject of the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, is a chef and owner of an award-winning sushi restaurant in Tokyo. Jiro has dedicated his life to perfecting the art of making sushi and he expects the same of his apprentices. Each apprentice must master one tiny part of the sushi-making process at a time-how to wring a towel, how to use a knife, how to cut the fish, and so on. One apprentice trained under Jiro for ten years before being allowed to cook the eggs. Each step of the process is taught with the utmost care.

Martial arts: Josh Waitzkin, author of The Art of Learning, is a martial artist who holds several US national medals and a 2004 world championship. In the finals of one competition, he noticed a weakness: When an opponent illegally head-butted him in the nose, Waitzkin flew into a rage. His emotion caused him to lose control and forget his strategy. Afterward, he specifically sought out training partners who would fight dirty so he could practice remaining calm and principled in the face of chaos. "They were giving me a valuable opportunity to expand my threshold for turbulence," Waitzkin wrote. "Dirty players were my best teachers."

Chess: Magnus Carlsen is a chess grandmaster and one of the highest-rated players in history. One distinguishing feature of great chess players is their ability to recognize "chunks," which are specific arrangements of pieces on the board. Some experts estimate that grandmasters can identify around 300,000 different chunks. Interestingly, Carlsen learned the game by playing computer chess, which allowed him to play multiple games at once. Not only did this strategy allow him to learn chunks much faster than someone playing in-person games, but also gave him a chance to make more mistakes and correct his weaknesses at an accelerated pace.

Music: Many great musicians recommend repeating the most challenging sections of a song until you master them. Virtuoso violinist Nathan Milstein says, "Practice as much as you feel you can accomplish with concentration. Once when I became concerned because others around me practiced all day long, I asked [my professor] how many hours I should practice, and he said, 'It really doesn't matter how long. If you practice with your fingers, no amount is enough. If you practice with your head, two hours is plenty.'" 4

Basketball: Consider the following example from Aubrey Daniels, "Player A shoots 200 practice shots, Player B shoots 50. The Player B retrieves his own shots, dribbles leisurely and takes several breaks to talk to friends. Player A has a colleague who retrieves the ball after each attempt. The colleague keeps a record of shots made. If the shot is missed the colleague records whether the miss was short, long, left or right and the shooter reviews the results after every 10 minutes of practice. To characterize their hour of practice as equal would hardly be accurate. Assuming this is typical of their practice routine and they are equally skilled at the start, which would you predict would be the better shooter after only 100 hours of practice?"

The Unsung Hero of Deliberate Practice

Perhaps the greatest difference between deliberate practice and simple repetition is this: feedback. Anyone who has mastered the art of deliberate practice-whether they are an athlete like Ben Hogan or a writer like Ben Franklin-has developed methods for receiving continual feedback on their performance.

There are many ways to receive feedback. Let's discuss two.

The first effective feedback system is measurement. The things we measure are the things we improve. This holds true for the number of pages we read, the number of pushups we do, the number of sales calls we make, and any other task that is important to us. It is only through measurement that we have any proof of whether we are getting better or worse.

The second effective feedback system is coaching. One consistent finding across disciplines is that coaches are often essential for sustaining deliberate practice. In many cases, it is nearly impossible to both perform a task and measure your progress at the same time. Good coaches can track your progress, find small ways to improve, and hold you accountable to delivering your best effort each day.

The Promise of Deliberate Practice

Humans have a remarkable capacity to improve their performance in nearly any area of life if they train in the correct way. This is easier said than done.

Deliberate practice is not a comfortable activity. It requires sustained effort and concentration. The people who master the art of deliberate practice are committed to being lifelong learners-always exploring and experimenting and refining.

Deliberate practice is not a magic pill, but if you can manage to maintain your focus and commitment, then the promise of deliberate practice is quite alluring: to get the most out of what you've got.

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The Beginner's Guide to Deliberate Practice

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You can improve your performance in nearly any area of life, but you must train in the correct way. Read this article to learn about deliberate practice.

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How to Master Anything: PEAK by Anders Ericsson | Core Message

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Anders Ericsson on the science of expertise | Larry King Now | Ora.TV

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It's always better to know if a student is struggling before a big test is in the rearview mirror. But students often lack the self-awareness to monitor their own learning, and may struggle to work up the courage to ask for help. Others may overestimate their mastery of important ideas and concepts, tricking their brains into thinking they're prepared for a test when they're not.

So when it comes to student learning, how can you tell what's sticking-and where additional instruction or review could make a difference?

Formative assessments are typically short, gradeless ways to evaluate what students know while they're still in the process of learning it. When used early and often, they can shine a light on individual student progress, serve as general indicators of how the class is doing as a whole, and inform subsequent instruction. This process of actively checking in with students on their journey toward mastery is "especially effective when students are given tactical feedback, immediately followed by time to practice the skill," says Todd Finley, a tenured professor of English education at East Carolina University.

Quick checks for understanding aren't new, of course, but when time allows, occasionally injecting an element of creativity into formative assessments can deliver unexpected benefits. For example-regardless of a student's artistic talent-research suggests that drawing the information they're learning can increase student recall by nearly double. And when kids are encouraged to tap into their imagination to show what they know, they tend to ask more innovative questions of themselves, brainstorm fresh solutions to problems, and synthesize material in original and surprising ways.

Here are 13 formative assessment strategies that lean into creativity-inspired by the work of several Edutopia contributors, and from Finley's handy list of quick checks for understanding.

Simple Symbols: Sketchnoting-simple, hand-drawn renderings of things like facts, dates, or abstract concepts-can be a great way to help students process vocabulary. Educator Wendi Pillars has her students co-create a symbolic language library, working together to visually represent important terms from a unit. After choosing 10 terms, students develop an icon or character to correspond with each one. For example, a drawing of a sun can represent energy or a tree can represent life.

Write a Letter: On a sheet of paper or an index card, ask students to explain a new concept they've learned in the form of a short letter to a friend or family member, pretending the other person is new to the information. This process of explanation can open students' eyes to what they know and what they don't, explains Woo-Kyoung Ahn, a psychology professor at Yale University who uses a similar strategy with college students before exams.

Tweet Like a Historian: Challenge students to enter the minds of popular historical figures, tweeting about major events in the figure's life as that person would have, suggests former educator Matthew Lynch. To get a firm grasp on how well students understand their chosen figure, ask who their figure might be following on social media, as well as topics that would be "trending" on their feed at the time. Educator Jill Fletcher prefers to use a paper template so that students can engage in the exercise without going online.

Playful Pamphlets: An effective brochure is easy and engaging to read, and offers eye-catching design. Ask students to create their own brochures that describe the key features of a concept, or to explain a historical event or scientific discovery. This can be done using paper and art materials, or digitally using applications like Canva or Google Slides.

Do It Yourself TED Talks: Most students are familiar with TED Talks, this strategy provides them with the opportunity to give their own. Educator Katy Farber describes them as "one person's short presentation of an idea worth spreading." After showing an example that students can model, ask them to find an idea worthy of spreading from the day's lesson and create their own speeches to present the information. Those who feel comfortable can share with the class.

Comic Creators: Using digital creation tools like Canva, kids can create their own comic strips to connect new material and information from past units. The comics shouldn't be a "regurgitation of knowledge," explains Andrew Miller, director of teaching and learning at the Singapore American School. Instead, they should have an authentic purpose, making it a fulfilling exercise where students create products that are informative and useful to peers. After a lesson on nutrition, for example, students could make comics that explain the major nutrients-as well as the role they play in how bodies function-that could be displayed in hallways for classmates to learn from.

Build-a-Billboard: Have small groups work together to create an advertisement, with visuals and text, to highlight a newly learned concept like Manifest Destiny or the scientific method. Students in San Francisco Unified School District health classrooms learn about tools advertisers use to convince people to buy their products, then create their own billboards. "If you were going to make an ad for your favorite fruit or vegetable, what techniques would you use?" asks health ed content specialist Christopher Pepper.

Sing It Out: Asking students to sing or rap about a lesson can be a fun change of pace-and rack up a few giggles. First, students identify the main concept of a lesson and list related keywords. In a rap about the order of operations, for example, educator Alex Kajitani lists "operations, order, parenthesis, exponent, multiply, divide, add, and subtract." Using the website RhymeZone.com helps identify what words rhyme with each key term, then students can begin writing their rap, song, or even spoken word poem.

Illustrate Connections: "A student who draws as they learn considers the following: How should I represent the relationship between these parts? How large/small should I draw these parts? What shape should they be? Where do I place each part?," explains instructional leader Shveta Miller. Invite students to draw a picture that illustrates a relationship between terms from the lesson or recreates a scene from their reading. Providing reflection questions like "How well did I recall the material after having represented it in my drawings?" or "When would drawing as I learn be useful? When is it not useful?" can be a useful add-on to the exercise.

60 Minutes: Students pair up and pretend they're a guest expert on the television program 60 Minutes or their local news broadcast. During their segment, they'll need to answer a few of their partner's interview-style questions-"What is the purpose of feudalism in a society?," for example.

Laughable Lists: At the end of a lesson or once students have finished assigned reading, ask them to enumerate what they think are the top ten most important takeaways. The twist? Students will have to try to infuse humor into their list of observations. Sharing a few examples before they begin can help students who might struggle with the exercise at first.

Cut and Paste: Encourage students-on their own, in pairs, or in groups-to make either digital or paper collages to demonstrate their understanding of the lesson's major themes and concepts: anything from matter and energy, to fractions and decimals. If time allows, have a few kids present their collages to the rest of the class and explain their thinking.

3-2-1 Action!: Choose a selection of excerpts from a recently read text-like a poem, play, or a short story-for students to dramatically interpret and perform. Without the use of props, costuming, or sets, students must not only have read the text but understood it enough to convey an insightful character analysis, as well as the mood and tone of the scene. These 5-minute performances can be recorded and submitted to the teacher to review, or shared in class for peers to see.

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13 Formative Assessments That Inspire Creativity

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Sometimes mixing in formative assessments that go a step beyond exit slips and low-stakes quizzes can inject some fun-and creativity-into learning.

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Random Name Picker is a free web-based application that lets you select a random name using Spin Wheel and Slot Machine. These simple and easy to use selectors can be customize by changing the names in the name list to whatever the user desires. You do not need to download or install any plugins/software as it is based on HTML5, so a modern browser (e.g Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome) is all you need.

Aside from tools to pick names randomly, we also have other web-based generators that involve around names like Name Bingo, Name Search Puzzle, Seating Chart, Name Label and more. We believe these additional tools will help you maximize the use of the name sets that you created on our site for the Spin Wheel and Slot Machine apps.

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Customizable name pickers and generators. Choose from different styles like Spin Wheel and Slot Machine.

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Random Name Picker is a free web-based application that lets you select a random name using Spin Wheel and Slot Machine. These simple and easy to use selectors can be customize by changing the names in the name list to whatever the user desires. You do not need to download or install any plugins/software as it is based on HTML5, so a modern browser (e.g Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome) is all you need.

Aside from tools to pick names randomly, we also have other web-based generators that involve around names like Name Bingo, Name Search Puzzle, Seating Chart, Name Label and more. We believe these additional tools will help you maximize the use of the name sets that you created on our site for the Spin Wheel and Slot Machine apps.

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Customizable name pickers and generators. Choose from different styles like Spin Wheel and Slot Machine.

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One investment to support long-term school improvement-Learn more

This practical handbook will guide you through implementing competency-based education that improves student learning outcomes and academic achievement. Better understand and utilize the research-based instructional strategies and teaching methods of the Marzano framework in your classroom, school, or district.
Benefits

Learn the history of Robert J. Marzano's framework of teaching methods first laid out in his best-selling The Art and Science of Teaching.

Thoroughly examine the updated The New Art and Science of Teaching framework for competency-based education.

Explore numerous instructional strategies that correspond to each of the 43 elements of The New Art and Science of Teaching.

Acquire examples that will assist in the realization of the instructional strategies discussed throughout the book.

Discover strategies that will improve both the mental and physical environment of the classroom to better support student success.

Reimagine how to develop relationships with students and generate student engagement.

Access free reproducibles that will assist in implementing The New Art and Science of Teaching framework in classrooms.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I: Feedback
Chapter 1: Providing and Communicating Clear Learning Goals
Chapter 2: Using Assessments

Part II: Content
Chapter 3: Conducting Direct Instruction Lessons
Chapter 4: Conducting Practicing and Deepening Lessons
Chapter 5: Conducting Knowledge Application Lessons
Chapter 6: Using Strategies That Appear in All Types of Lessons

Part III: Context
Chapter 7: Using Engagement Strategies
Chapter 8: Implementing Rules and Procedures
Chapter 9: Building Relationships
Chapter 10: Communicating High Expectations

Appendix: Reproducibles

STUDY GUIDE

PRINTABLE REPRODUCIBLES

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Appendix

SUGGESTED RESOURCES

BOOKS

Carleton, L., & Marzano, R. J. (2010). Vocabulary Games for the Classroom. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

Marzano, R. J. (2010). Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

Marzano, R. J. (2017). The New Art and Science of Teaching. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T. (2012). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

Marzano, R. J., & Marzano, J. S. (2015). Managing the Inner World of Teaching: Emotions, Interpretations, and Actions. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

Marzano, R. J., & Simms, J. A. (2014). Questioning Sequences in the Classroom. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

Marzano Research. (2016). Marzano Compendium of Instructional Strategies. Centennial, CO: Author.

Scott, D., & Marzano, R. J. (2014). Awaken the Learner: Finding the Source of Effective Education. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

WEBSITES

Chapter 2

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

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The Handbook for the New Art and Science of Teaching

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The Highly Engaged Classroom

Students' perceptions of acceptance is the third determiner of how they feel about themselves and the classroom environment.

Stated differently, if students sense that they are not welcome, accepted, or supported in the classroom, it is unlikely that they will engage in classroom activities. Certainly, the relationship teachers have with students is one of the most powerful determiners of how a student answers the question "How do I feel?" Carol Goodenow (1993) found teacher support was consistently the strongest predictor of motivation among students in sixth through eighth grades (p. 6).

A number of classroom activities have the potential to capture and hold students' attention.

Game like activities help trigger situational interest and provide a foundation for maintained situational interest because they tap into the psychological principle of clozentropy (see Broadhurst & Darnell, 1965; Darnell, 1970, 1972; Taylor, 1953; Weiner, 1967). Basically, the theory of clozentropy states that the human mind will naturally attend to situations that have missing details. Hermann Ebbinghaus (1987) addressed this point, noting that human beings tend to fill in the blanks when presented with incomplete information. (p. 9).

Effective questioning strategies can trigger situational interest and help foster maintained situational interest.

Specifically, it makes intuitive sense that when a student is answering a question, his or her working memory is fully attentive to the task at hand. Students' attention to questions is most likely due to the fact that a question, by definition, presents missing information. To this extent, questions are like games. Indeed, many games rely on questions. In the context of the classroom, questions can generate mild pressure that helps stimulate attention (pp. 11-12).

When given choice by teachers, students perceive classroom activities as more important.

Research has shown that providing choices to students of all age levels often increases their intrinsic motivation. Choice in the classroom has also been linked to increases in student effort, task performance, and subsequent learning. However, to reap these benefits, a teacher should create choices that are robust enough for students to feel that their decision has an impact on their learning. In order to incorporate choice into the classroom, we recommend teachers provide choice to students in four ways: (1) choice of tasks, (2) choice of reporting formats, (3) choice of learning goals, and (4) choice of behaviors (pp. 14, 101).

Providing students academic choices increases engagement.

Choices of task, reporting format, or learning goal allow students to take control of their learning and make decisions that ensure personal interest in their assignments. To provide a choice of task to students, a teacher can provide multiple task options on an assessment and ask students to respond to the one that interests them most. Similarly, a teacher can provide students with the option to choose their own reporting format. The two most common reporting formats are written and oral reports, as they can be used with most subjects. However, students may also choose to present information through debates, video reports, demonstrations, or dramatic presentations. To give students a particularly powerful choice, a teacher can ask students to create their own learning goals. When giving students the option to design their own learning goals, a teacher should hold students accountable for both their self-identified learning goal as well as teacher-identified learning goals for that unit (pp. 101-104).

Teachers can build choice into the process of designing standards for expected classroom behaviors.

Creating a classroom constitution at the beginning of the school year can provide students a chance to determine how the classroom functions as a unit. To infuse choice into this process, a teacher can ask small groups of students to describe their ideal classroom environments and isolate desirable and undesirable behaviors and attitudes. Groups can then give presentations on their lists of ideal behaviors and attitudes. Afterward, the class can come together and articulate specific behaviors and attitudes into concrete principles, eventually compromising as a class to decide which principles to incorporate into a set of classroom behavior standards. By following this process, individual students gain voices within the classroom and are less likely to feel that arbitrary rules are being imposed on them (pp. 104-105).

The most general influence on a student's emotional engagement is a teacher's positive demeanor.

A teacher can communicate a positive demeanor through demonstrating enthusiasm and intensity, both of which have been associated with student engagement and achievement. Clearly, relationships students have with the teacher have a profound effect on their perceptions of being welcomed, accepted, and supported, which helps establish an affective tone that promotes student encouragement (pp. 5-7).

To foster student engagement, classroom instruction decisions are based on four emblematic questions.

The first two questions focus on the attention of the student, while the last two questions gauge the engagement of the students' interest in the topic. The attention questions deal with whether information from the outside world gets into working memory. If the information presented is not considered interesting, the working memory will not process it. Engagement is defined by importance; if the information is not deemed important, the working memory will not maintain it for long. If students do not believe they can perform the tasks, the brain will eventually reject it (pp. 8-19).

Pacing is a basic teaching tool, but often an overlooked aspect of keeping students' energy levels high.

If pacing is too slow, energy in the classroom drops and attention wanes; however, if the pacing is too fast, students can be confused and frustrated. To help achieve a balance, focus on pacing when handling administrative tasks, transitions, assigning seatwork, and presenting new content (p. 21).

Wait time is one effective way to increase student response rate.

Waiting to call on students allows them to process the question and encourages them to think through their answers instead of impulsively responding. A teacher can use less wait time after asking a straightforward question with one correct response and more wait time after asking a complex or open-ended question that requires interpretation (p. 71).

The use of positive information can help grow communication with students.

One simple way to communicate respect and acceptance is to find something positive about students and then use that information to both plan instruction that addresses students'' interest and communicates concern for specific students. This is particularly true for students who may have discipline issues or who appear alienated from the rest of the class or teacher (p. 40).

Motivation can create a hierarchy of goals.

Students are always behaving in such a way as to accomplish one goal or another. For example, at the basic level, students (as well as everyone else) are always working to ensure that basic subsistence goals such as safety, food, and shelter are being met. Perhaps at the highest level are goals that address life ambitions. These goals typically deal with accomplishments that people perceive as defining their future lives. Fundamentally, classroom activities that make connections to the real world will help generate a positive response (p. 87).

Movement can be used to lift energy by associating it with rehearsal.

Rehearsal refers to repeating important information in a way that helps students remember it. For example, a teacher who has noticed his or her students are having difficulty recalling units of measurement might ask them to represent the largest of the units by standing straight up, the smaller measurements by bending over, and the smallest measurements by kneeling down (p. 25).

Teacher-student relationships are key to ensuring that students feel good about being in class and can respond positively to the question, "How do I feel?"

One of the most interesting aspects of powerful teacher-student relationships is that they are forged by behavior and words as opposed to thoughts and feelings. Stated differently, it is not what a teacher thinks and feels about a particular student that forges a positive relationship with the student. Rather, it is how the teacher speaks to and behaves with the student that communicates respect and acceptance (p. 36).

One simple way to invite simultaneous individual response is to use hand signals.

It is important to note that when hand signals are used, questions must employ a selected-response format, such as multiple choice or true/false. If four responses are provided in a multiple-choice item, students can signal the correct answer by holding up one finger for the first option, two for the second option, and so on. Using simultaneous individual response is one way to increase engagement and help them respond positively to the question, "Am I interested?" (p. 74).

Teachers can use stories from literature and history as examples of people whose lives have demonstrated the power of self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy is quite possibly the most important factor affecting engagement. Even if students feel good, are interested in what is occurring, and believe it to be important, they will probably not fully engage if they believe the task is impossible. Clips from movies such as Rudy, Oliver Twist, and Apollo 13 can be used to helps students discern common traits among those who accomplish great things even in the face of significant obstacles (pp. 117, 128-129).

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Stated differently, if students sense that they are not welcome, accepted, or supported in the classroom, it is unlikely that they will engage in classroom activities. Certainly, the relationship teachers have with students is one of the most powerful determiners of how a student answers the question "How do I feel?"

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Strategies to Awaken the Learner

By: Robert J. Marzano, Darrell Scott, Tina H. Boogren, Ming Lee Newcomb

Discover a results-driven framework-based on a six-level hierarchy of student needs and goals-that you can use to provide engaging instruction to students.

Motivating and Inspiring Students

Bringing motivation and inspiration to the classroom is not easy. With this practical resource, you'll discover a results-driven framework-based on a six-level hierarchy of student needs and goals-that you can use to provide engaging instruction to students. The authors share comprehensive understandings of the nature of motivation and inspiration and detail-specific strategies to connect with your students.

Gain specific chapter-ending guidance on how to use the book's strategies.

Consider scenarios that portray how the book's suggestions might play out in the classroom.

Review mindsets, dispositions, and behaviors that result in negative, unhelpful thinking and in positive, productive thinking.

Study step-by-step processes that ensure students' needs get met in individual classrooms.

Use the Awaken the Learner Snapshot Student Survey to assess students' levels of engagement, attention, motivation, and inspiration in school.

"This book takes the reader from research to application, providing information to help create an environment where students can connect to something beyond just self and be inspired. Using this book, you can change the learning environment in schools to be more fruitful and sustaining."

Gail Pletnick, superintendent of Dysart Unified School District, and AASA president-elect, Arizona

"You may have heard it said that the fastest way to find out who the best teachers are in a school is to ask the students. The problem with this method of discovery is that the reasons why some teachers are able to reach the minds and hearts of students while others miss the mark is not as easily articulated. Marzano, Scott, Boogren, and Newcomb go beyond Maslow's hierarchy of needs in Motivating and Inspiring Students. This new work addresses the role of long-neglected concepts such as altruism, empathy, forgiveness, gratitude, and mindfulness (to name a few). Beginning with understanding every person's need to make connections with something greater than self, this book provides theory supported with activities and worksheets that make Motivating and Inspiring Students a must for every teacher and administrator who wishes to reach the heart of our students. Together with the inspiring work done by Darrell Scott through Rachel's Challenge, this book provides every educator with the 'why' and 'how' to implement the most critical elements of motivation and inspiration for learners in our care. Our students become lifelong learners when skilled educators make the right connections with them. Motivating and Inspiring Students helps you get there."

Arturo Delgado, former county superintendent of Los Angeles Schools, California

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Bringing motivation and inspiration to the classroom is not easy. With this practical resource, you'll discover a results-driven framework-based on a six-level hierarchy of student needs and goals-that you can use to provide engaging instruction to students. The authors share comprehensive understandings of the nature of motivation and inspiration and detail-specific strategies to connect with your students.

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We believe the power to choose strengthens teacher engagement in professional learning.

Our catalog is easy to search by content area and by elementary, middle, or high school focus, so you can quickly find the strategies you need for the daily challenges you face.
Choose instructional videos from five content areas.

Assessment

Engagement

Building Relationships

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Practicing and Deepening

Physical Wellness for Educators

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Classroom Teaching Strategies for K12 Teachers - Avanti

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