After creating some lessons with Bloom and Marzano in mind, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just good teaching.
Many of the strategies I use daily in my classroom without even
thinking. For example, at my school we have “bob bucks” we give to students who model one of our four character traits. This is a way to personalize recognition and praise individual students. My Kindergarten kids are visual learners. We compare and contrast stories, sort words into similar ending and create picture timelines using graphic organizers. We like to move around a lot by using our bodies to make graphs, compasses or clocks. We work together on projects, experiment and ask questions about why things happen. This kind of teaching creates an environment where students deepen their understanding of knowledge along with their understanding of themselves as learners.
I actually have a cheat sheet of Blooms verbs and activities associated with those verbs in my lesson plan book. I have not actually looked at it in a while, but I know it’s there along with a sheet on asking those higher level thinking questions. I have used them to spark ideas of something new and exciting to enhance my lessons. I wonder if other teachers have similar go-to resources handy. In one of my previous Regis classes I created a website titled “Designing Powerful Lessons.” It talks about designing activities in the classroom keeping in mind the three learning theories, Marzano’s strategies, Universal Design of Learning and the Technology Standards. Here is the web address: http://tpckplanningtool.weebly.com/. It is missing Blooms Taxonomy. This website would be a great resource to share with other teachers at my school. It would be the one stop shop for
effective research on what makes a lesson spectacular!
In looking deeper at Marzano’s Nine Instructional Strategies I am curious that assessment FOR learning is not mentioned as a strategy. My school is a data driven school. I am constantly informally assessing my students to see where the lesson should go. Do they get it? Do I need to speed up or slow down? Do I need to stop talking and have them DO?
After researching about strategies that make teachers effective, if I had to pick the most important information to share with my colleagues it would be that students must do more than just listen!
They must read, write, discuss or be engaged in solving problems. It’s important for them to be actively involved in Bloom’s higher order thinking tasks such as evaluating and creating. In my opinion having your kids doing and then thinking about what they are doing is the key to learning.
Many of the strategies I use daily in my classroom without even
thinking. For example, at my school we have “bob bucks” we give to students who model one of our four character traits. This is a way to personalize recognition and praise individual students. My Kindergarten kids are visual learners. We compare and contrast stories, sort words into similar ending and create picture timelines using graphic organizers. We like to move around a lot by using our bodies to make graphs, compasses or clocks. We work together on projects, experiment and ask questions about why things happen. This kind of teaching creates an environment where students deepen their understanding of knowledge along with their understanding of themselves as learners.
I actually have a cheat sheet of Blooms verbs and activities associated with those verbs in my lesson plan book. I have not actually looked at it in a while, but I know it’s there along with a sheet on asking those higher level thinking questions. I have used them to spark ideas of something new and exciting to enhance my lessons. I wonder if other teachers have similar go-to resources handy. In one of my previous Regis classes I created a website titled “Designing Powerful Lessons.” It talks about designing activities in the classroom keeping in mind the three learning theories, Marzano’s strategies, Universal Design of Learning and the Technology Standards. Here is the web address: http://tpckplanningtool.weebly.com/. It is missing Blooms Taxonomy. This website would be a great resource to share with other teachers at my school. It would be the one stop shop for
effective research on what makes a lesson spectacular!
In looking deeper at Marzano’s Nine Instructional Strategies I am curious that assessment FOR learning is not mentioned as a strategy. My school is a data driven school. I am constantly informally assessing my students to see where the lesson should go. Do they get it? Do I need to speed up or slow down? Do I need to stop talking and have them DO?
After researching about strategies that make teachers effective, if I had to pick the most important information to share with my colleagues it would be that students must do more than just listen!
They must read, write, discuss or be engaged in solving problems. It’s important for them to be actively involved in Bloom’s higher order thinking tasks such as evaluating and creating. In my opinion having your kids doing and then thinking about what they are doing is the key to learning.