Don't Hide Your Light Under a Bushel: A Critique of Robert Marzano





Don’t Hide Your Light Under A Bushel: A Critique of Robert Marzano

Introduction
Teaching to the test has always been considered a “no no” in all my experience as a teacher. After years of lesson plans and struggling with curriculum, I have found that this is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the standards’ movement. How can you assess students if they haven’t been taught what we are testing them over? Yet, why does this feel wrong? Different kinds of assessments: essay, mathematical proof, scientific experiments, projects, exams or a combination of these can eventually give us an overall picture of a student’s achievement but we have to teach them what we want them to know.

Renovation Classroom Instruction
Marzano is in the forefront of renovating the ways that classroom instruction is done. He is moving teaching from an art to a science. Utilizing the nine strategies that Marzano presents in his book Classroom Instruction That Works and the subsequent analysis paper, “Setting the Record on ‘High-yield’ Strategies: Watching your work adopted by educators across the nation is flattering but not if it’s widely misinterpreted” reveals the difficulties educators have when  teaching their content and using these strategies. How does this relate to the paradigm shift in teaching? Marzano exemplifies instructional strategies that maximize the possibility of enhancing student achievement.

In Marzano’s book, Classroom Instruction That Works, he states that the nine strategies: Identifying Similarities and Differences, Summarizing and Note Taking, Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition, Homework and Practice, Nonlinguistic Representations, Cooperative Learning, Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback, Generating and Testing Hypotheses, and Cues, Questions & Advance Organizers have a high probability of enhancing student achievement for all students, in all subject areas, and at all grade levels ( 2001, p. 7). He also implies that there may be unintended negative outcomes. In his article, “Setting the Record on ‘High-yield’ Strategies: watching your work adopted by educators across the nation is flattering but not if it’s widely misinterpreted” he states that there are three mistakes. And these mistakes can impede the development of effective teaching (2009).

The first mistake is focusing on a narrow range of strategies. He has written three books all dealing with aspects of teaching; instruction, classroom management, and assessment. Without focusing on all three areas, we are guaranteeing that somehow we will fail (Marzano, 2009 .)  But if we are satisfied with our classroom management skills then why should we focus on that aspect? I don’t see how we can distinguish instruction from assessment as there is not one without the other. So why doesn’t using the nine strategies work without the other aspects being promoted by Marzano?

The second mistake is assuming that high-yield strategies must be used in every class. Our district uses Marzano’s nine strategies as a criteria when doing observations in the classroom to provide feedback for improvement. Some administrators mark a teacher “not in compliance” if they do not provide evidence of every strategy in their 30 minute observation. Marzano (2009) states in his article that it is almost impossible to include all nine in a single lesson. When a lesson involves cognitively complex tasks that require students to generate and test hypotheses then you wouldn’t have them taking notes or summarizing (ibid). Teachers should have the freedom and be allowed the flexibility to try something different if what’s being done isn’t helping a student learn.

The third mistake is assuming that high-yield strategies will always work. A lesson to be learned is that educators must always look to whether a particular strategy is producing the desired results as opposed to simply assuming that if a strategy is being used, positive results will ensue (Marzano, 2009). This also supports why administrator shouldn’t require that all strategies are used in every classroom with every lesson.

Marzano’s article “Setting the Record on ‘High-yield’ Strategies: Watching your work adopted by educators across the nation is flattering but not if it’s widely misinterpreted” now suggests forty-one different strategies for effective teaching from his three books. These forty-one, he feels, is a comprehensive list that relate to effective teaching.

Knowing that teachers’ jobs are now on the line with accountability, is it any wonder that teachers are beginning to teach to the test. Haven’t we always taught what we want our students to learn? Why wouldn’t we try to assess those things that we know they need to graduate? Teachers shouldn’t keep the test content hidden from their students because it defies an individual’s basic right to know the criteria upon which he or she will be judged. Until we find the answers teachers should rely on their knowledge of their students, their subject matter, and their situation to identify the most appropriate instructional strategies.

Does Marzano have the answers? I don’t know. With almost a decade of using Marzano’s methods, our kids are still failing to “make the grade”. Is it the teachers’ fault? Are they not using the strategies? Are they still keeping their “light hidden under a bushel”? An individual teacher can have a powerful effect on her students and Marzano tries to provide the tools proven to be most useful. We still need the desired effect of instruction on student learning, and how to get the information to the students so that they can succeed can be a frustrating dilemma.

Annotated References
Marzano R. J., Pickering, D., Pollock, J. (2001) Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, Virginia: ASCD.


 * This book discusses nine categories of instructional strategies and in-depth examples of each. Each chapter is devoted to each of the strategies with a focus on research and theory and then generalizations about classroom practices and provides examples.

Our district uses the Marzano list of nine strategies for evaluating teachers so this book became very informative and important to my teaching style. I have been aware of the Marzano strategies but not until reading this book did I see the conflicts of “teaching to the test” had for me when trying to initiate these strategies in my classroom.

Marzano, Robert (September 1, 2009). Setting the record on “high-yield” strategies: watching your work adopted by educators across the nations is flattering, but not if it’s widely misinterpreted. Phi Delta Kappan. 91.1 (Sept 2009): 30(8).


 * Many schools and districts are encouraging—and often requiring—teachers to use nine strategies identified in Classroom Instruction That Works by Robert Marzano, Deborah Pickering and Jane Pollock. But teaching in the classroom is more complex.  Marzano writes that school districts are overemphasizing these strategies and are making 3 mistakes:  1) Focusing on a narrow range of strategies, 2) Assuming that high-yield strategies must be used in every class; and 3) Assuming that these strategies will always work.


 * After reading the book, Classroom Instruction That Works, and then reading this article, I became more confused concerning the data support. So much of the statistics just became more disjointed for me.  I couldn’t relate to the analysis of 228 variables, 86 chapter reviews, 44 handbook chapters, 20 government documents and 11 journal articles.  The numbers were so impressive that I felt that I was forced to take this at face value, but they left me wanting to know more about this research and not just the numbers.  All in all I felt that the Marzano approach is just a way of bailing out teachers who feel they have to teach to the test.

Author or Authors
S.B. Watson