Article #6

Article #6

“The Highly Engaged Classroom”

By Marzano and Pickering

According to Marzano and Pickering (2011), authors of The Highly Engaged Classroom, student “engagement is a central aspect of effective teaching. If students are not engaged, there is little, if any, chance that they will learn what is being addressed in class” (pg. 1).  Therefore, Marano and Pickering highlight the importance of student engagement.

The text is composed of six chapters dealing with strategies to engage students of all learning types. The first chapter entitled research and theory looks at four topics that constitute their model of student attention and engagement (pg. 3). The four topic presented are student emotions “how do I feel?”, student interest “am I interested?”, perceived importance “is this important?” and perceptions of efficacy “can I do this?” (pg. 15). Chapter one then provides a model of engagement and attention, and then discusses transforming research and theory within the classroom (pg. 20). The end of each and every chapter in the text has a section allowing teachers and students to analyze their strengths and weaknesses (pg. 20).

Chapter two focuses solely on the student’s emotion and looks at “how do I feel?” (pg. 21). According to Marzano and Pickering, three factors effect students feelings at school which include the student’s energy levels, the attitude of the instructor, and the student’s view of recognition by teachers and peers (pg. 21).This chapter talks about implementing effective pacing methods, integrating physical activity and illustrating intensity and enthusiasm (pg. 30). The chapter discusses the importance of using humor, constructing up-beat student and teacher and peer relationships. The chapter ends by suggesting exercises teachers can use in their classrooms to meet each students emotional needs (pg. 53).

The third chapter entitled “am I interested?” looks at student interests. Marzano and Pickering explain that “students will attend to activities in the classroom if they are interested” (pg. 57). In order to get students interested in what they are learning, chapter three suggests teachers should employ games and trivial competition such as hosting vocabulary or review games like Jeopardy. In addition, teachers can get students interested by starting friendly debates or presenting unusual information by using outside resources such as PBS and Edutopia for ideas. Marzano and Pickering also propose using questioning to increase response rates by calling on students randomly or through a response chain (pg. 65).

Chapter four asks the question “is this important?” based on students perceived importance. Marzano and Pickering warn that “if students do not perceive classroom tasks as important, engagement will be muted or nonexistent” (pg. 87). This chapter provides ways to connect to students. For instance, chapter four suggests that teachers should connect to students’ lives by implementing comparison tasks or analogical reasoning tasks (pg. 90). In addition, Marzano and Pickering propose that teachers link to the students’ life’s ambitions by promoting personal projects to engage students (pg. 92). Chapter four also recommends teachers work towards encouraging application of knowledge by developing cognitively challenging tasks presenting real-life content (pg. 105).

The fifth chapter is entitled “can I do this?” This chapter focuses on self-efficacy, which is a student’s confidence in their capability to succeed in a particular situation or achieve a certain task. Marzano and Pickering believe self- efficacy may be the most significant element affecting student engagement (pg. 117). Chapter five also discusses ways for teachers to track and study student development by providing ideas to follow academic achievement over a specific amount of time (pg. 119). Next, Marzano and Pickering talk about ways for teachers to use effective verbal feedback and specify what type of feedback to avoid and what type of feedback to employ (pg. 124). This chapter also discusses the examples of self-efficacy through the use of stories, quotations (pg. 127). The chapter concludes by explaining ways to teach self-efficacy by having students recognize their personal theories (pg. 137).

Chapter six discusses “planning for high engagement?” Marzano and Pickering explain that high student engagement does not occur instantly; instead, teachers need think about engagement techniques to employ before each unit of teaching (pg. 147). The sixth chapter discusses daily strategies which include effective pacing, implementing effective feedback and constructing school relationships (pg. 148). The chapter also discusses opportunistic strategies such as implementing physical activity, using games and friendly competition, using humor, presenting unusual information, connecting to student’s lives and teaching self-efficacy (pg. 151). Chapter six ends by highlighting extended strategies and presents a summary (pg. 155).

The book concludes with an epilogue that includes an appendix that consists of answers to teaching exercises throughout the text (pg. 159). In addition, the appendix includes an explanation of what is an effect size regarding meta-analysis and research (pg. 183). Moreover, the appendix includes sample of unusual information teachers of a variety of subjects such as math and social studies should be aware of regarding student engagement (pg. 187). The appendix ends with a section on planning questions to help teachers monitor their daily and opportunistic strategies (pg. 202). The appendix also contains many charts and assessments for teachers to implement to monitor student engagement (pg. 205). 

Reflection

I found this text to be very beneficial for helping teachers understand techniques to better help students succeed. I really like how the chapters of the book are based on the first four topics presented in the beginning of the text. The four topics which are based on student emotions, student interests, student perceived importance and students perceptions of efficacy help the teacher understand and realize each student is different and each student has diverse needs. Therefore, I feel as though and the methods presented in Marzano’s and Pickering’s text make differentiation in the classroom more realistic. Although some of the strategies can be complex, Marzano and Pickering do a great job at providing many real life classroom examples, classroom exercises and charts to explain the techniques in great detail. I plan to use this text to help me formulate my questions for my research study on differentiation in the classroom. I also felt like the summary section near the end of every chapter was very beneficial in helping the reader make complete sense of the readings. The analyzing your strengths and weaknesses at the end of each chapter was also helpful because by using a self-assessment scale, it allows the reader which is the teacher to rate their teaching strategies from a 0 (not using), 1 (beginning), 2 (developing), 3 (applying), 4 (innovating) (pg. 110).

Reference

Marzano, R. & Pickering, D. (2011). The Highly Engaged Classroom. Bloomington, IN:

Marzano Research Laboratory.