What Works in Schools or

1
What Works in Schoolsor

• Marzano, Levine, CLAD, and RtI
• How do they fit?

2

• From our 2007-2008 Focus Points
• Improving academic performance and expanding
  opportunities for all students
• Continue to monitor and improve instruction to
  increase the number of students who meet and/or
  exceed local, state, and federal accountability
  standards.
• Implement Response to Instruction (RtI)
  strategies and the best practices as described
  in California's nine essential program elements
  (SAIT) to enhance the success of all students,
  with additional emphasis on students with unique
  needs such as our English language learners,
  economically-challenged, educationally at risk,
  and special education students.
• Increase the percentage of students succeeding in
  core academic classes.

3

• Successful schools and districts have a solid
  foundation
• Guaranteed and viable curriculum
• Adequate and appropriate texts, materials, and
  supplies
• Safe and orderly campuses
• Clean, functional, and attractive sites
• Efficient transportation
• Nutritious food services
• Effective attendance processes
• Caring adults
• Parent and community connections

4

• However, it is the teaching act that makes the
  most difference.
• Providing excellent initial instruction is Job
  1.
• Effective first teaching decreases future
  interventions

5
Begin with the best of the basicsMarzanos
Classroom Instruction that Works

• Marzanos nine strategies
• Cues, questions, and advanced organizers
• Summarizing and note taking
• Identifying similarities and differences
• Generating and testing hypotheses
• Nonlinguistic representations
• Homework and practice
• Setting objectives and providing feedback
• Cooperative learning
• Reinforcing effort and providing feedback

6

• A District focus on excellent initial instruction
• Teachers make conscious choices about the best
  strategies
• And vary them
• Teachers apply the strategies elegantly (or
  artistically)
• For example, there are differences between
• Asking questions and asking questions that lead
  to higher levels of thinking
• Giving homework and giving purposeful and
  appropriate homework
• Placing students in groups and structuring
  cooperative learning to support learning and
  presentation skills
• Copying or imitating a teacher summary instead of
  students explaining concepts using their own
  words
• Etc.

7
Marzanos Classroom Instruction that Works

• Best current descriptor of basic instructional
  strategies for learning
• A continued emphasis for staff development
• BYOSD

8

• However, even with the most elegant and artful
  teaching, not every student (or every mind) will
  get it every time.
• Students have experiential differences
• Students have neurodevelopmental differences

9

• Overcoming experiential differences
• Language
• Socio-economics
• CLAD training and strategies
• Threshold vocabulary
• 80 or more of text
• Academic and social vocabulary
• Words necessary for school and social success
• An area for future growth

10

• Understanding and addressing neurodevelopmental
  dysfunctions
• Calling Dr. Levine
• A Mind at a Time
• A framework for understanding and describing
  (demystifying) neurodevelopmental functions and
  dysfunctions
• A coalescence and refinement of brain research
• A refined type of task analysis
• Beyond Madeline Hunters definition to include
  the brain functions necessary to complete a
  task
• An emphasis on the potential for taking greater
  advantage of affinities and attractions

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• Dr. Levine provides a framework, but not all the
  answers
• Many strategies focus on common sense
• See notes on Dr. Levines presentation
• Additional differentiation strategies need to be
  identified
• A fruitful area for more training and staff
  development
• Dr. Levine suggests Carol Ann Tomlinson

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• And still there will be students who struggle
• Some students have too many neurodevelopmental
  dysfunctions to be addressed solely in regular
  education classrooms

13

• Response to Intervention (or Instruction, in the
  FCUSD)
• What it is
• A process for helping the classroom teacher,
  student, and parent understand and compensate for
  a dysfunction BEFORE a performance discrepancy
  triggers a special education referral.
• Every child by name
• Student study teams
• Other formal or informal processes
• Collaboration time
• The earlier the better
• Intent is to assist teachers to understand and
  address the dysfunction in the classroom
• Needs to be a reasonable expectation
• The process should assist in devising specific
  and appropriate strategies
• A belief that powerful instruction applied a
  mind at a time can reduce the number of students
  requiring special education services

14

• What it is not
• A different set of instructional strategies
• Though we might learn some along the way
• An attempt to reduce costs by overburdening
  classroom teachers