The Handbook for the New Art and Science of Teaching. Robert J. Marzano
2016.
Figure 4.2: Frequent structured practice planning chart.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this figure.
Once a teacher is certain that students are ready to vary their use of the skill, strategy, or process, he or she can design more difficult practice problems.
Fluency Practice
Once students are comfortable with a skill or process and have experienced success with it in a wide range of situations, they engage in independent practice in which they focus on performing the skill or process skillfully, accurately, quickly, and automatically. The teacher can assign this type of practice with a skill or process as homework. Students can track their progress over time by keeping self-monitoring charts, such as the one in figure 4.3.
Worked Examples
While students are practicing skills and processes, the teacher provides them with problems or examples that have already been worked out so they receive a clear image of the correct procedure. To implement this strategy, create a written script to accompany each worked example to help students understand what is being demonstrated. After students have reviewed the script, have them answer several questions that ask them to explain what the worked example shows and to demonstrate their understanding of the example. These questions help students reflect on and review the steps outlined in the worked example.
For example, in the following worked example (figure 4.4) of adding fractions with different denominators, the teacher has provided a script outlining each step in the process.
Following the worked example, the teacher might ask these questions.
• “Is it possible to add two fractions with different denominators? Explain your answer.”
• “What is one way we can find a common denominator?”
• “What do we have to do to the numerator when we find the common denominator?”
Source: Marzano Research, 2016.
Figure 4.3: Student fluency progress chart.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this figure.
Figure 4.4: One method for adding fractions with different denominators.
Practice Sessions Prior to Testing
The teacher sets up a practice schedule to ensure that students have a chance to review and practice skills and processes before they are tested or retested on them. Relate the practice to a learning goal or scale using the following tips.
• Tell students which content will be tested on the assessment.
• If students have been charting their progress throughout the unit, have them estimate their current position on the proficiency scale and decide what score they would like to earn on the assessment. Ask students to propose ways they can practice skills and achieve their individual learning goals. Students can also provide explanations for why their activities are good ways to practice a skill, strategy, or process.
• Identify independent or group practice activities students can complete to strengthen their mastery of the learning goal. Have students complete the activities in class or ask them to perform them at home and monitor their ability to complete the tasks. Ask students to rate how fluently they were able to complete a task by providing them with a scale to measure their success.
• Create group practice sessions that review an important skill or process specifically addressed by the learning target or scale. Sessions may be required, or they can be offered as an optional practice activity.
• Create a calendar of practice dates and sessions that will prepare the class for the assessment. Post this calendar in the classroom or on a class website to help students plan for the practice sessions.
Monitoring Element 9
Specific student responses and behaviors allow the teacher to determine whether this element is being implemented effectively and producing the desired effects.
• Students actively engage in practice activities.
• Students ask questions about the procedure.
• Students increase their competence with the procedure.
• Students increase their confidence in their ability to execute the procedure.
• Students increase their fluency in executing the procedure.
Use this list to monitor student responses to element 9.
To monitor your own use of this element, use the scale in figure 4.5 in combination with the reproducible “Tracking Teacher Actions: Using Structured Practice Sessions” (page 89). As with other proficiency scales, level 3 or higher is the goal.
Figure 4.5: Self-rating scale for element 9—Using structured practice sessions.
The following examples describe what each level of the scale might look like in the classroom.
• Not Using (0): A teacher often assigns homework that asks his students to perform new skills, strategies, or processes after he introduces them. The teacher does not model procedures before students perform them and does not set aside additional time in class to practice processes and skills.
• Beginning (1): A teacher engages her students in fluency practice of summarizing short texts. Before asking the students to summarize, the teacher demonstrates the skill but does not engage the students in trying the skill. During the fluency practice, the teacher creates strict time limits for the students to generate and write down their summaries, and some of the students are not able to complete the fluency activities in the allotted time.
• Developing (2): The teacher models the long division procedure for his students. He describes each step of the procedure as he performs it on the whiteboard and explains when students will need to use this procedure. Afterward, he asks students to solve the same problem using the methods he has described. The teacher then presents additional examples and asks students to solve them with increasing levels of independence. Over the next few days, he provides similar practice sessions. However, he does not have a way of monitoring whether this strategy has helped students understand the procedure better or develop their fluency with the procedure.
• Applying (3): A teacher schedules practice sessions before assessments to help students succeed. She creates a scale and asks students to rate their level of comfort and certainty for various processes from recent lessons. She then conducts special practice sessions to go over the procedures that students are unsure about. After the practice sessions, she asks students to rate their comfort levels again. The teacher is careful to stagger the practice sessions so that there is enough time for students to become fluent in the processes before test day.
• Innovating (4): A teacher uses varied practice to challenge his students. He creates a series of word problems and asks students to work in groups of two to complete the set of problems. The teacher monitors how quickly each group seems to be moving forward and reminds groups who appear to be struggling of an important step or procedure they could use to solve the problem. There are two sets of students who finish their word problems quickly, so he asks them to write out a step-by-step guide of what they did and why to share with the class later.