I have to admit I feel rather ill equipped to answer many of the points Marzano stipulates, and not because they don't have relevance, but because I don't have my own classroom and have not had enough time in the teaching. So I am going to speak from my experience as a student teacher and substitute. One of the main reasons I wanted to become a substitute was so that I could have the opportunity to see multiple schools and age levels in one district. If all one needs is 60 credits and a clean background check to sub than I was excessively over qualified when I started last fall. Not to mention the years of educational training I have undertaken.
All that being said, I felt like the teacher scales were occasionally redundant, and at the same time with each new wording a slightly different aspect of teaching was pointed out as important. I started with the elements I have had the most success with and went from there. One phrase I heard myself saying over and over was "I have not had the opportunity yet of ...". To try and keep this post from being unreadable I am simply going to say "yet/but".
What do I typically do to organize the physical layout of
the classroom? – 4, I have not had the opportunity of design the layout of my own room yet/but. From the spaces I have spent time in one thing I've found to be very important is clearly defined spaces. With Head start aged kids it is vitally important that each area of the room be readable as it's own identifiable space, and that the kids know one area is not interchangeable with another.
What do I typically do to chunk content into digestible bites? – 4, When I started my student teaching the only lesson plans I had written were from my courses at MU. I often had a great deal of content I wanted the students to learn in much too short a time span. Learning to create digestible bites of information was something I had to do from my first lesson during student teaching. If while planing I expected something to take ten minutes, I would allot for 20 mins of class time.
What do I typically do to help students revise knowledge? – 4, VTS is a wonderful tool for finding out what students really know and let students build off each others observations. As each new comment is made, students question why and form opinions as to why.
What do I typically do to students verbally summarizing new learning? – 3, (VTS)
What do I typically do to present unusual or intriguing information? – 4, I like to throw in bizarre artist from history to present a different idea for a topic. Plus I love art history so it gives me more opportunities to discover along with the students.
What do I typically do to demonstrate withitness? – 4, It doesn't matter if it's a room full of 8th graders or 4 year olds, when one person acts out it starts a change reaction and in ten mins the whole room is in chaos. I thing I have found the most helpful (besides moving around the room as much as possible) is to know the students names and the moment I see something starting anywhere in the room call attention to it. Respect is earned not given but that is a two way street. If I want my students to respect me I have to present myself as someone worthy of their respect, and not just demand obedience of them. As a substitute this is my most important element.
What do I typically do to let classroom rules and procedures go lax mid-year? – 3, I haven’t worked with the same group of kids for a whole year, but for the duration of my student teaching I tried to adjust my expectation for the students only once they were used to my rules.
What do I typically do to have the same expectations for low students as for the high ones? – 3, I have made a conscious effort to differentiate my lessons and grading criteria for students at different ability levels.
What do I typically do to celebrate success? – 3, With small children age 3 to 5 up through 4th or 5th a constant stream of praise is needed. When you're trying to get a class to follow directions there might be one or two who are doing exactly what you've asked, and by saying "thank you Jimmy for doing what I asked, or I really appreciate how Sally is following directions", those who are not follow directions will usually attempt to follow suit so they also can be praised as well.
What do I typically do to notice when students are not engaged? – 3, It might just be a part of being a new teacher but I feel like I am constantly checking the level of engagement of a class, stopping occasionally throughout the lesson to ask question of those I don't feel are engaged enough.
What do I typically do to use verbal and nonverbal behaviors that demonstrate affection for students? – 3, I am not a small person and if I forget to smile I sometimes scare kids, but not just kids anyone who doesn't know me really. This is something I have struggled with since I was 15 and 5'10''. One of the first critisim I received from my host teacher was that I needed to smile more so I didn't scare the students. I tend to get really focused on things I'm still learning and forget to smile, thus coming across as pissed off. Which really is the opposite of what is going on. Getting down on the students level can be very useful, however.
What do I typically do to establish and maintain classroom rules and procedures? – 3 to 2, Yet/But, Consistency and follow through have always yielded the best results. Students must know what the rules are and fully understand that I'm always going to hold them accountable to them.
What do I typically do to help students elaborate on new info? – 3 to 2, Yet/But, something as simply as asking the students to put the new information into their own words can be very useful. In art demonstrating a new process or medium can be disguised as fun with purposeful play, in math it's like showing you work, not just the answers, or having a student demonstrate the new process for someone who was absent the day the lesson was taught.
What do I typically do to help students track their own progress? – 2, It seems a fairly simple task to keep all work throughout the year and at the end compare early pieces to the most recent. With the middle school kids I taught about 90% of them would throw their work away on their way out of the room. It frustrated me to the point that I made a new rule to keep them from throwing their pieces away in my room. My elementary host teacher would go so far keep all work for the year till the end and then return it all in the last week, but then the students wouldn't be able to track anything till the end of the year.
What do I typically do to routinely providing students with rubrics? – 2, I have written rubrics for some of the lesson plans I created for my college courses but I’ve never actually used them in the classroom setting. I have made lists of criteria needed for an assignment to be completed and posted them on the board. I don't really think out exactly what makes an assignment A, B, or C quality until I have the group as a whole in front of me, I lay out those who have completed the criteria from the ones who didn't, and of those completed which were more successful, etc.
Possessing all 12 qualities of a great teacher is only half of the picture. Add in ten years of experience to work out how to best use those qualities in order to produce the best 32 elements. Then you have One amazing teacher. Until that point keep on keeping on.
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