A Step-by-Step Framework, Book Review Example

Marzano’s book, The Art and Science of Teaching: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction, serves as a good starter text for the prospective teacher. These newcomers can reach for this book to quickly answer questions regarding specific lesson goals, interactions, methodologies, classroom management, expectations, academic cohesion, and student engagement. It has been recommended along with such respected resources as Wong and Wong’s How to Be an Effective Teacher: The First Days of School. In fact, this will be the main source against which The Art and Science of Teaching will be compared and contrasted. It should be noted here that both of these books are not content-specific.

However, that is not to say that there are not potentially relevant points of exploration. Chapter four discusses the departure from concrete knowledge to hypothesis, saying that “If the teacher wishes to move the students beyond these levels of knowing, then students should be engaged in tasks that require them to experiment with the new knowledge” (Marzano, 2007, 86). These general critical thinking skills are vital to the fast-paced nature of Math education. In particular, critical thinking and the fluidity or cohesion of the separate units pose a great threat to the overall quality of education in Mathematics. They are expected to listen, emulate, and move on without using the inquisitive skills which could help further their education in this subject area. In addition, students must mentally accommodate both the new and the old information. As is illustrated in Chapter Four, cognitive dissonance is listed as the most prevalent root cause of errors in calculation. If the organization of the year’s materials are easily organized by the teacher, it goes far to ease the dissonance of the student (Marzano, 2007).

While content-specific instruction should not be undervalued, educators are now seeing the benefits of prevailing theories of curricular multi-layering and organization. Wong and Wong (2002) provided six levels of desired student thinking and placed the highest premium on evaluation, because the other levels (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis) are necessary to advancing to the highest level (22). Barton and Heidema (2002) studied the need for cross-disciplinary instructional support of literacy. They proposed that common reading techniques could easily be applied to Mathematic instruction. After examining the proposed techniques, such as think-alouds, reorganization, examination of word roots and formats, and cooperative learning, the Math teachers were better prepared to teach the complex vocabulary of their content areas and support the literacy of all students (as cited by Phillips, Bardsley, Bach, and Gibb-Brown, 470).

The main value of this resource is in its utility as a useful and intriguing general education resource. In particular, it is encouraging to see that the overall progress of educational pedagogy was efficiently gauged in the form of the tables spread throughout the book. For each question, an answer is provided and, in addition, includes a step-by-step guide to real-life implementation of the  new knowledge- much as was advocated earlier in the discussion of information accommodation. Wong and Wong (2002) narrow their tips to four: 1) consider goals for student accomplishment, 2) write each step in one sentence, 3) write in plain English, and 4) make copies for the students (210). For class management reasons, the distribution of the copies should not occur until near the end of the class period.

The overriding principles of consistency, quality, and creativity are common to all of the resources cited in this paper. We have not yet discussed the import of these studies with regards to technology, which one instructor praises for its ability (when skillfully applied) to “spur the minds of the youth in a path conducive to technology education, our jobs would become much easier, and the creative and intellectual minds of the students would take over and learning itself would teach the class” (Bellamy and Mativo, 27). Would that this access to technology was universal, this perspective would likely have spread much quicker. However, less-fortunate school districts are unlikely to have the same technology in their reach.

First and foremost, teachers cannot expect that students will do their job for them, cannot accurately know who is misunderstanding instruction and who is not trying, and cannot persuade a class to learn what they have no enthusiasm to teach (Marzano, 115). The research consensus has been repeatedly upheld: teacher attitudes matter! With this in mind, Marzano makes the baby steps of the first year of teaching simple and provides a few ideas for the teachers who are losing the heart of their subject matter.

“Education is not a process of putting the learner under control, but putting the student in control of his or her learning” (Wong and Wong, 210).

Works Cited

Bellamy, John S., and John M. Mativo. “A Different Angle for Teaching Math.” Technology Teacher 69.7 (2010): 26-28. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 6 Oct. 2010.

Kester Phillips, Donna C., et al. “but i teach math!’ the journey of middle school mathematics teachers and literacy coaches learning to integrate literacy strategies into the math instruction.” Education 129.3 (2009): 467-472. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 1 Oct. 2010.

Marzano, Robert. The Art and Science of Teaching: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction. 2007. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).  Print.

Wong, Harry K. & Rosemary T. Wong. How to Be an Effective Teacher: The First Days of School. 2002. Mountain View, CA: Harry K. Wong Publications, Inc. Print.