Leyte Normal University

College of Education
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION UNIT
Tacloban City

Book Summary

This book is entitled "The Art and Science of Teaching: A comprehensive framework for
effective instruction" written by Robert J. Marzano. In the introduction, he states that he
believes that it is certainly true that research provides guidance as to the nature of effective
teaching but he does not believe that there will ever be a formula for an effective teaching.
Educational research is not a blunt instrument that shatters all doubt about best practice.
Rather it provides general direction that must be interpreted by individual districts, schools, and
teachers in terms of their unique circumstances.In short, research will never be able to identify
instructional strategies that work with every student in every class. The best research can do is
tell us which strategies have a good chance of working well with students. Marzano cites some
research to prove that the single most influential component of an effective school is the
individual teachers within that school. Individual classroom teachers must determine which
strategies to employ with the right students at the right time. In effect, a good part of effective
teaching is an art—hence the title, The Art and Science of Teaching.

Marzano briefly discusses books he has written. He identifies three components of

effective classroom pedagogy: Use of effective instructional strategies, use of effective
management strategies and use of effective classroom curriculum design strategies. Using these
three as a starting point, he came up with 10 design questions which form the title and
foundation of each 10 chapters in the book. Here are the 10 question: (1) What will I do to
establish and communicate learning goals, track student progress, and celebrate success? (2)
What will I do to help students effectively interact with new knowledge? (3) What will I do to
help students practice and deepen their understanding of new knowledge? (4)What will I do to
help students generate and test hypotheses about new knowledge? (5) What will I do to engage
students? (6) What will I do to establish or maintain classroom rules and procedures? (7) What
will I do to recognize and acknowledge adherence and lack of adherence to classroom rules and
procedures? (8) What will I do to establish and maintain effective relationships with students?
(9) What will I do to communicate high expectations for all students? and (10) What will I do to
develop effective lessons organized into a cohesive unit?
 In chapter 1, the author focuses on the foundation of teaching: what students need to
learn and how teachers would know if the students learned something. He suggest one or two
learning goals for a unit of study. Writing rubrics for assessing whether the goals have been
achieved. He introduces the reader to Mr. Hutchins and his unit on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In chapter two, the author discusses the six major action steps for creating effective
critical input, he describes the teacher's role throughout a critical - input experience, learning
activities that can designed for multiple purposes, critical - input experiences designed to
convey procedural knowledge involve breaking down the procedure into chunks and giving
students the opportunity to try out each part of a procedure, the different strategies for actively
processing information during comprehensive critical - input experiences and lastly, discusses
on the teacher's intent in elaborative interrogation.

Chapter 3 emphasizes the need for opportunities to practice new skills and deepen
understanding of new information. When considering third design questions - teachers should
distinguish between declarative and procedural knowledge. Practice is more appropriate for
procedural knowledge. Activities such as identifying similarities and differences and error
analysis are more appropriate for declarative knowledge. Use of cooperative groups, homework,
and revision activities apply well to both types of knowledge.

When considering the fourth design question in chapter 4— What will I do to help
students generate and test hypotheses about new knowledge?—teachers should remember
that hypothesis-generation and -testing tasks allow students to examine their thinking regarding
knowledge being learned. This process stimulates major changes in their understanding. Also,
teachers should be aware of the four types of hypothesis-generation and -testing tasks:
experimental inquiry, problem solving, decision making, and investigation.

In chapter 5, When considering the fifth design question—What will I do to engage

students? - teachers should think about stimulating students’ on-task behavior via high energy,
missing information, the self system, mild pressure, and mild controversy and competition.
Teachers should plan to use action steps that can promote physical movement, challenge
students’ thinking, and stimulate their attention to the task at hand.

In chapter 6, Marzano discusses how important is establishing rules and procedures at

the beginning of the year and modifying it from time to time. He discusses the five action steps:
organizing the physical environment of the classroom, identifying a small set of rules and
procedures, interacting with students about rules and procedures, reviewing and changing rules
and procedures, and using classroom meetings.

In chapter 7, the author discusses nine action steps: use simple verbal and nonverbal
acknowledgement, use tangible recognition when appropriate, be with-it, use direct cost
consequences, use group contingency, use home contingency, have a strategy for high intensity
situations and design an overall plan for disciplinary problems. Teachers should remember the
balanced approach which involves acknowledgement of positive behavior and negative
behavior.

In considering the eighth design question—What will I do to establish and maintain effective
relationships with students?—teachers should think in terms of teacher behaviors as opposed to teacher
thoughts or feelings. Teachers should now be aware of actions they can take to incorporate two critical
components of effective relationships: (1) behaviors that communicate an appropriate level of concern
and cooperation and (2) behaviors that communicate an appropriate level of guidance and control.

When considering the ninth design question—What will I do to communicate high expectations
for all students?—teachers should develop expectations for students’ success in class and then behave in
ways that are consistent with these expectations. Teachers should now be aware of actions they can take
to avoid treating low-expectancy students differently from high-expectancy students in terms of
communicating a positive affective tone. Teachers also should have strategies for ensuring consistency in
terms of the quality of interactions with low and high-expectancy students, particularly with regard to
questions.

Chapter 10 which is the last chapter, addresses the various ways that a teacher might construct
a unit and the lessons within that unit. To a great extent, the design question for this chapter is a
metaquestion. It organizes the previous nine design questions in the previous chapters The author
discusses five action steps: identify the focus of a unit of instruction, plan for lesson segments that will
be routine components of every lesson, plan for actions that must be taken on the spot and develop a
flexible draft of daily activities for a unit.

Overall, each chapter includes research and theory followed by action steps that provide the
ways a teacher may answer the chapter's questions in individual teaching situation.

With the help of this book and its content which includes different action steps in each chapter
teachers will be able to examine and develop their knowledge and skills so they can achieve that
dynamic fusion of art and science that will resilt to exceptional teaching and outstanding students
performance. The new ideas in this book will provide a new approaches and fresh thoughts about
teaching. With these, teachers and future educators all over the world who were able to read this book
will become more effective.