4. Strategies that appear in all (All) lessons: Teachers use some important instructional strategies at every level of instruction. These include strategies such as previewing, highlighting critical information, reviewing, revising knowledge, reflecting on learning, using purposeful homework, elaborating on information, and organizing students to interact. While these strategies may be less likely to define a particular type of lesson in the sequence of developing understanding and ability in the standards, they will be present in the plan.
Figure 1.4 links Marzano’s (2017) four types of lessons with the levels of a proficiency scale.
Source: Marzano, 2017.
Figure 1.4: Lesson types and the proficiency scale.
Although there are exceptions to the relationship this chart depicts, direct instruction lessons, dealing as they do with new content, will occur most often when teachers are dealing with score 2.0 content, and with the initial instruction to score 3.0 content. Once students arrive at score 3.0, teachers move quickly away from direct instruction lessons to practicing and deepening lessons, since these lessons advance the level of rigorous understanding students have of the knowledge and skills that the standards require. Finally, although teachers don’t share content labeled as score 4.0 (by definition, score 4.0 has students operating beyond what is taught in class), students have multiple opportunities to demonstrate ability at score 4.0 by experiencing knowledge application lessons, featuring instructional activities that are often student-driven and that require students to apply their deep understanding of score 3.0 content in unique circumstances they have not encountered before.
Sequence of Lessons in the Unit
In linking the proficiency scale to a unit plan, teachers will sequence the type of lessons and their associated content to gradually move students along the learning progression depicted in the proficiency scale. Early on in the unit, students will need work at level 2.0 on the proficiency scale in order to understand and process new information. Eventually, the teacher moves them to level 3.0 activities and offers the opportunity for them to work beyond level 3.0. This provides a logical sequence of activities connected to the learning progression found in the proficiency scale, and that means students are working toward, and possibly beyond, proficiency on a priority standard. Consider the eighth-grade ELA teacher who is working with a standard on identifying theme or central idea of a literary or informational text. One important task for the teacher to consider as she begins the process of creating a unit plan for a priority standard is to consider what proficiency means for the standard. After some thought, the teacher may produce—or have given to her—a proficiency scale for this standard as follows (figure 1.5).
Source: Adapted from Marzano, Yanoski, Hoegh, & Simms, 2013, p. 89.Source for standards: Adapted from National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers (NGA & CCSSO), 2010a.
Figure 1.5: Eighth-grade ELA proficiency scale.
In the case of figure 1.5, the standard falls at score 3.0 and requires students to be proficient in two tasks: (1) analyzing a grade-level-appropriate text for theme or central idea using specific criteria, and (2) objectively summarizing a grade-level-appropriate text. There are two separate learning targets for the score 3.0 performance on this standard. In order for students to achieve proficiency on this standard, they must be able to do both tasks competently and consistently. It is likely that teachers will instruct to both learning targets in a unit on this standard, though there might be instances where they would not teach these two learning targets simultaneously. So, one consideration in designing the unit is sequencing the learning targets. Identifying the learning targets, and their sequence for instruction, is an important first step before teachers can consider the sequence of lessons that they will teach.
Further, teachers should consider the relationship between score 2.0 performance and score 3.0 performance. Score 3.0 contains two learning targets; there are three additional learning targets at score 2.0. The three additional targets are the following.
1. Student will recognize or recall specific vocabulary such as analyze, central idea, character, development, objective, plot, relationship, setting, summarize, summary, supporting detail, text, and theme.
2. Student will perform basic processes such as determining a theme or central idea of a grade-level-appropriate text (RL.8.2, RI.8.2; NGA & CCSSO, 2010a).
3. Student will perform basic processes such as summarizing a grade-level-appropriate text using a teacher-provided graphic organizer (RL.8.2, RI.8.2; NGA & CCSSO, 2010a).
The vocabulary learning target is a vital first step to score 3.0 performance. These are important terms for students to understand if they are to analyze the development of theme or central idea. The relationship between the score 2.0 learning target on summarizing a text and the score 3.0 target on the same topic is clear. Students will start by learning to summarize a text using a teacher-provided graphic organizer and then proceed to independence in performing this process.
The relationship between the learning targets regarding theme or central idea analysis at the 2.0 and the 3.0 scores is somewhat less clear. At score 2.0 the learning target requires students to determine theme or central idea for a grade-level-appropriate text, whereas at score 3.0 students must analyze theme or central idea in a grade-level-appropriate text. Consider the difference between the act of determining and the act of analyzing. Objectively, these verbs present different processes, but an important consideration is what is different for the student. In other words, what is going on inside the student’s mind at score 2.0, and how is it different at score 3.0? In determining theme or central idea, students apply a process that one can define in a series of steps. Certainly, students will need to look at important elements of a text, including characterization, plot element sequence, setting, and specific details, but the mental process consists of applying a series of clearly defined steps in order to simply determine theme or central idea. Analysis implies a higher level of critical thinking. In this case, the student may rely on a learned process but must think through a broader set of evidence, some of which may appear to conflict with other evidence, looking for and determining the effect of patterns across an entire text. Further, although each learning target applies to a grade-level-appropriate text, at score 2.0 it is likely students would receive shorter, less-challenging passages of text as they learn to determine theme or central idea. At score 3.0, students might be engaging with longer texts, perhaps full-length short stories or poems, where they must engage with much more complex evidence, and potentially multiple and even conflicting themes. Thus, in truly analyzing for theme or central idea, the student’s mental process represents a much more strenuous engagement with the text and its evidence.
A further consideration is what student performance at score 4.0 would resemble. As previously stated, students are not actually taught content that represents score 4.0 but receive opportunities to perform at score 4.0. An example follows, but at this stage consider that a student working on this standard would most likely exceed proficiency only on the learning target regarding analysis for theme or central idea. The other learning target—summarizing a grade-level-appropriate text—is inherently limited in scope, and the student’s mental state would be approximately the same as he or she summarizes any grade-level-appropriate text.