CUE 2009: "Robert Marzano, March 6, 2009"

Three-to-five years ago, Marzano started studying technology.

Interactive white boards and voting: Students had learning gains of 14%ile-17%ile. The longer teachers use the boards (the more experience they have), the greater the learning gains. The amount of time the technology was used in the classroom also added learning gains, up to 85% of the time at which there was a decrease in student learning. The best conditions for using this technology is an experienced teacher whose used the technology for to years or more who uses the technology about 75% of the time and they have been trained to use the technology. Under these conditions, you could expect an average 30% gain in student learning. Twenty-three percent of the teachers did better without the technology than with the technology (usually this number is much higher in educational statistics). Therefore, weaker teachers require professional development and proper use of interact whiteboard technologies.
Proper use of the technology includes:

• Keeping a clear focus on the content (not the bells and whistles), and,
• Keeping track of which students are “getting it” and which are not (response rates can increase student engagement, but can turn students off as soon as a single students is called upon; increase wait time and “thumbs up, thumbs down,” electronic voting, etc. can help increase student response).

Formative assessment, record keeping, and teacher feedback: Providing feedback from classroom assessments to provide students with a clear picture of their progress on learning goals and how they might improve. Telling students whether they are right or wrong actually has a decrease effect in student knowledge of the content. The more information that helps students understand why their answers are correct or incorrect, the greatest learning gains (20%). The same amount of gain occurs when having students repeat a task until they get the answers correct.
Some of the ways to increase content learning is to ensure there is no single assessment to determine if students are learning. The ability to determine what to work on with students based on a state assessment (from class wide results), is nearly zero.
He recommends using data to keep track over time based on a standard teacher-created rubric when dealing with teacher created tests. When using rubrics and student progress tracking there us a =n average if 75% academic gain.
Using electronic record keeping makes this process easy. A key is the teacher must alter their teaching using the data.

Use of the Internet in the classroom is a key area to study, but Marzano does not yet have data to support his theories in this area.