CEDO 525 Principles of Teaching & Learning Article Reflection

During the first class on Wednesday night I was very confused when Robert Marzano & his strategies were first mentioned. I'm glad, after the instructor asked how many people were aware of what she was talking about, that I wasn't the only one out of the loop. However, after reading through the "Principles of Teaching & Learning" article, I realized that all staff at my school was given a book to read & implement the strategies of Robert Marzano a few years back. While reading the article, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, this information seems awfully familiar!" and it was then that I realized I already read one of Marzano's books.

The teaching principle that stands out to me most is "Effective teaching involves aligning the three major components of instruction: learning objectives, assessments, & learning activities." This principle is very straight forward & logical. It makes sense to have clearly laid out objectives, learning activities that align with the objectives, and finally, assessments that check the understanding from the learning activities to see if the objectives have been learned by the students.

The learning principle that stands out to me most is "Students' prior knowledge can help or hinder learning." This principle is so simple and makes me almost want to say "DUH" out loud, but yet, I haven't ever really thought about it in this manner. I've really only thought about prior knowledge helping in their learning but never about the flip side. It a student has prior knowledge about a certain topic but the information is incorrect, it will certainly hinder the new learning. A way to clear up some of the misconceptions that students might have before teaching a particular topic/concept is to use a KWL (what you KNOW, WANT to know, and then reflecting later about what was LEARNED). During the various phases of completing the KWL, the teacher has multiple opportunities to correct any misunderstandings in the prior knowledge or after the fact with what was learned.