Okay, so you've seen the Marzano placemat and know how it's organized.  Now what?  The chart and language used can be very overwhelming, especially if your school or district basically says, "Here, use this," without any high quality training.  But don't worry.  In fact, there's nothing new on it!

So, if it's just old stuff (or new names for old stuff), why bother, right?  It's just a fad that will go away.

First, it's not a fad.  It's an organized list of best practices.  And second, it actually saves time and makes lesson planning easier.

ORGANIZED

• ​Like I shared in my last blog post, the Marzano placemat breaks best practices into three categories: 1) Goal Setting and Monitoring, 2) Planned Learning Activities, and, 3) Enacted On the Spot Strategies.  One of my biggest ah-ha moments with Marzano was that these three categories translated to my three steps of lesson planning which I will share below:

LESSON PLANNING​

1. I always start by asking myself this question, "What do I want my students to know, and how will I know when they learned it?"  this question is category #1 in a nutshell.
2. Once I am satisfied with my answer to the first question, I craft a scale for that lesson, then turn my attention to my second lesson planning question, "What are the best strategies or techniques to help the greatest number of my students reach mastery, and how will I help the rest?"  A wide range of possible strategies are listed in the second category of the Marzano placemat to chose from.  I tend to keep in mind the question of best strategies and balance it with repetition - I try to avoid student boredom by selecting a variety of activities and approaches within each week or unit of study.
3. The last step is probably the easiest.  I ask myself, "How will I keep them engaged and excited throughout?"  Which, of course, is the third category on the Marzano placemat - those "unplanned, enacted on the spot" things that are really pre-planned and well thought out in most cases.  I decide what quick games or thought provoking questions I can sprinkle in or play at the end to both keep students engaged and solidify their learning.  Another thing I like to do on this step is to find funny (or what I consider funny - my students might (and probably would) disagree) on topic "dad jokes" to tell.

And that's it.  If you go through these three questions and use the placemat as a guide for selecting categories, you can't help but to create a well thought out Marzano aligned lesson plan.

So, maybe you just found out your district is transitioning to Marzano, or maybe you just had Marzano training and your head is spinning, or maybe you've heard of it and are just curious to learn what it's all about.  Whichever is true for you, the Marzano placemat is a great place to start.  Here is a modified version of it:

The placemat breaks best teaching practices into three general categories.  I call the first category "Things To Do Every Day".  The most important things in this category are deciding what you want students to learn and how you will measure what they learn.  I use a daily scale in conjunction with a daily learning log students rate themselves on at the beginning and end of class.  CLICK HERE FOR A FREE DIGITAL COPY OF MY DAILY LEARNING LOG.

I call the second part "Planned Activities".  This section more or less lists a lot of best practice strategies you can implement.  This is my favorite part because it helps you think about you want students to learn (what you identified in the first category), and select which strategy or activities will best help your students learn it.

I call the last part "Off the Cuff" strategies, but, really, some of them are things that can (and should) be planned for that just look like they are off the top of your head - things like playing quick games.  Others are just things good teachers do like "Maintain a Lively Pace" or "Engage Low Expectancy Students."

I really think the way Dr. Marzano categorized and presented things on his placemat make it much easier to understand how all these best practices can go together to get the best results possible, and am excited to share with you what I have learned about Marzano goals, scales and best practices!