Break Your Content Into Small Bites (Marzano DQ9)

How do you eat a whale?  One bite at a time.

I love that saying because it's as true for whale eating (apparently) as it is for almost anything else.  How do you clean a messy house?  One room at a time.  Come back from 12 runs down?  One base runner at a time.  How do you get your students to learn a ton of Social Studies content?  One small standard at a time.

So, what might you (or an administrator) look for in your classroom as evidence of this element?

Students might...

• be able to explain why the teacher stops every so often.
• be able to explain what they are expected to do when the teacher stops.

The teacher might...

• stop presentations or activities at well thought out points to...
  • ask questions about the chunk of content they just presented.
  • address shortcomings related to the content they identified through formative assessments.

I use this element all the time in class, especially during interactive note taking activities.  My interactive note taking resources have "Turn and Talks" strategically built into the presentations to allow students time to process and make connections with the content before they write anything down on their activity sheets.  Click the links below to check out my Interactive Note Taking resources, and don't forget to follow and explore the rest of my store for other great Social Studies resources!

• Interactive Notes
• My Store