Professional Learning is offered as an opportunity for teachers to increase their expertise, which in turn produces gains in student achievement from year to year. This increase creates a powerful cumulative effect on student knowledge. Research based strategies have a high probability of raising student achievement if they are used appropriately. These strategies serve as the bridge for mastering specific learning goals.The strategies need to be part of the lesson segment that is appropriate for those strategies and it needs to occur at the appropriate level of implementation. Robert Marzano, in The Art and Science of Teaching, outlines a comprehensive framework for effective instruction. Through Dr. Marzano’s Framework, a set of practices is identified. These practices are directly related to improved student performance. These are organized into Four Domains that develop teacher expertise. Each domain builds on the previous with a direct link that creates a causal chain that results in increased learning and achievement of all students as illustrated below.

The Framework is also detailed on the Learning Map. The Marzano Model was designed using thousands of studies conducted over the past fifty years and published in books that have been widely used by K-12 professionals. In addition, studies have been conducted that establish a more direct causal linkage with enhanced student achievement that can be made with other types of data analysis. Throughout this course you will see reference made to Dr. Marzano’s Common Language of Instruction.