Marzano Ch 2-Identifying Similarities & Differences
Written on August 5, 2008 – 4:39 pm | by Ed Warkentin
Most of the rest of the book is a series of chapters which takes one category of strategies at a time. Several chapters have two very similar categories (or, depending on how you look at it, one category that deserves two names). Here is the list of the chapters/categories:
- Identifying similarities and differences
- Summarizing and note taking
- Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
- Homework and practice
- Nonlinguistic representations
- Cooperative learning
- Setting objectives and providing feedback
- Generating and testing hypotheses
- Questions, cues, and advance organizers
- Specific Applications
The first in the list, which I will now discuss, is Identifying similarities and differences
Generalities from the research:
1. Presenting students with explicit guidance in identifying similarities and differences enhances students’ understanding of and ability to use knowledge.
2. Asking students to independently identify similarities and differences enhances students’ understanding of and ability to use knowledge.
3. Representing similarities and differences in graphic or symbolic form enhances students’ understanding of and ability to use knowledge.
4. Identification of similarities and differences can be accomplished in a variety of ways. The identification of similarities and differences is a highly robust activity.
Four main forms of identifying similarities and differences:
1. Comparing (and contrasting)
The process of identifying similarities and differences between or among things or ideas.
2. Classifying
The process of grouping things that are alike into categories on the basis of their characteristics.
3. Creating metaphors
The process of identifying a general or basic pattern in a specific topic and then finding another topic that appears to be quite different but that has the same general pattern.
4. Creating analogies
The process of identifying relationships between pairs of concepts (identifying relationships between relationships)
Reading this is such an abbreviated form might be dry and dull without the research to strengthen it. Hey, maybe this is refreshing because it gets right to the point, I don’t know. Anyway, for me, looking it over now seems to be not quite as powerful. I plan to revisit this chapter’s content periodically to see if I am applying what I’ve learned here. It’s not that Marzano has found earth-shatteringly new information that most educators have never heard of. Rather, he is emphasizing the strategies that give “more bang for our buck”; he’s pointing out those very most crucial strategies that will yield the most student achievement. This is encouraging to me, and it motivates me to pay attention to the list of categories of strategies that he’s described here. I hope that this is helpful for you.
