Monday, March 23, 2009

Marzano on Student Achievement and Technology

From the (California Computer Users in Education ) CUE 2009 Conference on March 6, 2009, Dr. Robert Marzano addresses the question "What do we know about the effects of technology on student achievement?"

Dr. Marzano speaks about several areas of his ongoing research.
1) Interactive whiteboards (Promethean) and "voters:"
Findings show that when good instruction and technology is combined, a typical student could realize more than a 30 percentile gain in achievement, if that student is in a classroom with an experienced teacher who has been using this technology for 2 years, uses it about 75% of the time in class, and has had enough training to be confident in using it. Marzano also talks about effective questioning techniques when using handheld voters.

2) Formative assessment and record keeping using technology:
Marzano shares the effects on different types of feedback provided to students, to help them improve their learning. He also talks about considerations when designing formal and informal assessments and rubrics, and the importance of not relying on what the "computer" calculates as a final grade.

Part 1: (24 min)


Part 2: (12 min)