A Handbook for Classroom Instruction That Works

Rating:
Summary: Simplstic
Review: Do you like magazine surveys about how effective your marriage is, or if you exercise frequently enough? This book has one for each chapter (rate yourself 1-4), AND has worksheets like the ones you did in grade school as you work to explore "novel" techniques in education! There have to be more thought provoking monographs about the application of research in the classroom. Sanitized statistics, silly stories, a frighteningly short list of references and text that probably does not read beyond the 6th grade level disturbs me. Does Mr. Marzano think that all educators are semi-literate morons? His ideas are not new in the science classroom, and most ideas he covers are reiterations of something old for me. I was required to use this book and its sister textbook for a GRADUATE LEVEL education course. I would recommend NEITHER.

Rating:
Summary: Trite and repetitive
Review: Don't waste your time on this book - there is very little material of any use here.
The book is divided into chapters which claim to discuss how to address concepts such as working in groups, comparison and contrast and homework. In each chapter the authors give a page-long short answer test in which the reader evaluates how she feels about her use and awareness of the chapter topic. This could be quite useful if there was any information presented between the tests. Also, the test is reprinted in each chapter, usually almost verbatim. This lacks imagination and and seems wasteful to me.
In each chapter, the authors give several one-paragraph-long passages that tell what you might do in that teaching/learning area. These are almost always unimaginative and unsupported; little is not intuitively obvious, and there is seldom any explanation or exploration of the technique. It is true that what is obvious to one is not alwas so to everyone else, and there are doubtless a couple ideas that you may not have thought about or have forgotten. Still, a five minute talk with another teacher would accomplish just as much if not more.
Again, don't waste your money on this book if you can help it.