The New Art and Science of Teaching. Robert J. Marzano

during a presentation of new content.

      • Students appear to understand the content in each chunk.

Element 7: Processing Content

      During pauses between chunks in the new content the teacher is presenting, students should be engaged in activities that help them analyze and process new information in ways that facilitate their understanding. Such processes must be well-thought-out and structured. If students simply share their thoughts about the chunk of content they just experienced, they might not interact in a way that is rigorous enough to augment their learning.

      The strategies that are involved in this element appear in table 3.2.

Table 3.2: Processing Content

Strategy	Description
Perspective analysis	The teacher asks students to consider multiple perspectives on new knowledge using perspective analysis.
Thinking hats	The teacher asks students to process new information by imagining themselves wearing any one of six different-colored thinking hats representing six different types of perspectives: white hat (neutral and objective perspectives), red hat (emotional perspectives), black hat (cautious or careful perspectives), yellow hat (optimistic perspectives), green hat (creative perspectives), and blue hat (organizational perspectives) (de Bono, 1999).
Collaborative processing	The teacher asks students to meet in small groups to summarize the information he or she just presented, ask clarifying questions about the information, and make predictions about upcoming information.
Jigsaw cooperative learning	The teacher organizes students in teams of equal size (for example, four members) and the content into as many categories as there are team members (for example, four categories). The teacher assigns individual team members to each content chunk to become experts. They then return to their teams to present their content.
Reciprocal teaching	After the teacher presents the chunk of content, the discussion leader in a group asks questions about the information presented, and the group members discuss each question. Someone from the group summarizes the content presented so far, and the group members make predictions about the upcoming chunk of content, beginning the cycle again.
Concept attainment	The teacher asks students to identify, compare, and contrast examples and nonexamples of a concept.
Think-pair-share	The teacher asks students to think critically about a question, pair up with another classmate to come to a consensus on their answer to the question, and then share their response with other groups or the whole class.
Scripted cooperative dyads	Students take notes about the main idea and key details of new content. The teacher breaks students into groups of two and assigns each student to act either as the recaller or the listener. The recaller summarizes the content without looking at his or her notes, while the listener adds missing information and corrects any errors in the recaller’s summary. Students switch roles during the next chunk.

      Source: Adapted from Marzano Research, 2016bb.

      All the strategies in table 3.2 focus on helping students process the content in such a way as to increase their comprehension and retention. However, they do so in different ways. Two of the strategies—perspective analysis and thinking hats—require students to think about the content in unusual ways. For example, perspective analysis requires students to identify their own position on a topic and the reasoning supporting it. Students next consider a different position on the topic and the reasoning behind it.

      A few strategies provide very specific procedures for how students are to process the content. For example, the jigsaw strategy requires students to meet in groups to become local experts on specific aspects of the new content being presented. Local experts then report back to their original groups, sharing what they have learned.

      Some of the strategies focus more on the collaboration process. For example, the strategy of scripted cooperative dyads requires students to interact from the perspective of one of two roles: (1) recaller and (2) listener. Students continually shift roles, providing for a systematic dialogue about the new content.

      When the strategies in this element produce the desired effects, teachers will observe the following behaviors in students.

      • Students appear to be actively interacting with the content.

      • Students volunteer predictions.

      • Students can explain what they have just learned.

      • Students voluntarily ask clarification questions.