9 Research-Backed Teaching Strategies That Boost Student Achievement
What Every Educator Should Know About Marzano’s Most Effective Classroom Practices
If you’re an educator striving to elevate instruction and increase student success, you’ve likely come across the work of Dr. Robert Marzano — a leading voice in educational research. His studies on effective teaching strategies are used in classrooms and districts around the country, and for good reason: they work.
Marzano emphasizes three key ingredients to school-wide success:
✅ Research-based teaching strategies
✅ Timely, meaningful feedback
✅ A focus on building academic vocabulary
Let’s take a closer look at Marzano’s 9 most effective instructional strategies — plus real ideas and classroom-tested resources you can use to implement them right away.
1. 🔍 Identifying Similarities and Differences
Teaching students how to compare, contrast, and classify is foundational to critical thinking. These skills help students deepen understanding and make connections across content.
📌 Try this: Use Describe & Compare Graphic Organizers, Top Hat Notes, or Venn diagrams to help students visually and verbally process similarities and differences in texts, historical events, or science concepts.
2. ✍️ Summarizing and Note Taking
Marzano’s research shows that teaching students how to distill key ideas is one of the most impactful strategies out there.
📚 We recommend Emily Kissner’s book Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Retelling as a go-to resource.
📝 Also explore our Note-Taking Bundle, Central Idea Graphic Organizer, and Text Evidence Organizer — all aligned with this strategy.
3. 🌟 Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
When students see a link between effort and achievement, motivation increases. But the key is genuine, specific recognition — not just participation trophies.
🎉 Our tip? Recognize student growth unexpectedly and focus on moments of persistence, not just perfection. This builds intrinsic motivation that lasts.
4. 📚 Homework and Practice
Practice makes progress — but only if it's meaningful. Marzano encourages intentional assignments tied to clear learning goals.
🗂 In our classrooms, we keep homework light but purposeful: mostly independent reading and Article of the Week (AOW) responses. We cap it at 40 minutes, 4 days a week. Students are busy — let’s respect their time while reinforcing learning.
5. 🖼 Non-Linguistic Representations
Not every student processes information through words alone. Incorporating visuals, movement, and mental imagery can dramatically boost comprehension.
🎨 We bring this to life in our Poetry Unit through visual interpretation and creative responses.
✨ Want something new? Try zines — small, self-published booklets — for multimodal expression, especially in secondary ELA. Or check out Lawnmower poetry.
6. 🤝 Cooperative Learning
Effective group work doesn’t happen by chance. It requires structure, community, and purpose.
🧩 Start by building a classroom culture of respect. Use collaborative protocols, shared rubrics, and reflective tasks to make group work productive — not chaotic.
Try our Socratic Seminar Unit to introduce student-led discussion and elevate peer learning in a structured way.
7. 🎯 Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
Clear goals + real-time feedback = student success.
✅ We post a learning target every day so students know exactly what they’re working toward. Tools like Pear Deck help us give live, actionable feedback during lessons — and spotlight student thinking to lift the whole class.
8. 🧪 Generating and Testing Hypotheses
While this sounds science-specific, it’s a skill students can apply across subjects — especially through prediction, cause and effect, and problem-solving.
📖 In ELA, we love pairing this with reading strategies like foreshadowing. One favorite? The Truth About Sharks — a perfect short story to explore how early clues predict later twists.
9. 🧠 Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers
Scaffolding is key. Marzano stresses the power of previewing content and using graphic organizers to guide learning.
📋 We’ve found that graphic organizers aren’t just helpful — they’re essential. That’s why we created our Note-Taking Bundle — to help students track thinking across content areas with ease.
💡 Final Thought: Strategy Over Everything
Effective teaching isn’t about flashy extras — it’s about consistently using what works. Marzano’s research gives us a clear path forward, and when paired with thoughtful lesson design, feedback, and scaffolding, these strategies create a classroom where learning sticks.
Looking for done-for-you resources aligned with these strategies?
🛍️ Visit The Teaching Distillery on TpT for everything from graphic organizers to discussion frameworks, reading interventions, and writing lessons that work.