Monday, October 30 Marzano, Teaching and Healing

Series of Postings for the Week
I have a bit of a scheduled format for this week. I will break down the week so that you know what postings are around the corner"

Monday: Marzano's 'Problem is Posed'
Tuesday: Maintaining Attitude
Wednesday: Solution Support, to Marzano's 'Problem is Posed'
Thursday: Me and My Shadow
Friday: Solution to Marzano's 'Problem is Posed' So what...?
Saturday: Treatment Update and Effects
Sunday: Picture Gallery (send me a picture if you want it posted)

Marzano's 'Problem is Posed'
Suppose you are a doctor faced with a patient who has a malignant tumor in his stomach. It is impossible to operate on the patient, but unless the tumor is destroyed the patient will die. There is a kind of ray that can be used to destroy the tumor. If the rays reach the tumor all at once at a sufficiently high intensity, the healthy tissue that the rays pass through on the way to the tumor will also be destroyed. At lower intensities the rays are not harmless to healthy tissue, but they will not affect the tumor either. What type of procedure might be used to destroy the tumor with the rays, and at the same time, avoid destroying the healthy tissue (pp 307-308 Gick and Holyoak 1980, adapted by a study by Duncker, 1945)?

A clue will be posted on Wednesday: Solution Support, to Marzano's 'Problem is Posed'Robert J. Marzano

Marzano
I have a favourite educational researcher and his name is Robert J. Marzano. He is providing a great deal of credibility to research in the social sciences and particularily in education. He quotes Hedge (1987), "research in the soft science, like education is, indeed, comparable to research in the hard sciences in terms of its rigor."

So Why Bring this Up?
Marzano in his book, Classroom Instruction that Works, Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Understanding, is trying to determine which strategies or approaches are most effective in teaching and in helping us to learn. His book has left an impression upon me and I refer to it regularly. As I was leafing through it on the weekend, I discovered the above problem that seemed to be related, uncanningly, to my situation. I am going to include it in the blog and I would like you to think a little about it. It is rich problem that continually challenges the field of medicine, however it has a direct connection to a whole lot of other areas.
So as the week progresses (Friday) I will touch on the oncological stuff (anytime to hear about cancer the word oncology crops up... I have an oncology surgeon, a radiation oncologist ...), however, I would also like to connect Marzano's 'Problem is Posed' more generally to learning and how the learning connects to the situation in which I find myself.