Microsoft Wordand Marzano’s

Instructional Strategies

Identifying Similarities and Differences

Create graphic organizers using the Drawing toolbar to draw diagrams, charts, or other templates to compare and contrast ideas. Autoshapes provides a variety lines, shapes and connectors.

Functions of buttons

/ A pull down menu with several
drawing options / / Changes the pointer to a selection arrow
/ Rotates object / / A pull down menu with several options for shapes
/ Draws a line. Hold the Shift key down to make the line straight / / Inserts a line with an arrowhead
/ Draws a rectangle. Hold down Shift to draw a square / / Draws an oval. Hold down Shift to draw a circle
/ Draws a text box / / Create text effects with Word Art
/ Add, change, or remove fill color from a selected object / / Add, change, or remove line color
/ Formats the selected text with the color you click / / Changes the thickness of lines
/ Selects dash style for dashed lines / / Select arrow style; placement and shape of arrowhead
/ A pull down menu offers shadow choices / / Add 3-D effects to rectangles or ovals

There is a Venn diagram in Autoshapes. (Click on Diagram under the Insert menu.) A Venn diagram can then be changed to a target, cycle, or pyramid design by clicking on the Change to dropdown in from the toolbar.

Create Analogy of the Day for students. Start simple and as students improve, let them take over the process.

Hot is to cold as Night is to ______.

Hard is to ______as ______is to Low.

is to as is to

Create classification tables to identify similarities and differences.

Solids / Liquids / Gases
chair / orange juice / steam
apple / water / oxygen

To create a table:

Click on Table from the menu at the top of the page. Click on Insert then choose Table.

Choose desired number of columns, rows, and Autofit behavior. Click Ok. To add/delete rows or columns later, click on Table then Insert or Delete.

Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

One way to get students to think about setting objectives for their learning is to create a KWHL chart. A chart can be drawn using four vertical rectangles and then typing in the letter in each box. A complete KWHL can later be emailed to parents, shared in a newsletter, or posted on the teacher’s website.

Create learning contracts to personalize goals for students. The document can be distributed to students and filled out by hand or saved as a document template so students can fill in electronically.

To save a contract as a document template, click on File > Save As and choose Document Template (.dot) from the menu. This will keep the original document unchanged.

Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition

Create personalized certificates or rewards.

Nonlinguistic Representation

Add photos and clip art to written text, including notes. This is especially helpful for emergent readers and English language learners, who benefit from visual cues.

(Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers)

Use Insert Comments feature to provide student-led feedback.Comments can be a valuable tool in making notes in documents. The comments you type won't be printed in your document, and they are also hidden until you decide to display them.

To show changes in an MS Word document, be sure the Reviewing toolbar is visible. Go to View > Toolbars > Reviewing.

The Reviewing toolbar appears below the Formatting toolbar. The Track Changes icon looks like a piece of paper with red lines, a pencil, and a yellow star. Click on the icon to activate the tool.
Insert Comments

  1. Move the cursor to the place in the document you would like to place the comment. Go to Insert > Comment or click on the Insert Comment icon in the Reviewing toolbar. (It looks like a folder with a star in the left corner.)

*Comments will appear differently in different document views. In Print Layout view, deleted text and comments and formatting changes are displayed in balloons in the document margin. (This is also how they appear in Web Layout view and in Reading Layout view.)

In Normal view and Outline view, however, there are no balloons. Deleted text is shown in the document with a line through it, and comments are displayed at the bottom of the document in the reviewing pane.

  1. Type your comment in the lower pane window that appears or pink comment box.
  2. Once you finish entering your comment, click the Close button from the lower pane.
  3. Continue this for each comment you would like to add.
  4. To view the comments that have already been added to the document, click the View menu and select "Comments" from the menu that appears.
  5. To delete a comment, click on the drop down menu beside the Reject Change/Delete Comment icon and make the applicable choice. (Icon looks like a paper with a red X and a pencil.)

Saving documents in a shared folder allows access to one another’s work. Multiple students can be peer reviewers of a document. Each reviewer’s comments are displayed in a different color. *Documents in a shared folder cannot be edited by multiple users at the same time.

Flesch-Kincaid Readability Scale

The scale provides readability statistics and grade-level ratings on a piece of writing. When the tool is activated, every time a spell check is run, the statistics are available.

To activate the scale:

  1. Open MS Word.
  2. Go to ToolsOptions
  3. Click on the Spelling & Grammar tab
  4. Click on the checkboxes for Check grammar with spelling and Show readability statistics
  5. Run the spell check option. Once spell check has finished running, a box should appear titled “Readability Statistics”. This will be broken down into 3 sections “Counts”, “Averages”, and “Readability”.

Under “Readability”, you will be given two reading levels: Flesch Reading Ease Score and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Score.

Flesch Reading Ease Score: This score bases the readability of the document on a 100 point scale, with 100 being easiest to read. Using this method, you will want a high score for more readability. The recommended score is between 60 and 70.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Score: This score bases the readability of the document on a grade level. For example a score of 8.0 would be eighth grade level reading, while a score of 12.0 would be harder at a twelfth grade level reading ability.

Summarizing and Note Taking Instructional Strategy

Summarizing and Peer/Self Editing

Use the Track Changestool in MS Word to edit unnecessary text.

  1. Open MS Word.
  2. Go to ToolsTrack Changesto activate this feature. (or follow the directions above)
  3. To set up the options:
  4. Go to ToolsOptions
  5. Click on the Track Changes tab. Make desired changes to the drop down menus.

4. Click Ok.

5. Type text into MS Word document.

  1. Save the original document.
  2. To edit text, highlight unwanted text.
  3. Press the Delete key.

The highlighted section appears crossed out.

*When finished using the Track Changes feature, deactivate it by going to ToolsTrack Changes. Peer editing fits into the Providing Feedback Instructional Strategy.

Also for Summarizing

Use the AutoSummarize tool in MS Word to summarize a selection of text.

  1. Open MS Word document.
  2. Go to Tools > Auto Summarize.
  3. The screen gives four different summary options:

(1) Highlight key points; (2) Insert an executive summary at the top of the document; (3) Create a new document and put the summary there; or (4) Hide everything but the summary without leaving the original document.

Highlighting key points is recommended in the book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works.

Not only can the AutoSummarize tool be used by students to summarize, but it can also be used during the writing process as well. After completing a rough draft, a student can use the tool to see if MS Word recognizes the same main points he/she expected.(Homework and Practice Instructional Strategy)

Note Taking

A variety of formats are recommended. Graphic representation has been shown to produce a percentile gain of 39 points in student achievement (Marzano, 1998, p.74).

MS Word enables students to:

  • take notes quickly without formatting concerns.
  • create an informal outline using the bullets button and tab keys.
  • create combination notes using the draw tools in MS Word.

Combination notes have both text and images. Clip art can be inserted or the Drawing toolbar can used. To display the Drawing toolbar:

  1. Open MS Word document.
  2. Click on ViewToolbarsDrawing
  3. The toolbar may be floating (as pictured) or docked at the bottom of the page.

Homework and Practice Instructional Strategy

Research Capability in MS Word

  1. Open MS Word document.
  2. Click on Tools > Research. A window appears on the right side of the document. By typing in a search term, students can access the Encarta dictionary, a thesaurus, the Encarta Encyclopedia, eLibrary, and more.

Benefit: search results are more focused than those from typical search engines.

While at home or working independently, students can look up an unknown word in the dictionary and thesaurus using the Research tool. Students can use the thesaurus to replace words with more descriptive words in their writings.