MRL Spotlight

Jane Doty Fischer

MRL highlights the work of our associates and their work in the field. This Spotlight will focus on Jane Doty-Fischer. Jane’s recent work with MRL has taken her to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, to work with their school district’s leadership team.

Jane Doty Fischer first met Dr. Marzano while completing her graduate degree in administration in New York in the late 1990s. For a class project about prominent educational innovators, Jane was assigned to report on “Robert Marzano,” so she signed up to be part of a consortium with him in Denver. There she introduced herself, purchased his books, and convinced him to sign them for her. She remembers that he good-naturedly agreed to personalize them, “To my friend, Jane,” after she explained her assignment. Later, as an administrator, Jane encountered Bob again, this time through professional development in her school. When she was offered a job working with him in Colorado in 2000, Jane was so excited about the opportunity that she left New York, moved to Denver, and eventually became one of the first Associates when Dr. Marzano began his own research and professional development organization in 2003. She has co-authored several books, including Teaching Reading in Social Studies: A Supplement to Teaching Reading in the Content Areas, The Pathfinder Project (with Dr. Marzano and Diane Paynter in 2003), and For the Love of Words: Vocabulary Instruction that Works. Jane is currently working on her doctoral degree.

Jane’s recent work with MRL has taken her to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, to work with their school district’s leadership team. She describes her work there as “interesting, rewarding, challenging, and a lot of fun!” Along with the superintendent and professional development leaders, Jane assists this group of principals, assistant principals, and instructional coaches to implement and support elements of Dr. Marzano’s work in their district. They have worked to build a common vocabulary and language of instruction, design learning goals and objectives, and increase teacher effectiveness using the framework outlined in Dr. Marzano’s 2007 book, The Art and Science of Teaching.

Jane is passionate about the importance of using a common vocabulary, and she works with the leadership team in Lake Havasu City to create common language and structures that they will use to describe what success looks like in their district. She also advises them on various projects they’ve undertaken, such as creating descriptions for what “model teachers” look like, creating a video library featuring exemplary teachers in their district, and designing protocols to increase family and community involvement in educational decision-making.

Jane describes this last goal as one of the challenges of her work. “They’re on the edge of really involving the entire community,” Jane says. She says that this district is working to move from a model where families come to school for special presentations and parents volunteer to make copies or put up bulletin boards to a system in which parents, grandparents, community members, and even students are regularly included on decision-making teams. “They [the families and community members] have the pulse of the community and can help the schools make more well-rounded decisions,” Jane explains.

Jane credits this district with being willing to have tough conversations about education, even when they might involve conflict. “Especially when you start working on topics such as learning goals and objectives, the conversation can be very philosophical and belief-laden,” she says. She has worked with the leadership team to build an environment of trust, respect, and understanding, where all stakeholders can be honest about their perspectives, and many points of view are gathered and discussed before reaching final decisions.

Jane also describes the commitment of the teachers and instructional coaches in this district. “They’re dedicated to working very hard to be the best that they can be,” she says. The instructional coaches in this district, who work part-time as coaches and part-time as classroom teachers, are the knowledge explorers for their district. “They go out, learn new information and strategies, come back to their district, and make it happen,” says Jane. “They’re eager to learn. I’m in communication with their curriculum person and leadership team once or twice a week, and I’m going back in August to meet with them again.”

Jane has seen the way that this district’s commitment to excellence has paid off, and she attributes the high performance of their students to the teachers’ and leaders’ dedication, determination, excitement, and positive energy. She’s excited about her next steps with this district, which include focusing on subsequent design questions from The Art and Science of Teaching, creating a common language for teacher observations, and working to create common assessments. Additionally, Jane plans to work with this district to incorporate formative assessments and feedback into their record-keeping and grade-reporting systems, with the goal of continued student learning and achievement.

This interview was written by Lindsay Carleton and Julia Simms, Marzano Research Laboratory.