Assignment #10: Complete the 4 part assignment format as you read, reflect, and respond to Chapter 10: Cues, Questions and Advance Organizers.
Remember: Although your course packet asks you to post to blog for parts A, B, C, and D…we are asking that you only post part C and D. We’re trying to make the blog easier to read and more user- friendly. Thanks!
A. Self Assessment of Current Beliefs and Practices: This component asks you to reflect on how and why you currently use the instructional strategy of Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers in your classroom. The intent of this is to activate your prior knowledge of your strategy use so that you can make comparisons as you read the chapter. Below are the questions to help you complete your self-assessment.
• What is your purpose of using cues and questions in your classroom?
• Study the research results in Figure 10.1 for "Cues and Questions." In your experience, what makes some experiences with cues and questions better than others?
B. Read & Reflect “Research & Theory”: This portion of the assignment asks you to read chapter 10 and reflect briefly on your thinking after reading the “Research and Theory” section for Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers. You may want to consider the point below in your reflection.
• Many teachers who are aware of the research on the use of "wait time" will confess that they do not use it often enough. What do you think are some of the reasons that might explain why teachers do not use this strategy systematically and effectively?
C. Practice: Choose one of the specific “classroom practice” strategies or techniques shared in this chapter to try out with your students (If you are not currently teaching, you may share how you would use this strategy in your classroom). Please post a brief reflection of how this went to the posting labeled Week Ten: Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers. Click on the “comment” link below.
D. Final Strategy Reflection: Use the following sequence of questions/prompts to reflect on what you’ve learned about both the strategies presented in the chapter and what you’ve learned about yourself as both a teacher and a learner. Please post your brief reflection to the posting labeled Week Ten: Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers by clicking on the “comment” link below.
How has the information you read in this chapter on Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers effected your thinking about teaching and learning? What have you learned about yourself as a teacher and learner? Use the following questions to assist you in writing a brief strategy reflection:
• Research confirms that advance organizers are powerful when they help students focus on what is important, not on what might be unusual. All the different types of advance organizers described in this chapter, however, require up-front planning on the part of the teacher. How would you respond to a teacher who complains that there just isn't time to prepare the organizers?
• What will you do to improve the effect of using cues, questions, and advance organizers in your classroom? – Will you make changes?
• How might you monitor the effects of cues, questions, and advance organizers on student learning?
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3 comments:
C. I chose Cues and Questions for my teaching strategy. I based my instructional strategies using the ideas from chapter 10 and also the Instructional Strategies for Use During a Unit, chapter 12,page 150.
My class started a mini-unit on insects.
My 1st lesson : Time to Wonder?
I began this lesson by putting out pictures of different insects and instructed my class to visit each pictured insect and write a question that they might have about this insect or something they would like to learn about or a fact they knew.
We collected all of the post-it notes and I called on different students to read their questions and ideas aloud. As a whole class discussion my first graders shared their ideas and knowledge about what they knew about insects. We are now in the process of learning about insects and I am having my students keep a notebook,one side has vocabulary word and the other side an illustration.
D. Reflection: I really like using cues to activate prior knowledge and to stimulate higher order thinking. Questioning and "wait time" though is a bit of a challenge at first grade. Any question sets off a frenzy of hands and everyone wants to answer. I have taught my students that after I question them they hold their answers as I tap the side of my head and I say "think, think,think"slowly.Providing "wait time" can be very challenging when other students are crawling around the carpet or arguing with each other. I know that this is something that I will spend time on next year.
C. I chose to take a look at Cues, Questions and Advance Orgnaizers . With only two days left of school I thought about how I might use Cues and questions to get my students thinking about curriculum areas for next year. One of my goals I set after reading this chapter was to really think about how am I asking questions and am I giving students enough "think" time. I loved what Paula does with her first graders. I would like to use the hand on the head and model the I think............. strategy for my fourth graders.
In the cues and question section I thought about
questions I might ask students to help them establish a "mental set" before the Oregon Trail unit.
1. If you could take a small pack across the country what would you take with you?
2. If your parent's told you that they were selling everything in the house and you can only keep personal items that can be kept in a small bag. What would you keep and why.
I would like to use Advance Organizers more for my fourth graders. Most Fourth graders can read so this is an ideal way to present information to them before they are presented with it. I could see using the Expository Advance Organizer to prepare students before a film, guest speaker and field trips.
The Narrative Advance Organizer is also great. I'm thinking as part of our Weather unit and before our discussion of extreme weather, I could share a true story of my husbands brother. Lighting hit the ground near his brother and he went flying in the air. Students certainly would be engaged at that point.
The strategy of Skimming Star maps before a visit to the Planetarium I can use right out of the book. We study Constellations and take a field trip to the Planetarium every year.
D. I understand the importance of using Explicit Cues and Questions to activate prior knowledge and to promote higher level thinking. I am going to keep a copy of Questions that elicit inferences in my plan book. These types of questions are a little more difficult to come up with. I appreciated the examples about things, people, action, events and states of being to help students "fill in" and make inferences about subject matter.
Thanks again for sharing your responses to this assignment! I've enjoyed reading how you've both integrated these strategies into your curriculum content areas. I've sent in "A"s as grades for both of you. I hope that you've enjoyed the class and will continue to see the value of using these strategies throughout your instruction next year! Please let us know if you have any feedback for the course this semester....we'd love to here any suggestions!!! We look forward to seeing you both in future courses :)
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