This is your last assignment for this course...thanks for participating!!!
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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7 comments:
C. I like this chapter on activating prior knowledge in students. I try to do this a lot in my reading instruction (I was taught this is grad school as a basic part of teaching), and inform the students that this is the strategy we are working on. Often before reading a new story or introducing a new idea to them, I tell them a narrative from my own life. This seems to activate what they already know about this topic by causing them to make connections to my story. Then, of course, they all want to share their stories with me!
D. It was very interesting reading this chapter. I found I do things like give wait time and question cues quite often in class. But I like how it mentioned you need to make sure the questions are specific to the important topic and are in the higher-level order. Often I find myself asking lower-level questions, and usually when they are out of my mouth, I think that wasn't a good question to ask. I need to stop myself before it comes out :) Also, I was fascinated by the idea of advanced organizers. I got the impression from the chapter, that often the teacher fills them in before giving them to the students. So they are really just used for a study guide. We often think of the kids filling in organizers, but I would like to try some organizers filled-in or partially filled-in on topics of study next year.
Chapter 10 – Kristi Richards
C. As I read this chapter I, again, was attempting to apply it to the primary students that I work with. This time, I applied the strategy from this chapter to one of my first grade groups. I have a group of first graders who are stuck using visual cues as they read. They immediately haul out the “stretch it out” skill to decode new words. They aren’t using the context or the meaning of the sentence/story to support their reading.
Last week, we were going to read a book about a child who lost her tooth. Before we read the story, we worked on some prereading strategies, which included asking questions so that we could draw upon our schema. If you’ve ever taught first grade, you know that losing a tooth is a very popular topic. All of the students were able to relate to this idea. We discussed our experiences through a few probing questions. I then asked them to use the stories we had shared to think about some words we might find in our story, such as the words wiggle, pull, loose, tooth . . . . I then modeled reading the first page and stopping on a tricky word. I used my schema and our conversation to figure out the word. The students then worked on reading the book, while I coached them through using the answers to our prereading questions to read new words.
D. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I struggle with the feeling that I’m not giving my struggling readers enough experiences with some of these effective strategies. I’ve used some advanced organizers with my older groups to support comprehension, but, as Katy mentioned in reference to questioning, I’m not sure that I’m going deep enough. As a teacher, I’d prefer to question and wonder, than to feel satisfied with my instruction. Yet, I do want to be able to reflect in a way that facilitates change. I know that I’m repeating myself, but I will continue to think about ways to use questions and advance organizers to support my learners and raise my expectations for them.
C. I also like this chapter on cues, questions, and advance organizers. It made me question the age old practice of using KWL charts. The chapter states that we should focus on what is important as opposed to what is unusual. It also states that the more students know about a topic, the more they tend to be interested in it. I've struggled with KWL's for years because I would often get information from children that wasn't true. What do you think?
This year I read "Text Savy" by Sarah Daunis and Maria Cassiani Lams. I found it helpful in providing my students with questions that would help build their comprehension. We would basically do a book analysis together in order to define the genre, our expectations, and what we already knew about the topic before we read the piece. I think this fits in well with providing cues and questions. I also feel that in Science this year I was better about using questions that elicit inferences. I like the wording provided in this section and will use it next year. "How does this action change the size or shape of a thing?" and How does this action change the state of a thing?" I think these questions are direct and really help to focus attention on what is important.
D. I'm really intrigued by the sections on analytic questions and advance organizers. As a magnet school for sustainability I think we need to do a better job of getting our students to analyze and critique. Many of our units involve service learning and social justice components. Developing the skills of being able to analyze and critique would make these portions of the units far more meaningful. I'd like to try and incorportate some analytic questions such as constructing support and analyzing perspectives into our units next year. I wish I had read the section on expository advance organizers before we did our units on energy and the watershed. I think they would have helped me to focus on what was important. After reading this chapter I'm wondering where reflection fits into all this. Are the analytic questions and advance organizers tools we can also use to help students reflect more deeply?
Sarah Barnett
C. Like Katy, this chapter resonates with my reading instruction. Activating prior knowledge is a great starting point in introducing a new book to students. Like the tornado story in the chapter, I use personal narratives whenever applicable in teaching, and I encourage students to do it as well in the form of text to self connections. In guided reading we do picture walks prior to reading the book, and our picture walks often involve activating prior knowledge. I think it's true that students are more interested in something about which they already have some knowledge or connection. When we began our farm unit several weeks ago, I started by asking the children what they knew about farms. I wrote their ideas on chart paper, and together we categorized the items (animals, buildings, food/plants, machinery). As we began the unit, we periodically added to that original chart. It really did seem to spur an interest in learning more about farms. In terms of advance organizers, I have used them as part of our GLAD units, and I think they are valuable.
D. I have been thinking about the nature of my questions since reading this chapter. I am noticing that I tend to ask questions impulsively more so than thoroughly thinking through what exactly is important for children to be thinking about, and planning my questions accordingly. My goal is to put more planning into my questions by using my learning objectives as guidelines for higher quality questions. In terms of taking the time to prepare questions, make advance organizers, etc., I think that it is an effective use of time. Time spent improving the quality of my teaching is time well spent.
C. Like Kellie, I appreciated this chapter giving an alternative to "KWL" charts. Even though I modified the "K" from "What do we know?" to "What do we think we know?" in an attempt to reduce misinformation, The result was usually a mish-mash of "facts" and ideas, some of which could be addressed, most of which couldn't. I appreciated the parsimony of "Cues and questions should focus on what is important as opposed to what is unusual." Easy to prompt, easy to manage the answers, results in increased learning.
My school subscribes to a web-streaming service (discovery education) that can usually produce video clips on any subject we cover. Prior to reading a selection about deep-sea exploration, I showed my class a clip from the 1960 "Trieste" voyage to the deepest part of the ocean. While it was tempting to focus on the unusual aspects of the voyage (They were only on the bottom for 20 minutes, the bathyscaphe used 22,000 gallons of fuel, they found the deepest part of the ocean by using hand grenades) the tie-in to the selection in the anthology came from focusing on the most important information: undersea exploration is difficult because of the tremendous pressure involved, but despite those conditions, life exists at the bottom of the ocean.
D. I find myself already using many of the strategies outlined in this chapter. I never really thought of it as more than "getting the students interested in what they're doing," since low student engagement is guaranteed if my anticipatory set consists of "open your books and turn to page..." As far as being unaware of how many questions I asked, it only took having an autistic student who didn't understand that not every question had to be answered out loud to become aware of my cueing.
To the teacher complaining about lack of time to prepare for cues and organizers, I would make the case for the video streaming subscription. It barely takes any time to find relevant content, and it's categorized by topic and grade level. It also makes a compelling demonstration as a goal for a fundraiser or grant. If money and technology are limitations, I think merely asking students at the beginning of a lesson "What do you think is important to know about..." can do a lot to activate their prior knowledge.
I will continue to use songs, video clips, stories, and "what would you do if you were in this situation" prompts with my students, but from now on, I will also direct them to focus on what is important (either as dictated by me or decided by them, depending on the situation.)
As far as monitoring the effects of cueing, the easiest way I can think of would be a pre/post assessment of "what do you think is important about ... " before the lesson, and afterwards, have the students reflect on their predictions. They should be able to confirm, correct, or add to them.
Thanks Sam, Sarah, Katy, Kristi and Kellie! I have all of your assignments and will put each of you in for a "A" grade to TINT. I'll be responding to the rest of the assignments by the end of the weekend...Thanks for participating!
Jackie & Mary
Great comments – Katy, Kristi, Kellie, Sarah, and Sam. Chapter Ten on Cues, Questions and Advanced Organizers was a great way to end because it leaves us with some food for thought in how we can make our questioning and over-all instruction at a higher level of thinking….and as Kellie suggested…get our kids to be more reflective learners. Sam – I was curious as to the details of the video subscription – what a great way to build background knowledge!
Thanks everyone for participating in our course. I’ve enjoyed reading and learning from all of your comments. Hopefully we’ll see you in another of our courses at some point in the future!
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