This is your last assignment for this course...all assignments are due 6/5...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?
10 comments:
C: Practice- Prior to students reading an informative lesson on “Living in Ancient Egypt As A Child,” students were asked questions such as: how they thought children lived in Ancient Egypt? Their replies varied from children having no responsibilities to playing most of the time. Students did not relate that Egyptian students may have toys, education and/or responsibilities similar to the lives of children today. These type of question enhanced their interest. Students were surprised to discover some Ancient Egyptian boys trained to be scribes for many years and girls often married at the ages between 12-13. The questions and cues presented before activity resulted in students being able to relate to Ancient Egyptian children.
D: Reflection - Chapter 10 explained “why” it is important to activate prior knowledge, cue and question students. I have used these techniques, but did not understand the importance of using these practices. I have made the mistake of focusing questions on the unusual and will change my questions to pose questions that are critical to the information being studied.
As a resource room teacher, my questions often fall into the recall and recognize category. I will make a more conscience effort to inquire with more analytical questions to produced deeper learning for students.
One way to monitor the effects of cues, questions and advance organizers is to provide a KWL chart students complete as we move through the lesson. During the activity we will discuss student perspectives, answer questions, and write out their thoughts.
C. Practice:
I tried the strategy, “Advanced organizers” from the chapter. My students were about to read a nonfiction selection titled, Amazing Animals. They were going to learn about features that different animals had that help that animal. I know the book stated that it was better to use text that isn’t already organized, but being that this is still new for 1st graders, I thought it was appropriate.
I had a graphic organizer that looked like this:
ANIMAL FEATURES How this helps them
Polar bear
Giraffe
Llama
Dolphin
Monkey
Together the students and I looked over the graphic organizer and discussed how they would be filling it out. I explained that animals have features that help them to survive. Together we read and filled out the organizer for the first two animals. Then students read the rest of the selection with a partner and filled out the organizer. I think it really helped them to have a deeper understanding of the text and it worked well.
D. Final Strategy Reflection:
It’s always important to give students their wait time. This is also especially helpful for ESL students. There are many times I don’t give enough of it. I try to take a drink of my water before I call on someone for an answer. That also reminds me that I need to provide that wait time. It was a good reminder reading about that in the chapter.
I also really like the idea of an advanced organizer. This will help with students who struggle to process and comprehend all the information.
I will continue to use this strategy more.
• 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?
That’s our job to provide the best learning opportunities for students. It doesn’t take that much more time, and they are invaluable for students. Share the load with teammates, and save the documents you create. Next time around it will already be done for you.
• What will you do to improve the effect of using cues, questions, and advance organizers in your classroom? – Will you make changes?
I answered part of this above. I also plan to use a document of bloom’s taxonomy with great cues for asking students. Using learning targets, language and content objectives will help me to stay on what’s important more than just unusual too.
• How might you monitor the effects of cues, questions, and advance organizers on student learning?
Exit and entrance slips, collecting organizers and assessing student knowledge after they’ve had the opportunity to fill them out.
Linda & Jennie – Thanks for your final comments on our last strategy, cues, questions, and advanced organizers.
Linda – It’s so important for us to understand the rationale behind good teaching practices, so that we don’t just toss them out the window, as more things get thrown at us. I also think it’s just as important to let the kids in on the secret as well. I explain to the kids how important it is for them to be able to connect new learning to known information…it’s like their brains are file folders all organized into different topics of known information inside their brains. When they come across new info, if they can add that new information into a folder that already exists, it will be more likely to be able to be found and used again in the future.
Jennie – I agree that it was appropriate to scaffold the learning for your first graders. I’m sure that your graphic organizer supported their thinking and understanding while reading the text...and isn’t that what it’s all about? Sometimes it is hard to give kids the wait time they need because we always feel the pressure of the curriculum and all we know we’re not able to fit into our day. Take the time to create the organizers or any other document that you feel kids need to access information. I’ve come to realize that it’s better to teach with depth NOT breadth. Give them the time and support they need to access information successfully so that they can transfer learning and become more independent for future learning.
Thank-you both for participating in our course, we’ll submit you both in for “A” grades to TINT! Hopefully we’ll see you in a future course!
C. As a teacher we are constantly prompting and questioning students. Teaching children how to infer when reading text is very much a learned skilled. One way this is done is to go through a piece of text as a small group or whole class asking myself questions about the text that the students will eventually be doing individually. During literacy time I have the opportunity to work with small groups. Two of the books we read during the last inquiry circles were Wenny Has Wings and Bud, Not Buddy. Both of these books provide endless chances to ask questions and make predictions. Students are also encouraged to use their note taking strategies that we establish at the beginning of each book. This allows students to question something that is taking place in the book without getting too off track. Modeling higher level thinking questions such as "how does the relationship of Will and Wenny change after Wenny is killed in a car accident?" " How long, if ever, will it take Will to recover from such a tragedy?" "How does a car accident change a person, including Will and his family?" This book allows my students to go deeper, put themselves in Will's shoes and ask those difficult, but life shaping questions.
One graphic advanced organizer that I use with my students is a nonfiction features organizer. As a class we read through a non-fiction book, identifying features such as : title, table of contents, index, glossary, captions, graph, table, and a few others. We identify these features as a class and discuss what roles they play in nonfiction text. The students are then required to find each feature in three different pieces of text. They have to identify them and list the page number in which they are found. This allows students to become more comfortable with identifying nonfiction features in an active way.
D. 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:
I have been reminded through this book, and SIOP how important it is to give students many visuals and hands on options such as graphic organizers. When you give children the knowledge ahead of time it builds their confidence and sets them up for success. Questioning does this as well, especially if the question is posted and they know what to expect. By striving to be consistent students will be more prepared for the questions to come.
• 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?
I think this is a very common and realistic complaint. I would encourage teams to prepare a couple of graphic organizers that they could then shared with each other over different units. Collaboration is key, and by giving your team support, you will accomplish more in a shorter amount of time!
• What will you do to improve the effect of using cues, questions, and advance organizers in your classroom? – Will you make changes? Next year will be a new challenge for me as we are making some grade changes. I think this will allow me to explore different graphic organizers for the new units I will be teaching. Although it's overwhelming, it's also very exciting. I think the key to a successful organizer is simple, yet engaging, drawing the key information out.
• How might you monitor the effects of cues, questions, and advance organizers on student learning?
We discuss in our small groups during literacy the questions and information we have come up with while reading our novels. Discussing questions is an important piece, not only so the students receive answers, but also so other students can hear examples of strong questions.
C.Practice: While substituting in a first year French class a few weeks ago, we watched the film “To Be and To Have” (great film, you won’t regret watching it!) over two class periods. The students had to take notes on the film. After the first day, some students were complaining about the slowness of the film and how nothing happened. During my lunch break, I watched an interview with the director who explained the reasons behind filming the movie as they did. For example, the first scene of the classroom showed the room the night before school began and centered on two turtles (classroom pets). The director explained how the turtles represent the learning process; it is a slow and steady process. When I shared my observations with the next class, giving them information about the film before it began, they did not complain and made better observations. Giving some background information helped the students gain perspective and reason before the film began.
D. Reflection: My main difficulty is wait time. It is so hard for me to build that in to my communication even away from school. I need to be more aware of giving time for people to respond to my questions. Ron Russell Middle School is implementing an Envoy program for teachers. One of the components is building in wait time throughout the school day. I am a quick thinker, and I need to slow down and give students time to respond. I also appreciated the notion of developing questions and cues based on what is important as opposed to what is unusual about a topic. Many students in Title I struggle with finding the main idea. Focused questions could help them understand how to sift the main ideas from details. So many students get stuck on an obscure detail that does not add depth to understanding. Advanced organizers may seem to take time to develop, but as a student and a teacher it seems that in the long run they help everyone do their job better.
Practice: Everyday in reading groups I use the strategy of activating prior knowledge. When I hold up a book and show what we will be reading, I always ask, have you ever done this? Or what do you know about that? Have you ever...? For example the book we read today was about riding a traing. Each child had an opportunity to share if they had ever been on a train ride and what they could tell us about it before reading. In first grade, we do a farm unit. At the beginning of the unit, I put the word farm in the middle of the large butcher paper. I have kids tell me anything they know about farms and we build a graphic organizer branching off from the word farm. Over the next several weeks, we periodically come back to it and fill in our learning/add to it.
Relection:
I appreciated reading and being reminded of: questions should focus on what is important not unusual, higher level questions produce deeper learning, wait time is important and asking questions before learning experience is effective. I appreciate the list of questions that help with inferences. I will use those pages as a reference when planning. I would like to try using the examples listed under advance organizers more in my teaching. I don't feel I use them enough. It seems to simple to have students skim over something that we will be focusing on before we begin.
This chapter was full of encouragement for me. With each strategy that was described I was able to find a comparable activity in my repertoire. I use cues, questions and advance organizers naturally and the chapter is likely correct that most teachers use these naturally already. At the beginning of a new unit the 'warmup' I present the students with allows them to share their prior knowledge with the class and bring it to the forefront of their own minds. KWL charts are a great way of briding old knowledge with new as well as informing me about the students' prior knowledge. Wait-time I think I do a decent job but I could always do better. I believe I might not be doing as well with this as I once was, as class periods have been shrinking since I began teaching and I often feel rushed. The idea of focusing on the 'important' rather than the 'unusual' is huge, especially in Science. There is so much 'strange and unusual' but unimportant information. The kids tend to gravitate towards the strange. I don't ignore these ideas but work hard to focus the kids on what is important. For example, once the unit on plant cells begins I will impress upon the children the importance of 'photosynthesis.' I explain that this is a concept/process that ALL people should understand not just Science people and not just to pass the next assessment. I love it when the kids share prior experiences associated with our studies, it is so valuable. I was thinking it would be great to get the literacy specialist in my class to tally how many lower level and higher level questions I ask in a given class period. I think that would be valuable information to help me improve. I'd like to think I use many higher-level questions to promote higher-level thinking but questioning is such a natural part of my personality I often ask questions of the students without having 'planned' them specifically. After reading this chapter, I am finding myself paying attention to the types of cues and questions I provide my students as well as what sort of advance organizers I prepare for them such as a table for them to fill out by skimming a reading. All in all, this book was full of encouragement and great ideas for improvement. I am looking forward to implementing new strategies and improving many of my current ones.
Hi Meagan,
I would love to see your nonfiction features organizer. If you’re willing and able would you email a copy to me?
Barbie,
Great example of how giving the students the background information and purpose for the slow start of the film stopped the complaints and aided in their observations!
Wait time is difficult to do at times but vital. I think it’s interesting that your whole school is building wait time into the day. I don’t know about the Envoy program, but will check it out.
Heidi,
Good point that you not only used a graphic organizer, but you returned to it through out the unit.
Michaela,
Both you and Heidi mentioned focusing on the important instead of the unusual. I also found this to be useful when I first read this section.
Having your literacy specialist tally your higher and lower level questions would be so informative! Great idea.
Thank you all for your comments and patience this term while I was in the hospital. You have all earned A’s for the class. Have a great summer! Mary and Jackie
Thank you :-)
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