This is your last assignment for this course...all assignments are due 8/20...thanks for participating!!!
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 Dto the blog. We’re trying to make the blog more user-friendly and easier to read. Thanks!
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 reflect upon how you would use this strategy in your classroom).
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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4 comments:
I used the narrative strategy with students in writing, sharing both writing I wrote but most importantly, sharing true stories from my life they could relate to. This resulted in students nearly jumping out of their seats to share a story like mine that happened to them. We wrote down ideas on the board, reviewed the writing process poster, shared more stories and then I said, “Now we are going to write about the story we have just been sharing”. It worked well, students wrote without complaining or protest.
I would ask a teacher who is overwhelmed with time how much time they spend correcting homework that has no impact on a students grade at all. Face it, when you look at the quarter’s worth of homework and put in one ZERO grade; does it even change 1-tenth of a percent? How meaningful is that time spent on correcting homework? Take one lesson a week, put stamps on it and use that time to create an advance organizer to enrich your classroom learning.
This is totally something I could use in my classroom and do use to some point already. I like the cues and questions to activate prior learning in connection with new content to be taught with points back to earlier chapters in this book; as well as the examples of inferential questions which could be used to answer ‘when am I going to use this’. I always like the examples in the book, they help the content be more practical and show how one might apply it. This could take up the whole class but could also be truncated into short segments of time that are enriching to the classroom. Unlike the previous chapter, cues don’t require much time to set up, experiment or draw conclusions. They can be ‘pair share’, ‘check with your team’, or ‘think for a minute’ kind of questions that are much more manageable in a 21st century classroom.
Advance organizers are much more teacher friendly than I thought and I was surprised by how many of the practices I am using already. I would say I use the narrative style to most because I like to share what I find practical application for content. I have also used skimming to look over pictures and life application sections when available. I like to use a wait time at the beginning of my lessons for students to think of areas where they use math daily or what they do each day that might be an improper fraction, mixed number, or least common multiple. I also ask students to think of things that can be used to represent something in math that is not a number and why they might need to do this before they learn introductory algebra. I also ask students what a remainder really represents. These are meaningful questions without quick short answers but I view them as higher level thinking. I don’t think I need to change much about this area of my teaching and I would monitor the effects as all the effects in my classroom with pre and post tests. Pre and post tests can be a form of advance organizer if created to be so.
Week Ten: Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers
The opening paragraph in this chapter spoke volumes to me. It discussed activating prior knowledge and the important instructional strategy of helping students to retrieve what they already know about a topic. This is such a key component to teaching elementary school and I believe it is one of the difficult aspects of working in a low income school district where unfortunately children do not have typical prior knowledge that you would expect them to have. It then becomes the teachers task to try and find a way to front load that prior knowledge so that everyone has a frame of reference about what you are going to discuss. I remember when I taught in LA and our school was literally less than 10 miles from the beach. Yet when I did an ocean unit my students had never seen the ocean, felt the sand or smelled the air. I couldn’t even imagine how that could possibly be. That is definitely something that technology has emensely added to teaching. I now can pull up Discovery.com and essentially find a video or video clip of just about anything I am teaching. Students getting to see and hear things on video clips helps to give them some prior knowledge that I cannot take them to (as in a field trip) for everything I teach and that a book just can’t always do, make things real.
You asked in the questions in regards to this chapter how I would respond to a teacher who complains that there just isn’t enough time to prepare the organizers . . . then I have to say they probably have not chosen the right profession. I do not know a teacher that works their contracted hours only. There is no way to get everything done for a days worth of learning with 30 kids, clean up the room, correct papers, plan and create exciting lessons and prepare things that make learning fun in an organized manner and that students will be excited to engage in. A teacher that does not go “above and beyond” to make learning engaging is what is sad about education. Of course there isn’t enough time, so that is what teachers somehow magically do - they make time. Even in these terrible financial times with less and less time, more requirements and obligations, less school days, less resources and less money teachers still manage to somehow, someway get it all done (outside of the classroom a lot of times) and they manage to make learning fun and engaging so that students want to know more and learn more. Isn’t that our job?
I always find it interesting when I am being observed by an administrator and they are documenting things that I do not think about when I am teaching. In the chapter it stated that cueing and questioning might account of as much as 80 percent of what occurs in the a given classroom on a given day and that teachers are largely unaware of the extent to which they use cueing and questioning. It is always interesting to me to have this data done on me while I am teaching because innately I am asking question and doing things with my students that I am completely unaware of. It is amazing when that is the way you are accustom to doing things you just do them subconsciously.
I think there is always room to improve in this area though. Working on how to create analytic questions and higher level questions and remembering to wait briefly so that students get that “think time” (that is a hard one to do, especially with so many eager learners that want to blurt our the answers) and how to use more advance organizers is always something to work on to create a better learning atmosphere for my students. I truly believe that these practices only help to aide students in learning whatever material you are trying to teach over whatever curriculum area.
I use advanced organizers a lot when reading nonfiction. We always look at the structure of the text, the headings, the pictures and the captions. I also do this with my lower readers when reading picture books.
I believe when I teach writing I sometimes use a form of an advanced organizer, looking at and discussing models of what we are going to be learning and trying in our own writing. I attended a conference where one of my sessions was about using mentor texts to teach writing – this will be one of my goals this year. I have spent a fair amount of time this summer researching mentor texts to use and am looking forward to trying them out. My goal is to prepare higher level questions to go with these texts that help kids think about and learn and become willing to practice whatever the lesson goal is for that day/week/unit.
Why don’t I do this during my math lessons?; probably because I’ve never really thought about it. At that same conference mentioned earlier, I also attend a session on organizing and managing math centers. One of the things that came up is that when teaching a new concept, you should teach it first whole group, have kids practice a few problems, and then go back to something a little more familiar. Then the next day re-teach the new stuff from the previous lesson – I think this is a form of using “advanced organizers”, and activating prior knowledge. I am excited to try it this year!
The other thing that interested my in this chapter is that pointing out what is unusual or interesting about something is less effective than pointing out what is important. I think I will try that out too! I really want to be more intentional with my questions this year. I usually just make them up on the spot, I want to put some thought into them when planning the lesson!
Hi Everyone! Thanks for your patience as I caught up on assignments after my vacation. :D
Sam,
Kids do LOVE stories about our lives and it’s a great method to engage them in the writing process. Excellent point on homework.
Margaret,
You are so right. It is very important to front-load our students and especially to take the time to do this for the students from low SES situations. We have a similar example here in Burlington, VT as you mentioned about the beach. Camel’s Hump is a mountain that can be seen from many parts of our area. Teachers have shared when they go on a field trip and point out Camel’s Hump to the students some kids from low SES families have never seen it or been out of Burlington. (Some families don’t have cars, so what many of us take for granted…hopping into the car and heading out for a trip…doesn’t happen for them.) We also do a third-grade over-night at a camp up in the islands and the teachers will come back with stories about kids who have never roasted a marshmallows (sp?) or camped out before. It actually makes many of us cry and then we cry some more as we are so happy that the children were able to have the experience.
Technology and the Internet are wonderful tools to help give the students some background knowledge in a quick, succinct manner. Utilizing the video clips is a smart way to help develop prior knowledge.
I agree, it is our jobs and I am amazed with what teachers do every day. :D Also, even in hard times, positive things can happen like teachers being creative with their time or developing more efficient systems. :D
As Sam mentioned 21st Century Classrooms earlier, I believe that today’s teachers need to start developing more higher-order questions, assignments and open-ended problems. Students these days need to develop the skills to solve problems and find, access, evaluate and synthesize information. I have seen many instances where students are doing much more interesting things at home on their own than in their classrooms. Sometimes there are blocks in place that limit teachers from fully using technology or the Internet in their classroom, but if we want our students to be able to compete in the job market and be well-rounded problem solvers we need to work on these skills now.
For wait time, I actually count in my head, silently, so that I am sure to give the students sufficient amount of time to process and reply. (I actually do this at my in-laws house as well as I grew up in a large, loud family (Irish---where we put competitive eating to practice as my mom wouldn’t make enough seconds for everyone so who ever at the quickest got second helpings. A talent, I wish I didn’t have but is not aided by the quick lunchtime most teachers have. :D) and my husband grew up in a quiet German family. My husband’s parents both very carefully think of their words before they speak and it is very hard for me not to jump in and finish their sentences. :D We went to high school and college together so I’ve had a LONG time to work on this. I still count to this day in both my classroom and at the family dinner table. :D)
Hello Louise,
I strongly encourage the use of mentor texts in the classroom and think your plans to create high-order questions to go with the texts are a good one.
I know, I also found it very interesting that it was better to point out the important facts rather than the odd or interesting. I was a teacher who frequently noted the odd facts as I found it interesting, but it makes perfect sense to highlight what the students need to know, not what interests me.
Thank you everyone for your thoughtful comments. You have all completed the requirements for the course and earned A’s. Enjoy the rest of your summer and have a great school year. Mary and Jackie
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