Cues, Questions and Advance
Organizers
Nebraska City Public Schools
Suzanne Whisler
ESU 4
January 18, 2012
Goals for our session . . .
• Examine how to use . . .
• Cues, Questions and Advance Organizers to
help students interact with new knowledge
• Explore ways to weave technology into
the instructional strategies
Educational researchers have shown that the
activation of prior knowledge is critical to
learning of all types.
~ (Marzano, 2001, 2007)
What will I do to help students effectively
interact with new knowledge?
What’s in your toolbox?
From…
To…
Ave. Effect
Size
Percentile
gain
Identifying similarities and differences
1.61
45
Summarizing and note taking
1.00
34
Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
.80
29
Homework and Practice
.77
28
Nonlinguistic representations
.75
27
Cooperative learning
.73
27
Setting objectives/providing feedback
.61
23
Generating and testing hypotheses
.61
23
.59
22
Category
Questions, cues, and advance organizers
How can teachers use cues, questions, and
advance organizers to activate prior knowledge?
How do you use cues in your classroom?
• Activate prior knowledge
• Preview of what is to come
• Link to previous content
– Brief teacher summary
– Hints
– Straight forward
– Preview Questions
– Quick Draw
– Skimming
Do a Quick Draw
• Do a Quick Draw to activate prior knowledge or to
access what they already know.
– For example, beginning a unit on mammals with first
graders- Ask all students to draw two animals, one
that is a mammal and one that is not a mammal.
– Another example…as you begin studying a frog, ask
students to quickly sketch an outline of the frog and
then to draw the major organs, paying attention to
their location, size, and shape.
Use Skimming
• A good previewing practice
• Think aloud how to skim with your students
• Use text features
– Headings, pictures, captions, bold face
words
• Ask yourself questions as you look at text
features
• Briefly predict what you think the passage is
about
Technology Tools for Cues
• Videos
– BrainPop http://www.brainpop.com/educators/home/
– Watch Know Learn http://www.watchknowlearn.org/
– Khan Academy http://www.khanacademy.org/
– National Geographic Education http://bit.ly/zBFHyP
– ThinkFinity http://www.thinkfinity.org/
– YouTube www.youtube.com
• www.zamzar.com
• Quiet youtube
• Photos
– Getty Images http://bit.ly/zME8dz
– Google Images www.google.com
Advance
Organizers
Advance Organizers
• Focus on what’s important
• Organize information
• Help students maneuver through text
• Enhance comprehension
• Aid in transfer of knowledge
K-W-L
What do you know?
What do you want to
know?
What did you learn?
Graphic Organizers Presented in Advance
Graphic organizers also provide students with
guidance on what the important information is in a
lesson or unit.
They give students direction and also provide a visual
representing of the important information.
It is easy to see what is important and the
relationships between the ideas and patterns in the
information where they exist.
Technology Tools for Advance
Organizers
• Bubbl.us https://bubbl.us/
• Interactive Graphic Organizers http://bit.ly/AeWMYM
• Teach-nology
– http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/graphic/
• Sample Anticipation Guide
– http://bit.ly/anticipationguide
• Suzanne’s Diigo Links http://bit.ly/xHRaP9
Anticipation Guides
Anticipation Guide with Videos
The film “A Country in Conflict” describes the conditions of the North and South prior to
the Civil War and the events leading up to the Civil War.
What do you already know
about the Civil War?
While watching the film. Think
about:
•What were the political, economic,
and social conditions that existed in
the South and North before the
Civil War?
•How did the differences between
the North and South lead to war?
•Could the differences have been
resolved using another means other
than war?
What did you learn as a result
of watching the film?
Questioning
Questions should . . .
• Focus on what is important
• Promote high levels of thinking
to deepen knowledge
–Infer
–Analyze
–Critique
Share Your Wisdom
• Work in groups of 3 or 4.
– Choose a facilitator for your group.
– Choose a reporter for your group.
– Every group member is a recorder!
• Read each research-based statement about questioning.
• Discuss the implications for your classroom.
– What are you currently doing in your classroom that
addresses each statement?
– What additional strategies might you use?
• When time is called, the reporter should be prepared to
summarize the conversation for each statement and share
with the entire group.
Teachers ask many questions. Most teacher
questions are at the lowest cognitive level—
known as fact, recall, or knowledge.
– Sattes,B. & Walsh, J., (2005). Quality
questioning research-based practice to engage
every learner.
•
Implications:
• Teachers should plan their
Teachers asked an average of 50.6
questions before asking.
questions; students posed only 1.8
• Teachers should ensure that
questions in a 30 minute period.
– Encouraging teachers to encourage
children’s curiosity: A pivotal competence.
Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 8, 101106.
questions match the instructional
objectives and promote thinking.
• Teachers should purposefully
plan and ask questions that
require students to engage in
higher level thinking.
How do you use questioning before
a learning experience?
• Questions perform the
same function as cues.
• Provide a focus for
learning new
information.
Not all students are accountable to respond
to all questions.
Implications:
• Teachers frequently call on
•
• Teachers should establish
volunteers, and these
classroom norms that every
volunteers constitute a
student deserves an
select group of students.
opportunity to answer
Sattes,B. & Walsh, J., (2005). Quality
questioning research-based practice
to engage every learner.
questions.
• All students’ answers are
important.
How do you ensure every student
has an opportunity to respond?
Every Child responds every time!
• “Smile if you’re ready.”
• “Nod if you’re on page 16.”
• “Hold your pen up and wiggle it if you have your
homework .”
• “If you agree with me on this, raise one pinky.”
• “If this concept makes sense to you, give me a thumbs up.”
• “If you’re finished, turn your paper over.”
• “Hold up the handout if you have received one.”
Richard Howell Allen, Impact Teaching, 2002
More ways to get every child involved . . .
–Paired Responses (A/B partner response)
–Choral responses
–Hand signals (thumbs up/down)
–Popsicle sticks
–Response cards
–Response technologies
–Random Name Callers
• http://tinyurl.com/692tlxh
Have you done a Scoot?
• Write content questions (enough so there is one
on every desk)
• Give each student a response sheet (depending
on level, they can respond with A,B,C or single
words or sentences)
• Each child goes to a desk and reads the question
on the card and marks their response on their
sheet.
• At the teacher’s signal, they move to the next
desk.
Teachers typically wait less than one second
after asking a question before calling on a
student to answer.
Implications:
• Teachers wait even less
•
• Both wait times 1 and 2
time before speaking after
promote student thinking
the student has answered.
and foster more students
Sattes,B. & Walsh, J., (2005). Quality
formulating answers to
questioning research-based practice to
engage every learner.
more questions.
Teachers often accept incorrect answers
without probing; they frequently answer their
own questions.
Implications:
•
Sattes,B. & Walsh, J., (2005).
• Teachers should seek to
Quality questioning research-
understand incorrect or
based practice to engage every
learner.
incomplete answers more
completely by gently
guiding student thinking
with appropriate probes.
Probes for incomplete or incorrect….
1.
2.
3.
4.
Say more about that….
Give an example….
Tell me why you think that….
I might agree but I need
more….
33
In Summary…
• Before learning new information, teachers should help
students retrieve what they already know about a topic
or “activate prior knowledge.”
• Cues, questions, and advance organizers are three
common ways that a classroom teacher helps students
use what they already know about a topic to learn new
information.
• Cues give hints of what is to be learned.
• Analytical and inferential questions asked of students
before learning help fill-in the gaps and provide a focus
for learning.
• Advance graphic organizers help students focus on
important information by providing a mental set.
COMMITMENT:
•Jot down one new thing you will try in
your classroom as a result of today’s
discussion.
•Tell someone else what you plan to do.