Issue 57: Aug 24, 2009 Connections Newsletter
Advance Organizers Promote Learning
Bill Blynt
Aug 24, 2009
An Advance Organizer is an organizational framework that teachers present to students to prepare them for what they are about to learn prior to teaching new content. First introduced in the 1960's by Dr. David P. Ausubel, an Advance Organizer is a cognitive instructional strategy used to promote the learning and retention of new information. Advance Organizers are introduced in advance of the learning itself. These organizers are used by students to organize and interpret new information and connect it with prior knowledge.
As the mind arranges and stores information, new information is filed into an existing framework of categories. This series of categories is commonly referred to as schemas. Each of these schemas contains specific information about different concepts. This is often referred to as ‘prior knowledge'. If no framework (or prior knowledge) exists for students on which to connect this new information, learning and retention can be extremely impacted. Providing an Advance Organizer to students, especially those with limited prior knowledge, gives them a way to make sense of new information. Advance Organizers help students organize new material by outlining, arranging and sequencing the main idea of the new material. Students use the organizer as they confront new information so it can be retained for recall and transfer.
According to Dr Ausubel, "The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows." When confronted with students having limited or no prior knowledge regarding a concept to be taught, it becomes the responsibility of the teacher to do all they can to bridge this gap. Advance Organizers provide the necessary scaffolding for students to either learn new and unfamiliar material or to integrate new ideas into relatively familiar ideas. Much of the research on advance organizers indicates that organizers work especially well with students having limited or no prior knowledge (Mayer 2003). Much of this same research supports the position that Advance Organizers can be a useful tool in improving the depth of understanding and recall in all students.
Advance Organizers do not need to be complex. They do need to be clear and directly related to their purpose. Care should be taken to teach students the organizer and its intended purpose prior to using it with new content. Once students understand the organizer, they can use it to organize new information presented. This aids the process of transforming knowledge and applying it in new situations. It also facilitates the process to embed the new information into long term memory. Using Advance Organizers, such as LEARNING-FOCUSED's Student Learning Map, that are aligned to the intended outcome on a consistent and pervasive basis can have a dramatic impact on raising the achievement levels of students in your school.
Evidence Based Decision Making
Barbara McSwain
Aug 24, 2009
We are living in very challenging times. The Economic Stimulus Package or American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) mission is to jumpstart our economy, create or save jobs, and place a down payment on addressing challenges. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education is not just focusing on schools implementing research-based instruction, but evidence based practices. Every challenge that we are facing involves decision making for educational leaders. How do you make evidence based decisions?
There are several questions that good leaders must ask as they prepare to make decisions.
Here are a few that you may want to consider:
1. How do I identify needs? What is the difference between a want and a need? What are the gaps?
2. How can I use research to help me to decide which strategies will best help me with identified needs?
3. How do I know that the strategy/practice that I choose is effective?
4. How do I address the daily and weekly restraints that affect my school or district that inhibit me from solving long term problems?
5. How do I gather information to evaluate the outcomes of the strategies that have been implemented?
As we continue to work together to make good decisions for our schools and districts, we must continue to ask ourselves: Is what we are doing working? What needs to be adjusted? Am I willing to have those difficult conversations? Are leaders, teachers and students goal setting? Is there a sense of urgency in our community? Is a culture of failure acceptable? Are we building a culture of success?
Years ago, I visited a school that was mired in a culture of failure. They had a large minority population and a large Special Education population. No one felt that this was a school that could succeed. I was only t! here for a few minutes before the Superintendent called to ask me what I thought about this school. I told him that this is a school that will make great progress this year. He was stunned and wanted to know how that would be possible? I knew then, as I know now, that having high quality principals or school leaders are an important pre-condition for the success of most complex school improvement initiatives. This school had a principal that had a heart for children and a willingness to learn the necessary skills and strategies to increase student achievement. Together, we picked a leadership team that immediately began the training process for common unit and lesson plans driven by state standards and instructional practices that address the top 5 research based instructional strategies. The leadership team also saw the importance of including Acceleration and an emphasis on reading comprehension strategies. As a result, 3 of the top 5 research based practices were addressed. No one was surprised when the school made AYP at the end of the first year! A few years later, this school was named a State Distinguished Title I School.
It is important to identify the resources that are available. This should be counted in terms of time as well as money. You need to know how other people will feel about this initiative. In order to move forward, it is not necessary to have 100% approval, but you do need 100% understanding of why this step is necessary. In every community there is also a political body. What are the political restraints of your community? In addition, you need to know some ways that the identified restraints may be overcome or changed.
Good leadership recognizes that monitoring the implementation of new initiatives is imperative. The collection of data informs administrator of the next steps that should be taken. Of course, monitoring allows leadership and teachers to identify what adaptations need to occur in the implementation phase. It is also important to evaluate the outcome. Questions regarding outcome might be:
- Did we get the desired effects?
- Did we get the increase in student achievement that we desired?
- Did we get the impact we expected?
- Did teacher and student attendance increase?
- Did the dropout rate drop?
- Did discipline problems decrease?
There are many variables to the answers that impact these questions. However, the one that is often repeated to me is that leadership is critical. In schools where the building level administrators are willing to monitor with support and hold everyone, including themselves, to a high standard of accountability and fidelity, student achievement does increase! Educators need to evaluate the outcomes of their decisions.
Once a school or district has evaluated the implementation process, it is important that revisions and ongoing reflection continue to occur. During the reflection phase, educators can note how the strategies are meeting their needs or if they need to be adapted to better meet their needs.
Reference:
http://www.serve.org/ebdm/EBDMCycle.php
What’s the Buzz? Collaborative Pairs
Toni Enloe
Aug 24, 2009
COLLABORATIVE PAIRS ...two words that can strike fear in the hearts of even a seasoned teacher. Why the apprehension about using them during instruction? When teachers are asked why they are reluctant to try collaborative pairs, they usually give one of two reasons:
1. I'm afraid of losing control of the class.
2. I have so much material to cover that I don't have the time to stop and let students talk.
What we know, is that for our students to begin to internalize what they are learning, they must discuss it. Learning must be social before it is cognitive and we cannot afford to not take the time for pairs work if student learning is our goal. We know that students are going to talk so use it for good!
Several years ago Greenville County Schools in South Carolina conducted a LEARNING-FOCUSED audit of middle schools (high schools and elementary had not yet been trained) to determine the level of collaborative pairs implementation and the impact on their students. The district Teaching and Learning staff interviewed groups of teachers to find out what was working well for them and what was not working using a format that was closely aligned to the reflection meeting guidelines described in the "Implementation Section" of the LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies notebook. In many cases, these teachers stated that they were still struggling with the implementation and best use of collaborative pairs. The staff also interviewed groups of students and their answers were the most telling. The students consistently identified three LEARNING-FOCUSED strategies they liked:
1. Essential Questions - "I like knowing what we are going to do and how to show what I know." In fact, one inclusion student would stop by his science teacher's room every morning to look at the Essential Question so he could begin thinking about the answer. He had her the last period of the afternoon.
2. Graphic organizers - "They help me get a picture in my head and makes learning stuff easier."
3. COLLABORATIVE PAIRS - "Everybody has to do something."
Students unanimously agreed that they liked the way they were learning now and teachers reported that students were more enthusiastic.
Like beginning a new diet, getting started can be the greatest challenge. How do you start collaborative pairs in your classroom? Ideally the best time to start is the first day of school (or as soon as possible!), teaching collaborative pairs as one of the routines that will be used in your classroom. Those first days of collaborative pair instruction should be short and simple.
Steps for Teaching the Collaborative Pair Process:
1. Have students pair up - maybe with the person beside them.
2. Create Numbered Heads - Have students identify who will be a 1 and who will be 2. (Ex: Who has a birthday closest to the first day of school? That person will be the 1 and the other will be the 2.) Occasionally you will end up with odd numbers in your classroom due to student absences etc., so you may need to have one pair of threes. That is okay. You will just have to be a little more creative when calling on the pairs or giving your instructions.
3. Create a signal that you will use with the students to signify when it is their time to talk and your time to talk. Note: For teachers working in teams, design signals that all of you will use. It will make things much easier for your students and you.
4. Practice - First practice having the students start and stop using your predetermined signals. Practice this several times and then give them a pairs assignment. EX: 1's tell 2's about one thing that you did this summer. Then ask 2's what their partner said. This will send the signal that both partners are accountable. Once you have done this, switch. 2's will tell the 1's and 1's will share.
5. REMEMBER: One of the keys to successful collaborative pairs is keeping the interaction time short. 30 - 90 seconds. After that amount of time they tend to talk about their stuff instead of yours.
Will students occasionally get off topic? Of course they will, but as you walk around and monitor their discussions you can redirect them when needed. Like many things, the more students practice, the better they will get and the more consistent you are the easier it becomes. You are still in control of the class, but in a way that makes learning more meaningful.
Four Ideas for Working in Pairs
1. Book Ends (Activating Strategy and Summarizing Strategy) - In this activity students are asked to discuss, and then make and record predictions before the start of an activity. When the activity is completed, pairs review their predictions and make any revisions to the information.
2. Prediction Pairs - Much like the Book Ends activity, students are asked to listen to a passage that is read aloud. When the teacher pauses, the pairs talk about what they think will happen next. The teacher can collect responses and then continue reading.
3. Where on Earth Am I - Pairs of students work together to locate places on a map. EX #1: Partner 1 gives Partner 2 the longitude and latitude coordinates of a location and Partner 2 locates and marks it on the map. Students take turns giving the coordinates and locating the places. EX #2: Partner 1 gives Partner 2 characteristics of a specific climate and Partner 2 locates an area with that climate on the map.
4. Match Mine - This activity encourages students to use descriptive words. EX #1: Partner 1 draws a simple picture while Partner 2 waits. Partner 2 tries to replicate the drawing using Partner 1's description. EX #2: Partner 1 creates a geometric figure using toothpicks and gum drops or small marshmallows. Partner 2 tries to replicate the design based on a set of oral directions from Partner 1, then reverse the roles. After they have finished, the pairs evaluate what was helpful and what needed improvement.
For more information about the use of collaborative pairs and other LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies see the Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquisition Lessons notebook and the new What Moves You book - How to Get the Most From Collaborative Pairs.
