Cues,+Questions,+&+Advance+Organizers

Cues, Questions, & Advance Organizers

= = =Read and Reflect=

The use of cues and questions in a classroom can have a variety of different purposes. A teacher could use cues and questions to set the stage for a new unit of study or for the lesson of the day. Cues and questions can also be used to elicit knowledge that the students already have about a topic. Finally, cues and questions can be used by a teacher to complete quick assessments to check the students levels of understanding.

I often use cues with my students when I begin a lesson. I talk about what they have already learned and then discuss with them how today’s lesson is going to build upon that knowledge. I also try to use cues when I am teaching something new and possibly difficult. We talk about what the students already know and how this is going to help them be successful with this more difficult concept.

I use questions a lot to check for understanding. I try to ask questions that require higher level thinking, but sometimes I fall into questions where I provide two answers and the students choose the best one. I know this does not require students to use their own knowledge to develop an answer, and it is a bad habit that I am trying to break. I implement these 50/50 questions a lot in math and science class where I want to the whole class to answer generally with a thumbs up so that I can take the temperature of the classroom learning as a whole.

The questions that I have about using cues and questions in my classroom are What are some new ways to implement cues in the classroom? and How can I train myself to ask better questions during classroom discussions?

I am not sure if I utilize many advance organizers in my classroom. I may not have a very clear picture in my mind of what they are. On page 279, there is discussion that when teachers use advance organizers, they anticipate where students are going to have difficulty and try to address those issues immediately. I often think about this when teaching math. What common mistakes have I seen in the past and how am I going to teach this topic a little bit different this year to avoid this issue. However, I am not sure if there is form or a graphic organizer that I use to accomplish this.

I am going to read the chapter and then return to answer the last two questions……

Now, I have a better understanding of what advance organizers are. They are kind of advance organizers for your brain. I think this is an instance where I know that I should be doing this, but I do not always take the time to develop them for each lesson. Often times in science and social studies, the chapters we read are above the student’s reading levels. Skimming the information would set the stage for what the students are learning and help them to better understand when they are reading. Also I almost always have students complete the graphic organizers themselves. The idea of providing them a completed one is interesting, because once again it assists them in the beginning to make connections with the content rather than focus completely on filling in the graphic organizer.

I do not have any specific questions when it comes to using advance organizers. In fact, I have learned a lot. But I am beginning to think about how generally the Marzano 9 are really that extra step that teachers need to integrate into their curriculum order to really take their student learning to the next level. And really these are things we have been told to do over the year and we sometimes do them, but not always do. I wonder why I leave these steps out sometimes and if I start to faithfully implement then if I will notice a big change in student success?

=Apply and Reflect=

I did not find Glolgster incredibly easy or simple to use. It felt clunky and it took me more time to build the page then I would have spent using it in class. A similar online software that I have used in the past is Prezi. It seems like it was much easier to build and the students were much more impressed with the flow of the information. I like all of these online tools, but it rarely dawns on my to actually sit down and really utilize them. I need to force myself to use them more often so that they become part of my teaching habits and not just novel ideas that I add here or there. I could see myself using Glogster or Prezi to introduce a new unit. We could skim over the big ideas and it would set the stage for what we are learning. You could also use these websites to introduce questions to the students and then provide resources where they can look for answers to those questions. Students could also build their own pages to provide me with an image of what they already know about a topic.

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Another online tool that would be useful for cues and questioning would be Wall Wisher. Here you could assign a question a head of time, have students create a sticky for the Know and Want to Know and then as a class you can review them. It could be the perfect place to collect student prior knowledge.

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