Advance
Organizers
Creating and Using
Advance Organizers for Distance Learning
View
a sample advance organizer at the bottom of this page
What Advance Organizers Are
NOT:
- A review of
what was covered in the previous class session
- A simple overview
- Recalling what was done last
week or last year
- Telling the students about
tomorrow
- Recalling a personal experience
and relating it to what will be learned
- Stating the objectives of
the lesson
What Advance Organizers ARE:
- Organizational
cues
- Tools
that help connect the known to the unknown
- Frameworks
for helping students understand what it is they'll be learning
An Advance
Organizer helps to organize new material by outlining, arranging and sequencing
the main idea of the new material based on what the learner already knows.
Advance Organizers use familiar terms and concepts to link what the
students already know to the new information that will be presented
in the lesson, which aids in the process of transforming knowledge and creatively
applying it in new situations. This process helps to embed the new
information into long term memory. Advance Organizers don't have to be lengthy
or complex, just clearly understood and related to the material.
Advance
organizers place the most general and comprehensive ideas at the beginning
of a lesson and progress to more structured and detailed information. They
can be useful devices at the start of a unit, before a discussion, before
a question-answer period, before giving a homework assignment, before student
reports, before a video, before students read from their textbook, before
a hands-on activity, and before a discussion of concepts based on students'
experiences.
Keep
the ARCS Method in mind as you create your own
Advance Organizers.
Six Easy Steps to Creating Your
Own Advance Organizers
- Begin by describing the goal
of the lesson.
Present students with the advance organizer. An advance organizer can be
in the form of a handout, but you can also use charts, diagrams, oral presentations,
or concept
maps. For example, you can provide a concept map to illustrate the interrelationship
between complex relationship among many parts. This helps put the new knowledge
into context while helping the students relate the new material to previous
knowledge.
- Present the material.
Maintain attention by presenting the material in a well-organized fashion.
Make the order of learning the material explicit. The
general ideas are presented first, followed by a gradual increase in detail
and specifics.
- Use Integrative Reconciliation.
Make sure as you create your advance organizer that you remind students
of the bigger picture, while relating new ideas to previously learned
content. Repeat precise definitions, and encourage
students to use the new vocabulary in discussion groups (online or in-class).
Encourage students to think critically about the material by asking for
a summary of the major attribute of the new material, and asking them to
look for differences between aspects of the material.
- Promote active reception learning.
You may have provided students with a concept map or diagram -- now ask
them to relate the new material to their prior knowledge. For example,
have students generate new examples (different from what you've given them)
and have them verbalize or write about what they've learned. To promote
higher order thinking, ask students to examine material from other points
of view and to relate the new material to contradictory material, experience,
or knowledge.
- Elicit a critical approach
to subject matter.
Ask your students to look for assumptions that may have been made in the
new material by reading between the lines. Require that they take an active
role in their own learning by judging and challenging any assumptions
or inferences to reconcile any contradictions.
- Clarify.
Rephrase previous information as you add new information to clarify the
concepts. Ask students to use the new information by applying it
to new problems or examples.
Examples:
- Ask students
to compare and contrast the new content based on what they know. For example,
what can they tell about its color, shape, smell, feel, or taste? Demonstrate
by using a related determinant. For example, use baseball to teach cricket,
or ping pong to teach tennis.
- Give a scenario and ask students
to infer rules based on their current knowledge.
- Have students identify the
characteristics of a known quantity and then relate it to the new idea/concept.
For example, offer renderings of different types of geometric forms before
discussing their individual likenesses and differences.
- Identify a problem and ask
for a reason why it may occur (before teaching the reason). For example,
you might discuss the origins of a war before describing its major battles.
 |
Click
on the compass to view an example of an advance organizer for NETnet
Room Operation Training. See if you can create one for your class, using
the information on this page as a guide. |
Explore Further
Using
Advance Organizers
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