Classroom Instruction that Works

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Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers

Cues, questions, and advance organizers are highly used in the classroom setting. Researchers have found that approximately 80% of teacher interactions with students involve cueing and questioning (Fillippone, 1998). Cues and questioning is an important part of a teacher's tool belt. Using cues, questions, and advance organizers at the beginning of a lesson or unit focuses learning on the important content to come. This approach can motivate students by tapping into their curiosity and interest in the topic.

Cues are hints to students that reinforce what they already know. Questions can assess previously learned information and what they don't know.

Recommendations to help teachers fine tune their cues and questions in the classroom:

* Focus on what is important

*Use explicit clues

*Ask inferential questions

*Ask analytic questions

Types of advanced organizers:

*expository

*narrative

*skimming

*graphic

Misty Teer

Nonlinguistic Representations

Nonlinguistic Representations

Information is stored in our memories either by linguistic as in words, or by nonlinguistic as in images. This chapter focuses on the nonlinguistic representation for learning in schools. There are five nonlinguistic representation strategies which are discussed in the chapter.

Use graphic organizers
Make physical models or manipulatives
Generate mental pictures
Create pictures, illustrations, and pictographs
Engage in kinesthetic activities

Creating graphic organizers allow students to connect words or phrases by using connections of lines, arrows or shapes. This allows the students to organize the details or concepts in order to process the information. It is very important for the students to be trained how to use the organizer. When introducing the tool a student should use it with familiar content in order to concentrate on the organizer. Physical models or manipulatives allow the student to physically manipulate the models in order to learn. This is very beneficial if the student is using them appropriately and paying attention to the content. Creating mental pictures is one of the most direct ways to use nonlinguistic representation. Students have to be taught how to develop a picture and incorporate using their senses for sounds, smells, taste and visual details. It is more difficult to teach students to develop abstract concepts visually. Creating, pictures, illustrations and pictographs have been used since a student begins schools to demonstrate understanding. This method allows the student to personalize their work. Kinesthetic activities helps the students develop a mental image through movement. When the students are moving around the learning stays with them longer.

In today’s world of education, technology has made available a wide variety of tools to assist in building nonlinguistic representations. We are quickly moving from more of a text-based society to one where a person’s communication of knowledge is done through technology like creating PowerPoints, movies, animations, music or podcast.

Sandy Stidham

Summarizing and Note Taking

Summarizing and Note Taking

I loved this whole chapter and what it says about note taking and summarization is so important. These are such basic skills, yet so many students really have no clue how to perform each. I see this as a way we could really make a district wide impact on our students' learning. The Rule-based Summarizing Strategy is one that could be implemented across all grade levels and subject matters. If we would all implement this one strategy alone...!

Chapter 6—Summarizing and Note Taking

General Facts

Summarizing is key to in depth understanding and identifying essential information.
Positive effects are gained across all content areas and grade levels.
Performance on assessments increases at all levels.
Research shows no single form of note taking is correct but rather a combination of forms that allows for individual learning preferences and background knowledge.
Evidence from a 2010 study shows note taking is not intuitive to students.
Students must be taught how to summarize and take notes.

Note Taking and Summarizing in the Classroom

Students often struggle to identify what material to keep or omit. To help students deal with this initial confusion, we must provide structures and models to guide them through:

Teach a rule- based summarizing strategy.
Use a well-defined set of steps to follow.
Steps should be agreed upon by both vertical and horizontal teams for best results.
Example steps to model for students: Take out material that is not important to understanding. Take out words that repeat information. Replace lists of things with one collective word that categorizes them all, i.e.bass, catfish, perch, carp, crappie = most fish). Find a topic sentence or create one.
Have students share and then revise as needed.
Modeling the Process--> Hand out article. Instruct students to read paragraph silently to themselves. Have them write down the above listed steps (C above) as you model them using think-aloud strategy. Tell them to also include any questions they may have.
Use summarizing frames.
Summary Frames are a series of questions designed to highlight critical elements of specific text patterns or structures.
Frames help students understand and use text structures to accurately summarize.
Types of Frames: Narrative Topic-Restriction-illustration Definition Argumentation Problem-Solution Conversation

NOTE: See attached Summary Frames Handout for Classroom Use.

Engage students in reciprocal teaching (summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting)
This strategy is most commonly used with expository texts.
Students assume one of four roles after teacher has modeled each. Summarizer—reads passage and summarizes. Questioner—asks the frame/ higher level questions to lead discussion. Clarifier—clarifies problem areas of text or vocabulary with examples, definitions, pronunciations, etc. Predictor—records group predictions for next passage after reviewing relevant information.

What Students Need

Students do not intuitively know there should be a structure and pattern in their notes that show main idea and supporting details. Prepared notes model this for them.

Teach students a variety of both written and picture notes and allow them to choose what works best for them.

3 Formats that are Useful: Webbing/Mapping nonlinear use of shapes, colors, and arrows to show relationships between and among ideas. Informal Outlining ranges from formal outlines to bulleted lists. Combination Notes includes both linguistic and nonlinguistic representations (Cornell)

Check out the software Webspiration online.
Students will differ in the AMOUNT of notes they need to take.
Provide opportunities for revision and use as review.
Technology frees students to be creatively efficient in their note-taking.

SUMMARY FRAMES HANDOUT

NARRATIVE FRAME

Who are the main characters?What distinguishes them from the other characters?
When and where did the story take place?What were the circumstances?
What prompted the action in the story?
How did the characters express their feelings?
What did the main characters decide to do?Did they set a goal?What was it?
How did the main characters try to accomplish their goals?
What were the consequences?

TOPIC-RESTRICTION-ILLUSTRATION FRAME

What is the general statement or topic?
What information narrows or restricts the general statement or topic?
What examples illustrate the topic or restriction?

DEFINITION FRAME

What is being defined?
To which general category does the item belong?
What characteristics separate the item from the other things in the general category?
What are some different types/classes of the item being defined?

ARGUMENTATION FRAME

What is the basic claim or focus of the information?
What information is presented that leads to a claim?
What examples or explanations support the claim?
What restricts the claim?What evidence counters the claim?

PROBLEM-SOLUTION FRAME

What is the problem?
What is a possible solution?
What is another possible solution?
Which solution has the best chance of succeeding and why?

CONVERSATION FRAME

How did the members of the conversation greet one another?
What question or topic was insinuated, revealed, or referred to?
How did the conversation progress?
How did the conversation conclude?

Identifying Similarities and Differences

It's all about making connections! Did you know that it would take 22 years to learn all the concepts in the K-12 curriculum? We give the students thirteen. The curriculum is described as being "a mile wide and an inch thick". There will never be enough time to cover it all. Instead, we have to teach students the application of learning. This research was based on the 1998 Marzano and Kendall study.

Identifying similarities and differences is core to learning. It helps the learners gain insight, draw inferences, make generalizations, and refines schemas. They will notice new features when they:

1. compare (similarities) and contrast (differences). Use Venn Diagram and a comparison matrix.

2. classify- organizing according to similarities. Teachers start by providing categories. Later, students create their own.

3. creating metaphors- identify basic patterns in a specific topic and find another topic that is different but has the same general pattern.

Give examples using similarities on an abstract level and using mental images to make sense of the information. When something reminds us of something else, it's a metaphor. rainbow = colorful flowers

4. creating analogies- identifying relationshops between pairs of concepts. Identifying relationships between relationships

Using these strategies will activate prior knowledge, gain new knowledge, and connect old and new by identifying old with the new. Use the A:B:C:D pattern.

Teachers should:

-use familiar context and content so they can concentrate on the process

-provide multiple practices and allow students to explain reasoning.

Cathy Gray