Helping students retrieve what they already know about a topic using questions that elicit inferences, cues, or hints about what is to come enhances their learning about new content.  Research shows that cues and questions should focus on what is important and should focus on higher-level questions.  Marzano states, "Advance organizers are organizational frameworks teachers present to students prior to teaching new content to prepare them for what they are about to learn.  Advance organizers take the surprise out of what is to come, help students retrieve what they already know about a topic, and focus them on the new information."

Marzano's recommendations for classroom practice include:

• focusing important information

• using explicit cues

• asking inferential and analytic questions

• using expository and narrative advance organizers

• teaching students how to use graphic advance organizers

Technology Integration:

• KWL charts

Word template

 

Excel template

 

Inspiration template

(sample)

• KidPix- draw a picture to show what you already know

• Inferential Questions- a list of inferential questions to ask students (questions from A Handbook for Classroom Instruction That Works, Marzano, p. 270-271)

• Question-Answer Relationships
• The Art of Questioning

• Expository Advance Organizers- straightforward descriptions of new content emphasizing important content
  • give students a graphic organizer that is already filled in at the beginning of a unit to prepare them for what they will learn  (Inspiration sample)

• Narrative Advance Organizers- stories that will make a personal or real-world connection with the new content
  • use PowerPoint to share stories

• Skimming- teach students to skim heading, subheadings, captions, highlighted or bold text in expository information
  • use formatting tools in Word to highlight text
  • insert a scanned page from textbook into a PowerPoint slide - use pointer tools to circle/teach students what to skim

• Education World Organizers
• Scholastic Graphic Organizers for Reading Comprehension

Home  |  1-Similarities & Differences  |  2-Summarizing & Note-Taking  |  3-Effort & Recognition

4-Homework & Practice  |  5-Non-Linguistics Representations  |  6-Cooperative Learning

7-Objectives & Feedback  |  8-Hypotheses  |  9-Questions, Cues, & Adv. Organizers

created by Sherri Miller, ITRT, Gloucester County Public Schools
VSTE Conference ~ February, 2008