How can you make practical use of advance organizers?

I really enjoyed the topic of advance organizers this week. An advance organizer is a structure of relevant introductory materials presented in advance of a lesson that relates what a student already knows to the new content to be learned. Advance organizers depend on two principles, progressive differentiation, which means that “the most general ideas of the discipline are presented first, followed by a gradual increase in detail and specificity,” and integrative reconciliation, meaning that “new ideas should be consciously related to what has been presented before” (Joyce et al., 2015, p.204). Educational theorist David Ausubel argues that using advance organizers can increase both comprehension and retention. This is true for me personally when it comes to learning new content, but also communication in general. My own comprehension is dependent upon receiving the most general information first and then adding details later. When I receive information in a different way, then my level of comprehension decreases and I have to put a lot more effort into trying to work out how the information I have been given is related and why it is important. One excellent example of this is when I talk to my husband: he frequently explains something by listing the evidence first and then finishing with the big picture, and I end up confused about what he is trying to say.  

Advanced organizers can be extremely practical and beneficial. Teachers can engage and prepare students to learn new material by using advance organizers, which come in many different forms, so long as they follow the basic principles detailed above. The four types of advance organizers listed in Classroom instruction that works are: expository, narrative, skimming, and graphic, which makes them useful across disciplines and grade levels. They can be as simple and easy to use as a KWL (what a student Knows, what a student Wants to know, what a student Learned) chart, which lets students organize their knowledge before, during, and after a lesson. For example, to begin a unit studying literature written about and by immigrants to the United States, the students could write down what they already know or think they know about immigrants and then share those ideas with the class. This activity would be followed by watching a short video about the history of immigration in the United States to give students a general idea about the immigrant experience. As the unit progressed and students learned more specific information, they would add the information to the existing organizers, physically relating the new information to the old. Advance organizers can be used to introduce large units or short lessons, and their broad range of formats makes them a flexible tool in a teacher’s pedagogical repertoire.

An example of an easy to employ advance organizer: a KWL Chart

References:

Dean, C. B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H., Stone, B., & Marzano, R.J. (2012). Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers. Classroom Instruction that Works, 2^nd Ed. (pp.50-62). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (2015). Using Advance Organizers to Design Presentations. Models of Teaching, 9^th Ed. (pp.197-212). New Jersey, NJ: Pearson Education.

Simple KWL Chart. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Simple-KWL-Chart-88751