Content Tech: Cues, Questions and Advance Organizers

Content Tech
Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom 

In our ongoing look at the book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, the next planning question is, “Which strategies will help students acquire and integrate learning?” This question obviously has the most strategies since this is where most learning takes place. Cues, questions and advance organizers is the first strategy in this section.

Many technology tools are available to support cues, questions and advance organizers. I’m going to highlight two – organizing and brainstorming software and multimedia. Inspiration is a great tool to brainstorm and organize information. In a class setting, an Inspiration document can be projected on the screen. Using the rapid-fire tool, activating prior knowledge on a topic can quickly be facilitated while students call out what they know on the topic. The Inspiration map can then be organized into groups, and with one click, converted to an outline to drive upcoming instruction. In a lab setting, students can create individual knowledge maps of what they know.

According to a research study from 2004, students who were given a multimedia advance organizer (for example, a PowerPoint) to guide their learning retained more information than students who did not use such an organizer. If you create a multimedia file for students to use as a learning guide, it could be shared through your teacher notes page in WITS, or through the Y: drive on the network.

Image citation:
Open Book with Question Mark. Corbis. 2008. Discovery Education. 17 December 2008 <http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/>