Strategy Reflection #9 Cues, Questions, & Advance Organizers

What?

Marzano states that cues and questioning are the heart of classroom practice. They are ways in which a classroom teacher can help students use what they already know about a topic. Cues involves "hints" about what students are going to experience and questioning previews what students already know about a topic. Advanced organizers are a way to simply present new content to students that will be taught in the duration of the lesson. One type of advanced organizer is skimming. Skimming is a way to expose students to information before teaching the lesson. I decided to utilize skimming into my classroom practice.


So What?

I decided to use skimming when I introduced a new chapter to my students. Before I started the lesson I gave my students about 5 minutes to look through the chapter. I asked them to look at key terms, charts, graphs, time lines and headings in the chapter. Once they finished skimming the chapter we discussed what they read or what they saw. They were able to tell me what we would be learning and already started asking questions about certain topics. By doing this my students were introduced to the material so when they saw it again the information was not new to them. Then they were able to recall the information better when they saw it again which helped their retention rate. I also incorporated a strategy called picture walks. In a picture walk students are instructed to look over the pictures in the chapter and try to explain what each picture is representing. Once they looked over the pictures I walked through the pictures with them again and asked them to tell me what they saw. We then read the captions under each picture to help us understand what the picture was depicting. Then once we started our lesson it was easier to understand because they were already familiar with the information and understood the pictures.

Now What?

Skimming is used a great deal in my classroom. I not only use it in my classroom, but I also use it when I am helping in Content Mastery. I try to teach students how to find the answer they are looking for by reading headings in the chapter and skimming to narrow down their search instead of reading everything word for word. Most students understand and are able to skim on their own, however, I have had a handful of students who just didn't understand what I was asking them to do. I will continue to use skimming because I feel that it familiarizes my students with key terms and information that we will discuss which makes it easier for them to understand.