The first instructional strategy, Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers, "focuses on enhancing students' ability to retrieve, use, and organize information about a topic" (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008, p. 73). The cues are reminders or hints about what the students will experience, the questions trigger students' memories and help them to have access to their prior knowledge, and advance organizers are provided before a learning activity to help students classify and make sense of the content they will find, especially the new content that it is not organized in the original format (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008, p. 73). This is directly related to the cognitive learning theories when we consider the components of the cognitive learning theories, as Orey explained them, are: limited short-term/working memory, elaboration, dual coding hypothesis, and network model of memory (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011a). Short-term memory can process 5 to 9 pieces of information at one time and anything that can be done to limit the quantity of information assures the learning (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011a). Providing cues, questions, and advance organizers such as concept maps, brainstorming software (Rapidfire, Kidspiration), and high level questions (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008), combining images and text as the Palvio's dual coding hypothesis states, will limit the information the students need to process in their short-term memory, and eventually provide practice enough so the students can store all the new information in the long-term memory's networks of information (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011a). To see some examples of how to formulate questions according to Bloom's taxonomy, check this website: http://www.teachervision.fen.com/teaching-methods/new-teacher/48445.html
The second instructional strategy, Summarizing and Taking Notes, "focuses on enhancing students' ability to synthesize information and distill it into a concise new form" (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008, p. 119). Summarizing is probably one of the most difficult skills to learn by students. To complete this process, students will need to delete, substitute, and keep information, but to achieve this, the students will need to analyze the information at a deep level (Marzano, Pickering & Pollock, 2001, p. 31). When the process is completed, the information selected would fit perfectly into the short-term memory to be processed easier. Using the rule-based summarizing and the technology that the word processing applications provide using Track Changes feature will teach students how to summarize a text in a way that is easier for them to understand the important content (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008, p. 121-123). I found very enriching summarizing activities here: http://www.teacher2teacherhelp.com/reading-strategies/summarizing-mini-lessons-and-practice-activities/.
The concept mapping and the virtual field tour would be excellent tools when using these two instructional strategies. The concept mapping can be used either to analyzing previously known concepts or to summarize a text and they support the dual coding of information (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011a). The virtual field tour can be the foundation of ideas when learning content by creating episodes that students would not have otherwise and give them the opportunity to go to places that they cannot go physically (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011b). I believe that the most important aspect of using these strategies is that they develop students' critical thinking, one of the skills they will need the most in the 21st century job field.
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011a). Program five: Cognitive learning theory [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011b). Program six: Spotlight on technology: Virtual field trips [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1
Lever-Duffy, J., & McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical foundations (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement.
Novak, J. D., & Cañas, A. J. (2008). The theory underlying concept maps and how to construct and use them, Technical Report IHMC CmapTools 2006-01 Rev 01-2008. Retrieved from the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition Web site: http://cmap.ihmc.us/Publications/ResearchPapers/
TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.pdf
Hi Naida,
ReplyDeleteReading through your post, you brought to light several beautiful analogies of how the brain is able not only to process information, but also how such processed information can stay long enough in the short term memory through the use of dual coding of images and text. Although learners remember more when they have the opportunity to see and hear what they are being taught; hands on activities actually let them have an experience with the topic thereby being stored in their memory for a long time. This can be achieved through virtual field trips.
Damilola
Nadia,
ReplyDeleteKidspiration is such a great resource to use for student friendly concept maps. Students can easily take notes and create concept maps through Kidspiration to increase their critical thinking on new material learned. I also really like how Kidspiration allows students to add pictures to the words on their concept maps. This increases students' ability to remember new information through the use of dual coding.
Chelsea