advance organizers

The idea of advance organizers was developed by David Ausubel. The idea is that information can be recalled more efficiently if it is attached to existing knowledge. However, students may not have any prior knowledge to attach the subjects we are teaching them. This is especially true in science. Advance organizers are a way to organize information into a schema that the new knowledge can then be attached to.

To set up an advance organizer you give students the big picture first with only the main ideas and context given. Then as you teach the finer details are filled in. This provides a framework for a student with no prior knowledge to attach the new ideas to.

An example of this can be demonstrated in teaching about rock classification. Most students have no prior knowledge about rocks beyond they are hard and you can throw them at people. To create an advance organizer you give the student the big picture on how scientists classify rocks. You can do this graphically as in the example.

Once this is presented and the students understand the main ideas then the details about rock types can then be filled in and students can compare and contrast the different rock classifications

http://www.netnet.org/instructors/design/goalsobjectives/advance.htm

http://www.netc.org/focus/strategies/cues.php

http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Advance_organizers