EdPsy 399OL
L7-Q1 Advance Organizers
Instructor: Tom Anderson
Submitted by Kim Fitzer
Advance organizers
are usually documents, or discussions that provide a general idea of new
information to be learned prior to the introduction of a larger, more specific
concept. The concept of the advance
organizer was originally developed by David Ausubel in 1960. Ausubel maintained that new information was
more easily processed if it can be linked to already learned material. A teacher that uses advance organizers may
use them to introduce a new unit, lesson, or important concept to her
students. After studying the
information provided in an advance organizer, students may be expected to build
new, more complex and abstract knowledge on top of what was already learned
(Bruning, Ronning, and Schraw, 1999).
Advance organizers
may be presented in many different forms;
one popular method in today’s technologically sophisticated classroom is
the use of a Powerpoint presentation that presents the new information in
easily read, easily processed chunks of information. Powerpoint also allows the “slides” to be printed out and
distributed to the students, thus deepening the visual impact. Other popular versions of the advance
organizer may include diagrams, pictures,
handouts with areas to take notes, selected readings and of course,
class discussion of a pre-determined topic.
Whatever the form, many teachers use the advance organizer effectively
in the classroom (observable methodology, 2001).
Theoretically, advance
organizers are most closely related to the schema model of cognitive
processing. The schema theory suggests
that students will learn better if information is presented in an associative
organization. Students build new
information, on information that is already mastered, thus scaffolding new
knowledge on top of old. In other
words, learning progresses from what is already known, to what is not familiar,
and then finally, to the relationship between the two. When the prior knowledge is linked to the
new material, a connection is made cognitively and the information is processed
into long-term memory.
The most significant
argument against the use of advance organizers is that because they often are
so diverse in their presentation, and because teachers freely create their own
versions, that the organizer may be more complex and abstract than the learning
that follows. New studies suggest that
advance organizers are best developed when they:
·
Provide an
analogy for upcoming content.
·
They are
concrete and use concrete examples.
·
Can be learned
easily and well (Bruning, et. al, 1999).
Other problems may
arise when new information does not present itself well for the use of advance
organizers. Some concepts, such as a
step intensive process in a lab setting, may not be an effective use of advance
organizers. Students will need to be
presented with a list of steps in advance; however, in terms of the definition
of an advance organizer, this is not a valid use of an advance organizer. The use of the advance organizer at this
point would be superfluous and unnecessary, particularly when information
provided during other learning sessions will suffice. Yet, the basic theory of schema processing is at work here, as students utilize information previously learned
to perform a series of tasks in a controlled environment.
Advance organizers
continue to be a popular method of presenting new information, because they
introduce students to new concepts, and provide a foundation on which to build
knowledge. While there is some
confusion as to the actual definition of an advance organizer, they appear to be most effective when they relate
a parallel concept that is easily recognizable and concrete to the new material
that is to be learned (Bruning, et. al., 1999).
References
Bruning, Roger H.,
Ronning, Royce R., and Schraw, Gregory J.
1999. Cognitive Psychology and Instruction, Third Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey,
Prentice-Hall, Inc. pp. 55-59, 88-89,
278-279.
Persosnal
observations made during classroom visitations, 2001.