Oops, I missed my cue!

This week's resources discussed cues, advanced organizers and questioning strategies as well as summarizing and note-taking. I failed to notice my cue to fill in my blog this week so I stand chagrined.

Cues of course are statements or comments meant to prepare students for learning, or to elicit some kind of response from them. Normally a teacher would provide cues either before presenting some material or while questioning students about their knowledge to draw information from them, from a behavioral context this is pretty straightforward in that you are attempting to model a behavior or elicit some kind of response from your students.

Advanced organizers are, in my opinion a great idea and I'm sad to admit I have not used them extensively in my teaching. I really like the idea of providing a formatted pre-view of the types of information and material that students will be presented so they can work their way through that material and gain specific information. Also in terms of providing structure and giving students a physical map of material to notice and maintain provides a great form of positive feedback. (I need to find and answer... oh, there it is! I fill in my organizer or content map and presto, I feel reinforced.)

The summarizing section of the book was also interesting. I like having students to self-directed summaries because it helps them to learn what information is important and how best to package that up in a format they can easily remember and recall. And of course the process of determining what should be summarized helps with the memorization and retention of material.

Finally, regarding note-taking - I must admit I was a terrible note-taker until I took Psych 101 my freshman year of college. The prof spend a few days teaching us how to take notes in a specific format and it helped me immensely. Again as far as our behavioral discussions, theres something very satisfying about taking well organized and structured notes and being able to quickly and easily find information when you want it.

At least I think that's what I wanted to say... let me look through these notes... um...