Effectiveness of Advance Organizers for Open Learning

Dr. V K Pathak

Dr. Surat Pyari Pathak

Abstract

In now a day we can assess an interrelationship between various teaching activities and learning conditions with the help of models of teaching in the most convenient way. Generally, these models are prototypes of theories of teaching. Model of teaching concerns a pattern ...or plan or pattern of teaching which can be used to shape a curriculum or course to select instructional materials and to guide the teacher's actions (Joyce and Weil, 1985).As we know that open learning is speedily become the choice of today’s time and conditions;  the present study reveals the effectiveness of Advanced Organiser Model for open learning.  Ausubel (1963) was the one who advocated improvement in expository method of teaching. He viewed teaching learning and curriculum simultaneously in one gestalt. The main focus of his thinking is on meaningful learning. He believes that the meaningful learning is acquiring new knowledge of a particular subject at any given time. His concept of meaningful learning is proving very helpful in open learning as it provides new learning material with existing ideas in the learner's cognitive structure. At the end we can say that the Advanced Organizer Model can play an effective role in  open learning.

                                                                                                            

KEY WORDS:  Advance Organizer Model (AOM), Open Learning, Effectiveness, Advance Organizers.

 Introduction to ideas of Advance Organizers in Teaching and Learning

Advance organizers can be thought of as extremely well-designed and thought out unit outlines, presented before the actual topics to be learned (in advance of learned material). It is notable that the Advance Organizer model is designed to prepare open learners for how to think about the lessons to come, giving some detail about terminology and connections but not giving the entire unit content. Advance organizers are not designed for day-to-day use; instead, they are used to provide a structure at the beginning of a major unit of study. Ausubel suggests 2 different types of organizers for 2 different purposes though others have suggested other organizers; they seem to fall within these categories:

1.  Comparative Organizers present a study of the differences between items the open learner already knows and what they are about to learn.

2.  Expository organizers present a basic concept at a very high, abstract level. They can be used in combination also, but it is more likely to be   used separately as each has its own separate strength.

 It is important to note that Ausubel’s Advance Organizers provide a structure for open learner thinking, not just a structure for lessons themselves. In this way, open learners are engaged in active learning, adding to the existing lecture and other potentially passive activities that are offered in the classroom.

We can better understand advance organizer in the following way;

“ These organizers are introduced in advance of learning itself, and are also presented at a higher level of abstraction, generality, and inclusiveness; and since the substantive content of a given organizer or series of organizers is selected on the basis of its suitability for explaining, integrating, and interrelating the material they precede, this strategy simultaneously satisfies the substantive as well as the programming criteria for enhancing the organization strength of cognitive structure." (Ausubel, 1963).

“An advance organizer is not an overview, but rather a presentation of information (either verbal or visual) that are "umbrellas" for the new material to be learned.”

What Advance Organizers Are NOT:

• A review of what was covered in the previous class session
• A simple overview
• Recalling what was done last week or last year
• Telling the open learners about tomorrow
• Recalling a personal experience and relating it to what will be learned
• Stating the objectives of the lesson

What Advance Organizers ARE:

• Organizational cues .
• Tools that help connect the known to the unknown.
• Frameworks for helping open learners understand what it is they'll be learning.

An Advance Organizer helps to organize new material by outlining, arranging and sequencing the main idea of the new material based on what the learner already knows. Advance Organizers use familiar terms and concepts to link what the open learners already know to the new information that will be presented in the lesson, which aids in the process of transforming knowledge and creatively applying it in new situations. This process helps to embed the new information into long term memory. Advance Organizers don't have to be lengthy or complex just clearly understood and related to the material.

Advance organizers place the most general and comprehensive ideas at the beginning of a lesson and progress to more structured and detailed information. They can be useful devices at the start of a unit, before a discussion, before a question-answer period, before giving a homework assignment, before open learner reports, before a video, before open learners read from their textbook, before a hands-on activity, and before a discussion of concepts based on open learners' experiences.

The framework and the instructional design model

• “According to Ausubel, learning is based upon the kinds of super ordinate, representational, and combinatorial processes that occur during the reception of information. A primary process in learning is subsumption in which new material is related to relevant ideas in the existing cognitive structure on a substantive, non-verbatim basis’ Ausubel.

• “Ausubel suggests that advance organizers might foster meaningful learning by prompting the open learner regarding pre-existing super ordinate concepts that are already in the open learner's cognitive structure, and by otherwise providing a context of general concepts into which the open learner can incorporate progressively differentiated details. Ausubel claims that by presenting a global representation of the knowledge to be learned, advance organizers might foster "integrative reconciliation" of the sub domains of knowledge - the ability to understand interconnections among the basic concepts in the domain.” Ausubel's Advance Organizers,
•  Advance organizers are used in good "transmissive" teaching, e.g. direct instruction. Such teaching is different from simple rote learning, since learners are encouraged to relate new knowledge to old knowledge (what they already know).

According to Joyce et al. (2000), the advance organizer model has three phases of activity. We can use them for open learning in the way mentioned below:

Phase I (includes presentation of the advance organizer)

• Clarify the aims of the lesson to the open learner.
• Providing. the advance organized material to the open learner.
• Prompting awareness of relevant knowledge of the open learner.

Phase II (includes making links to/from the organizer)

• Providing. the learning task or learning material to the open learner.
• Organization and logical order of learning material explicit.

Phase III (strengthening of the cognitive organization)

• Integrative reconciliation and active reception learning (e.g. the teacher can ask learners to make summaries, to point out differences, to relate new examples with the organizer).
• Elicit critical approach to subject matter (have open learners think about contradictions or implicit inferences in the learning material or previous knowledge)

Fig.1  :  Activity Phases of Advance Organizer Model

The simple principles behind advance organizers are that:

1. Most general ideas should be presented first in an organized way (not just a summary) and then progressively differentiated.
2. Following instructional materials should integrate new concepts with previously presented information and with an overall organization.

Therefore, advance organizers present a higher level of abstraction. They are not just simple overviews, illustrating examples etc.! But they share with such techniques the idea, that they must be integrated with other teaching/learning activities.

“ Advance organizers provide the necessary scaffolding for open learners to either learn new and unfamiliar material (an expository organizer which provides the basic concept at the highest level of generalization) or to integrate new ideas into relatively familiar ideas (a comparative organizer which compares and contrasts old and new ideas). Ausubel contends that these organizing ideas, which may be single concepts or statements of relationship, are themselves important content and should be taught because they serve to organize everything that follows. Advance organizers are based on major concepts, generalizations, principles, and laws of academic discipline.”  

Six Easy Steps of Advance Organizer for open learner

1. Begin by describing the goal of the lesson.
   Present open learners with the advance organizer. An advance organizer can be in the form of a handout, but you can also use charts, diagrams, oral presentations, or concept maps. We can provide a concept map to illustrate the interrelationship between complex relationship among many parts. This helps put the new knowledge into context while helping the open learners relate the new material to previous knowledge.
2. Present the material.
   Maintain attention by presenting the material in a well-organized fashion. We can make the order of learning material explicit. The general ideas are presented first, followed by a gradual increase in detail and specifics.

Fig.2:    Six Easy steps of Advance Organizer for Open Learner

1. Use Integrative Reconciliation.
   Create your advance organizer that you remind open learners of the bigger picture, while relating new ideas to previously learned content. Repeat precise definitions, and encourage open learners to use the new vocabulary in discussion groups (online or in-class). Encourage open learners to think critically about the material by asking for a summary of the major attribute of the new material, and asking them to look for differences between aspects of the material.
2. Promote active reception learning.
   You may provide your open learners with a concept map or diagram -- now ask them to relate the new material to their prior knowledge. For example, have open learners generate new examples (different from what you've given them) and have them verbalize or write about what they've learned. To promote higher order thinking, ask open learners to examine material from other points of view and to relate the new material to contradictory material, experience, or knowledge.
3. Elicit a critical approach to subject matter.
   Ask your open learners to look for assumptions that may have been made in the new material by reading between the lines. Require that they take an active role in their own learning by judging and challenging any assumptions or inferences to reconcile any contradictions.
4. Clarify.
   Rephrase previous information as you add new information to clarify the concepts. Ask open learners to use the new information by applying it to new problems or examples.

Examples:

• Ask open learners to compare and contrast the new content based on what they know. For example, what can they tell about its color, shape, smell, feel, or taste? Demonstrate by using a related determinant.
• Give a scenario and ask open learners to infer rules based on their current knowledge.
• Have open learners identify the characteristics of a known quantity and then relate it to the new idea/concept. For example, offer renderings of different types of geometric forms before discussing their individual likenesses and differences.
• Identify a problem and ask for a reason why it may occur (before teaching the reason). For example, you might discuss the origins of a war before describing its major battles.

Advance Organizers, some Cues and Questions

Teachers set the stage for learning by finding out what open learners already know, then connect new ideas to open learners' existing knowledge base. Using a variety of instructional strategies, teachers guide open learners from the known to the unknown, from familiar territory to new concepts. Cues, questions, and advance organizers are among the tools and strategies that teachers use to set the stage for learning. These tools create a framework that helps open learners focus on what they are about to learn.

Asking questions and prompting open learners' replies with cues are strategies that come naturally to most teachers. In fact, some 80 percent of  learner-teacher interactions involve cues and questions (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). By fine-tuning questioning strategies with insights from research, teachers can become even more effective at guiding open learners' learning.

Like questions, advance organizers are also commonly used to help set the stage for instruction. Since David Ausubel (1960) first described advance organizers as a cognitive strategy to help learners learn and retain information, teachers have developed a variety of forms for effectively organizing learning. Graphic organizers show how new ideas or concepts relate, providing open learners with a visual framework for acquiring and organizing new information.

Key Research Findings

·         Learning increases when teachers focus their questions on content that is most important, not what they think will be most interesting to open learners (Alexander, Kulikowich, & Schulze, 1994; Risner, Nicholson, & Webb, 1994).

·         Higher-level questions that ask open learners to analyze information result in more learning than simply asking open learners to recall information. (Redfield & Rousseau, 1981). However, teachers are more apt to ask lower-order questions (Fillippone, 1998; Mueller, 1973).

·         Advance organizers, including graphic ones, help open learners learn new concepts and vocabulary (Stone, 1983). Presenting information graphically as well as symbolically in an advance organizer reinforces vocabulary learning and supports reading skills. (Brookbank Grover, Kullberg, & Strawser, 1999; Moore & Readence 1984).

·         Learners learn more when they are presented information in several modes (Paivio, 1986).

·         By increasing the amount of "wait time" after asking a question, teachers foster increased open learner discourse and more open learner-to-open learner interaction (Fowler, 1975).

Implementation

Teachers want the time spent planning and teaching to generate the most effective and sustained learning. By implementing the recommendations below focused on cues, questions, and advance organizers teachers can gain from research and maximize effort.

1. Pace yourself. Teachers commonly underestimate how often they ask questions in class. Use questions to help open learners focus on what is more important to learn. Remember to ask questions when you introduce new content, and not just at the end of learning experience. Asking questions will not only tell you what open learners already know, but also whether they are starting with misunderstandings about a topic.
2. Ask higher-level questions. Think about how to phrase questions. By asking questions that require analysis, you prompt open learners to go beyond simple recall of information and help to develop their higher-order thinking skills.
3. Wait time matters. Give open learners time to think before jumping in with an answer to your own question. Pausing for just a few seconds is likely to generate better classroom discourse, including more conversation among open learners.
4. Preview the big picture. Help open learners see where you are going by giving them an overview of what a lesson or unit will cover.
5. Use multiple modes. Connect with diverse learning styles by presenting previews of information in multiple ways—visually with graphic organizers, verbally (aloud), and in writing.

References:

Ausubel, D. P. (1960). The use of advance organizers in the learning and retention of meaningful verbal material. Journal of Educational Psychology, 51, 267-272.

Ausubel, D. (1978). In defense of advance organizers: A reply to the critics. Review of Educational Research, 48, 251-257.

Bromley, K., Irwin-DeVitis, & Modlo, M. (1995). Graphic Organizers. Scholastic Professional Books: New York.

Joyce, B., Weil, M., Calhoun, E. : (2000). Models of teaching, 6th edition, Allyn & Bacon, 2000.

Joyce, B., & Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (2003). Models of teaching (7th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Mayer, R. (2003) Learning and Instruction. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

Mayer, R. (2002). The Promise of Educational Psychology. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

Ogle, D. S. (1986). K-W-L group instructional strategy. In A. S. Palincsar, D. S. Ogle, B. F. Jones, & E. G. Carr (Eds.), Teaching reading as thinking (Teleconference Resource Guide, pp. 11-17). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Stone, C. L. (1983). A meta-analysis of advanced organizer studies. Journal of Experimental Education, 51(7), 194-199.

Woolfolk, A. (2001). Educational Psychology, 8th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

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