Chapter 4: Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers

Knowing that students have difficuly remembering how a particular assignment is supposed to be done, or what is expected of them, I like the idea of using a rubric to guide the students. I have tried this before, with some success. I think that the rubrics I've used previously haven't been very successful because they were done by hand and not very easy to follow. I like the idea of using spreadsheet software to create a rubric for the students to follow. I could incorporate different sections for each portion of the project, along with examples of what constitutes the alloted point value. I think that this would greatly assist students in creating their best project.

Using Kidspiration or Inspiration as a means of creating organizers for students sounds helpful. Showing students that they already know something about what they are going to study (activating their prior knowledge), will help them to delve deeper into their understanding and learning of a new topic. I like the idea of using Kidspiration to create organizational tools which cue students. I think that it would be benificial to also use Kidspiration or Inspiration to inclue graphics along with the text, helping students to better activate their prior knowledge. I think that students should also be allowed to access these online programs to create their own graphic organizers. This would also be helpful when it came to taking notes on a new topic. Currently, my students all keep journals for math class, and will do the same for science class. Rather than write everything out in their journals, I think that I am going to have them use the computers (whether it's Excel, Work, Inspiration, Kidspiration) to create graphics and organizers to go along with their journal entries.