Advance Organizers An advance organizer is a simple device that serves to orient students to the concepts they will work with during the learning experience. The term “advance organizer” was originally coined by David Ausubel. In his opinion, the most important aspect of an advance organizer is that they allow the learner to connect what they already know to the topic under investigation. – In Classroom Instruction that Works, Marzano (pp and ) discusses the benefits of four different types of advance organizers – expository, narrative, skimming, and graphic.

Graphic Organizers Graphic organizers present a visual display that illustrates the relationships between facts, terms, and/or key ideas under investigation. Graphic organizers are sometimes referred to as concept maps or concept diagrams

Which One, When? Use advance organizers to scaffold students’ understanding of the topic before the hands-on activity – Advance organizers are “big picture” and make connections between students’ prior knowledge and the topic for investigation Use graphic organizers after the hands-on activity to help students integrate new understanding into the larger “schema” of the topic – Graphic organizers are more detailed and show the relationship between key concepts in the lesson

Ed Ellis “Think Sheets” FCPS MS Science teachers have a ready-made resource from which to select graphic organizers! The Think Sheets created by Ed Ellis are available to all MS Science teachers and are most likely found on their computer desktop. The Think Sheets file contains many, many types of graphic organizers that can be used “as is” or modified to fit a specific topic. Please ask your school’s SBTS for help in locating this file Some samples of what’s available follow -