Tools for Thought
Graphic Organizers by Jim Burke
Teaching With Tools
Tools include, but are not limited to:
Research says that effective use of tools:
- Words • Individual words • Sentences/Statements • Passages • Texts • Questions
- Images • Painting/Sculpture • Photographic • Advertisements • Film/Video • Multimedia
- Graphic Organizers • Thinking Maps • Graphic Organizers • Advance Organizers Structured Notes
- Visual Explanations • Diagrams • Graphs • Charts • Shapes
Research says that effective use of tools:
- Helps struggling students and those with special needs by providing structure and support
- Supports English Learners by helping them see how information is organized and giving them a more visual means of understanding or conveying ideas •
- Increases engagement by providing ways for cognitive collaboration on academic tasks
- Achieves more sophisticated thinking by asking students to analyze, organize, and synthesize
- Improves comprehension by allowing students to analyze text structure and connections
- Enhances memory through organization of information
- Promotes generative thinking and scaffolding
- Stimulates the brain by activating the brain’s need to impose order and find patterns
Teachers use tools effectively when they use them:
• Before, during, and after a primary activity such as reading
• With individuals, pairs, groups, and the full class as appropriate
•To generate, organize, analyze, and synthesize
• To prepare to read, write, speak, or learn
• To create organization on information that lacks order
• Not as the end but a means for the learning
• Demonstrate for students how to use them
• Not automatically but when it is efficient and appropriate
• For all but especially English Learners and those with learning differences
• In ways that allow for metacognitive processing of their learning from and use of tools
Templates
Jaye Parks
Email: parksj@iss.k12.nc.us
Twitter: @Jayeparks1