Explain the Advance Organizer model with suitable examples. 7 marks
What
is an advance organizer? It’s a tool; it is a mental learning aid. Whatever facilitates
learners to integrate new information into the existing knowledge is an
organizer, when it is given in advance it becomes an advance organizer.
Especially when students are going to learn something completely new, they don’t
have any previous knowledge regarding that concept, we have to give some central
concepts in advance.
For
example in B.Ed. when the teacher taught us learning theories she tell us about two
schools of thought – and tried to help us
to make concepts of behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism in our minds. In
algebra, when we have addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc. The basic
rule teacher gives to the students is plus into plus is plus, plus into minus
is minus, minus into plus is minus – these are the advance organizer.
Similarly,
if I want to teach about the climate of different countries in geography I will
give students the broad division of the whole earth into different regions like
equatorial, polar, and desert regions, etc. And then slowly go on explaining. So these
main concepts become advance organizers. Once the students know these basic concepts,
whatever I explain thereafter, makes sense to the students and it gets hooked
to the knowledge (the main concepts or the organizer) that they already have. This is called subsuming.
The
primary idea behind the advance organizer is that the information has to be
connected to each other. In order to teach in an organized whole, the teacher should
start with the main concepts and slowly go on to differentiate into the specific
ideas. By doing this, learning becomes meaningful – it makes sense to them. That’s
why whenever we teach; we try to introduce the lesson by asking questions regarding
the previously covered matter related to that particular subject.
There
are basically two principles behind the advance organizer model – progressive differentiation
and integrative reconciliation in order to make knowledge organized. We will
understand with an example.
The
simplest example can be knowing about living beings. They can be classified
into plants and animals. Under plants, there are flowering and non-flowering plants.
Then these plants can again be classified into herbs and trees. Similarly, when
you come to animals there are vertebrates and invertebrates. Invertebrates can
be classified into protozoa, single-celled animals, then sponges, then worms, and so on. Under vertebrates, we will get fishes, mammals, and so on. Thus, this
is called progressive differentiation.
Once
the progressive differentiation takes place then it is necessary to bring in
integrative reconciliation. What does that mean? If progressive differentiation
is the analysis of the main concepts into sub-concepts, integrative reconciliation
involves synthesizing from the bottom-most part of that organizer towards the
main concept – that is called class inclusion. So students will say, oh, these
are amphibians and others are nothing but vertebrates. Vertebrates are nothing
else but animals and all animals are living beings. So we do that in inverse order
to come to the main concept.
Not
only that, we teach natural resources both in geography and physical science as
well as we teach solar and lunar eclipses both in geography and science – but
students are able to realize that solar or lunar eclipses in geography and
physical science are the same – there is no conceptual difference. So we are
enabling students to reconcile the knowledge which they have got. All of these facilities
in forming clear concepts in the minds of students and making their verbal or
textual learning meaningful.
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