The study examined the effects of an advance organizer on the learning and retention of facts and concepts obtained from a sound film by educable mentally retarded (N=30) and regular children (N=30) in a mainstreamed secondary public school class. Also examined was the interaction between the advance organizer and ability levels of the Ss. Results…

Recent advances have been made in facilitating implementation of Ausubel's advance organizer strategy. One reason Ausubel's approach has not been widely adopted is its lack of specificity about how to relate what is to be learned to what has already been assimilated within the cognitive structure. The use of subsumptive sequencing, coordinate…

This study tested the common assumption that lists of instructional objectives (LIOs) presented at the start of a lesson are used as advance organizers (AOs). Because traditional research designs have yielded conflicting results, an alternative design was used that sought to falsify the necessary association between the objectives and their use…

Advance organizers are used to teach specific contexts with different levels of complexity. Regardless of the educational level or context, the advance organizer (graphic organizer) is a tool that helps the learner connect the known to the unknown and remember the knowledge gained. To help in understanding this process, a case study was developed…

This paper presents a detailed description of two information-processing tools, scripted cooperation and the use of knowledge mapping, and their potential application to deaf education. Scripted cooperation is a method for structuring the cooperative learning activities of student pairs. The roles and activities of the participants are scripted.…

Professors need to stimulate both sides of students' brain to allow for efficient increase of information absorption. As an alternative to linear outlines, mind maps can provide for more effective comprehension as related ideas are conceptualized from the center out to supporting details, as well as from top to bottom or left to right. The mind…

"Adapting Instructional Techniques" was developed at Indiana University to improve the performance of teachers in classrooms equipped for interactive audio or video in a distance education setting. The formative evaluation of this videotape is described. The tape suggested modifications for five common instructional techniques used in…

Many science educators are concerned with students' ability to understand science as a process and with their conceptions of scientific knowledge. Preliminary work has shown that the use of a model organizer can result in student perceptions of improved understanding, but the reason for this effect is not known. This research was undertaken to…

Gloss, or marginal notations in a text, and other similar techniques can be used by reading specialists both as they attempt to develop meaningful content area reading programs and as they review what is already known before attempting to learn new information. For example, several social studies teachers began their gloss activities by…

This study concerns determining whether three types of advance organizers (visual, audio, or written) had any effect upon learning a biological concept as measured by a constructed achievement test and whether advance organizers are more effective across learner variables of I.Q., abstract reasoning and sex. One hundred twenty randomly selected…

Designing teleconference programs for the physician learner puts unique demands on the teleconferencing medium. Typically, physicians expect a 1-hour lecture presentation with high information density. To effectively present the medical content material in an audio medium, strategies which structure and organize the content material are necessary.…

Merging the instructional implications drawn from theory and research in the interactive reading model, schemata, and metacognition with computer based instruction seems a natural approach for actively involving students' participation in reading and learning from text. Computer based graphic organizers guide students' preview or review of lengthy…

Options are presented in this paper for the imaginative use of questions in content area study. An argument is made against the stereotyped use of questions to test factual recall and for the use of questions to expand instruction in content study to stimulate higher levels of thinking and learning activities. Suggestions and examples are provided…

Implications of D. Ausubel's Theory of Meaningful Verbal Learning and its derivative, the Advance Organizer Model of Teaching, for deaf students are examined. Ausubel believes that complex intellectual processes (thinking, language, problem-solving, concept formation) are the major aspects of learning, and that primary emphasis should be placed on…

An investigation was conducted to ascertain the effects of the structured overview on both the short-term and long-term comprehension of average and below average readers. The subjects were 143 college students classified as average or below average readers and randomly assigned to either a structured overview (65) or a control group (78). Both…