1. Flipped Instruction Description

61. Graphic Organizers
Definition

Graphic organizers are visual aids in the classroom designed to help students visualize and conceptualize ideas and their relationships with other ideas. Examples of graphic organizers include flowcharts, mind maps and venn diagrams. Use them to help students think more deeply about topics.

Benefits

• 
  Very useful for students who are visual learners.
  
• 
  Provides a framework for deeper and critical thinking.
  
• 
  Provides structure to help students who are unsure of how to proceed with critical thinking.
  

Challenges

• 
  Don’t stick to just one framework as the frameworks narrow the scope of thinking in exchange for depth. Mix up your graphic organizers.
  

Theoretical Link
Cognitive Constructivism: cognitive constructivists such as David Jonassen believe graphic organizers help students to share their cognitive load with the organizer, helping them to organize and sort ideas in their heads more effective.y


Examples

1. 
   Flow charts
   
2. 
   Mind maps
   
3. 
   Venn diagrams
   
4. 
   Concept maps
   
5. 
   Network or family tree
   
6. 
   Spider diagram
   
7. 
   Compare-contrast matrix
   
8. 
   Continuum
   
9. 
   Series of events chain
   
10. 
    Cycle map
    
11. 
    Character charts
    

62. Think Pair Share
Definition
This is one of the simplest, most frequently used, but also most effective classroom teaching strategies. Students think about a topic on their own. Then, they pair up with a partner and discuss, compare and contrast their thoughts together. Thirdly, the pair share what they discussed with the whole class.
Benefits

• 
  Moves students from individual thinking to social thinking in a clear process.
  
• 
  Helps students to vocalize their own thoughts in small and large groups.
  
• 
  Helps students to see other people’s perspectives by encouraging communication, compare and contrast.
  

Challenges

• 
  Students need the confidence to speak up in front of the whole class. I have found some students like to have the comfort of flip chart (butcher’s) paper as a prop when presenting their discussions to the class.