Elaboration Strategy: Images: Examples

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

"si je t'aime, prends garde a toi," "if I love you, you'd better beware." This is Carmen's famous line in the first-act aria, Habanera, from the opera Carmen. I learned this almost a half century ago in my college French class, and have not forgotten it. My French teacher used a very effective Elaboration Strategy containing auditory images, although he undoubtedly did not call it that. Back then there was no research showing the strategy's instructional effectiveness. I guess he just intuited it. We spent some time in the class studying the opera's entire libretto, listening to the music and reading the words while attempting to reproduce different singers' accented French. The auditory images were the music and the words that were sung for that music. Today's DVD technology would have enabled us to add another elaborator, visual images of the opera. We would seen Carmen's sensuous movements as she sang, "si je t'aime, prends garde a toi." This activity helped us learn the target information, which consisted of French-English vocabulary, French sentence structure, and French pronunciation. The vocabulary words we learned the fastest and retained the longest were those from the libretto, as were the verb forms, such as "si je t;aime." The libretto activity activity also provided another kind of elaborator that made it even more effective, episodes: It told a story. We used the libretto music and words later as a "memory hook" for target information we had difficulty.

SCIENCE UNIT ON PLANTS

This illustration focuses on a small portion of a science unit on plants. The objective, target information and assessment task for this portion of the unit was shown in an earlier post and is repeated here. Also shown are the three modes of sensory experiences provided in this part of the science unit.

OBJECTIVE

Recall knowledge: Know about the three parts of leaves.

TARGET INFORMATION FOR THE OBJECTIVE

1. Chlorophyll gives leaves their green color.

2. The lamina is the flat blade of the leaf.

3. The petiole is the stalk that supports the lamina.

4. Chlorophyll makes sugar from carbon dioxide and water.

5. Veins carry sugar between the cells in the lamina and the petiole.

6. Veins support the lamina.

ASSESSMENT TASK

1. What gives leaves their green color?

2. What is the lamina of a leaf?

3. What is the petiole of a leaf?

4. What does chlorophyll do?

5. What two things do veins do?

MODES OF SENSORY EXPERIENCES

Symbolic Sensory Experiences

Written information from the textbook:

___________________________________________________________________

Leaves on plants have three parts. The lamina is the flat blade of the leaf. The petiole is the stalk that supports the lamina. The veins are the small tubes that branch out from the petiole. The main job of leaves is to make food for the plant. They make food by using the sun's energy to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar. The sugar is then taken to the rest of the plant and used as food. The lamina contains chlorophyll, which is what makes sugar from carbon dioxide and water. Chlorophyll is what gives leaves their green color. The veins carry the sugar between cells in the lamina to the petiole. The veins also support the lamina. The petiole connects the lamina to the rest of the plant. It carries sugar from the veins to the rest of the plant.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Iconic Sensory Experiences

Drawings from the textbook:

Enactive Sensory Experiences

As part of the science unit, students are growing plants and conducting experiments, such as varying the amount of light and water plants receive, and are recording the results in their science notebooks.

STEP ONE: ENCODE TARGET AND ELABORATION INFORMATION

Elaboration Task

The teacher has students read the pages in their science texts that deal with plant leaves. When they finish the teacher assigns students to write, draw and display the information about leaves in their science notebooks. They collect actual leaves and paste them into the notebooks with the parts and functions labeled like in the textbook. They also draw pictures of leaves and label them.

Elaboration Guidance

The teacher circulates around the room as students work, keeping them on task and helping them when they have difficulty. The teacher looks for errors students make and corrects them. If many make the same mistake, such as the way the leaf makes sugar for the plant's nourishment, the teacher directs their attention to the relevant written and drawn information in the text.

STEP TWO: PRACTICE RETRIEVING TARGET INFORMATION

Recall-Practice Task

The teacher has students take an open-notebook practice test about plants. The practice test contains at least one question about each item of target information. They write their answers on blank pieces of paper.

Recall-Practice Guidance

If students are unable to answer a question, they are allowed to look at their notebooks, but not in their science texts. The teacher walks around the room, keeping all students on task and making certain that they are making sincere efforts to answer each question before looking in their notebooks. Whenever the teacher notices that a number of students have difficulty with the same question, the teacher reviews the teachaer reviews the relevant item of target information with them.

SUBSEQUENT PERIODIC PRACTICE

Recall-Practice Task

Periodically, the teacher has students take a closed-notebook practice test about plants. These tests contain the same questions as the Assessment Task. Students are to write their answers without looking at their notebooks or texts, or asking other students.

Recall-practice Guidance

When students are unable to answer a question, they raise their hands and the teacher comes to help them. The teacher guides them to think back to what they wrote and drew in their science notebooks, and then using that to cue retrieval of the answer to the question. If they are still unable to recall it, the teacher has them look back at their notebooks.

MATHEMATICS

When instructing students for multliplication facts, the teacher can use cards like that shown below.

The front side of the card contains the Recall-Practice Task that also serves as the Assessment Task. The back side of the card has an Iconic Sensory Experience as the elaborator, a drawing. The teacher could also provide an Enactive Sensory Experience as an elaborator by using objects such as chips. The back side also contains the target information (4 x 3 = 12). When beginning instruction for multiplication facts the teacher works with small groups of students, helping them understand the relationship between between the grouping of actual chips and how they are represented in written multiplication problems. Students are likely to have difficulty encoding the multiplication facts unless they understand that the algorithm (4 x 3 = 12) represents a certain grouping of objects of objects, such as chips to fit different algorithms, such as (5 x 4 = 20). Taking the time to make multiplication facts meaningful for students will greatly increase their ability to encode and retrieve them.

Students can provide each other Recall Practice in tutorial pairs. The tutor shows the student the front side of the card and asks for the answer. If a student cannot retrieve the answer from memory, the tutor asks that the student think back to the picture for the fact. If the student still cannot answer, the tutor shows the back side of the card and asks for the answer. The pair continues practicing a group of cards over and over until the student can retrieve the answers correctly and quickly. Speedy, almost automatic, retrieval of the basic multiplication facts from long-term memory is important so that students will be able to use those facts when solving complex mathematics problems. Periodically they exchange roles so both can practice as students.