This is the third article in this series about SMART TEACHING.  The first article appeared in the Summer 2004 issue.  The second was in the Fall 2004 issue.  Both are available on the web site at: http://www.welding.org/newsletters/ index.html

Everyone remembers a great teacher -- someone who was able to explain complicated information clearly, so everyone in the class “got it”.  And, everyone remembers an instructor who did not communicate effectively, or worse, confused the students every time new material was explained.  Why are some instructors better than others at communicating information to their students?

While great teachers seem to have a natural ability to teach, the key to their success is how they organize and present information.  In fact, when information is organized with the goal of helping students learn unfamiliar material, effective learning occurs: not only do they process the information better, but they also remember the content.

How can instructors achieve this result, and create effective presentations or lectures?  One way to realize this goal is to use an “Advanced Organizer”, a teaching model that helps instructors create superior lectures and presentations. Here is how it works.

Advanced Organizers

An Advanced Organizer is a teaching strategy that provides instructors with a practical framework for organizing (and teaching) the content of their lectures/presentations.  However, advanced organizers furnish instructors with other major advantages.  This strategy is an ideal tool for communicating a large amount of new or unfamiliar material to students.  While every teacher faces this reality, it is a particular challenge for welding instructors.

Welding instructors are under pressure to produce trained welders in less time, while ensuring their students have both the practical and theoretical skills necessary to succeed in the workplace.  Depending on the course requirements, the theoretical component can be considerable and may include: welding principles; welding metallurgy; weld and joint design; power sources; shielding gases; and nondestructive testing/visual examinations.  By utilizing advanced organizers, instructors can deliver this information more efficiently.

In addition, advanced organizers help students learn effectively.  Studies show that advanced organizers improve information acquisition and retention.  As a result, students tend to learn more and retain information better when advanced organizers are used.

How does an advanced organizer achieve this result?  Advanced organizers are based on a simple premise: effective learning occurs when a student can make a connection between what is being taught in the lesson (new information), and what the student already knows.  The learner is able is then able to link (or bridge) this former knowledge to the new material being taught.  Further, by linking the new information to previous knowledge, students are able to “anchor” the new content, or remember the information.  As a result, information retention is improved and the ability to process the new content improves.  This creates effective learning!

So how do you use this technique in your teaching?  The key is how you structure your presentation or lecture.  Lets see how this works.

Using Advanced Organizers

An advanced organizer is general information or introductory material that is presented at the start of the class, before you present the new learning material or lesson.  The organizer is designed to present “the big picture”, or act as a primer for what the student is about to learn.  It is distinct from the material contained in the lecture/presentation.  Instead, an advanced organizer is intended to explore the broad concepts of the area of study.

When presenting an advanced organizer, the instructor uses terms and ideas that are known by the learners. The goal is to help students make a connection between the general information you are providing in the advanced organizer and the material you are going to present in the lesson.

Advanced organizers can be categorized into two basic types: an organizer that is ideal for teaching new information to students who have little or no welding experience (expository organizer); and another that is used when students have some knowledge of welding (comparative organizer).  Lets see how this is applied in a classroom setting, and how you construct an advanced organizer.

Example of an Advanced Organizer  

In my classes, I teach up to 15 students: 98% of these learners have no welding knowledge.  As a result I use an expository organizer.  After I have introduced myself, I provide the students with course outlines and detail the course objectives.  Then I present the advanced organizer: 

“If you drove here today in a car, or traveled on public transportation, you came in contact with welding. Cars, trucks and buses all require welding, and welding is an important process in every society.

This building was welded, and the desks you are sitting in were welded. In fact, although you are not aware of it, welding touches your life hundreds of times a day.

You have probably seen someone welding-perhaps on a construction site, in a shop, garage or factory. Perhaps you have seen welding on the popular TV shows on the Discovery Channel, or MTV, as cars or machines are constructed.

Virtually any metal can be welded, and virtually any thickness of metal can be welded if the correct welding process is selected. Over the years, different welding processes have been developed. In addition, different types of welding materials have been also been developed.  This means that a welder has a technical solution to meet virtually any welding challenge.

Today, engineers can design complicated metal structures or parts, and welders can permanently join pieces of metal together by using heat and actually melting the metal. To understand how important welding is to society, we have to go back in time when welding as we know it today did not exist.

You have probably seen a bridge that was riveted or bolted together.  It is easy to see if rivets or bolts were used because you can see the dome like fasteners that hold the pieces together.  Not only was this a slow way to build a structure, but it also limited an engineer’s ability to design structures since they had fewer choices when fastening metal together.

Welding changed all that. Now, engineers have the ability to design lighter, stronger structures since welding provides for a number of “joints”, or ways of fastening metal together. You will learn these in the course, and learn how apply different solutions to specific welding challenges.

As you can see, an advanced organizer is short introductory presentation.  It is general in nature and contains a number of subordinate ideas: metals of various types can be welded; thick or thin material can be welded; there are various welding processes; various welding materials are available; there is a permanent bonding of metal through heat; and welders use a number of joints.  These subordinate ideas will be explored in separate lessons.

For example, if I am teaching a lesson about the joints used in welding, I will say:

 “Do you remember in our first class we discussed that there are a number of joints, or ways to weld metal together?  There are actually five basic welding joints, and by learning how to weld these joints, you will be able to fabricate any type of weldment.  We will start by learning how to weld one of the most basic joints used in fabrication.

Here is another example.  I teach a GMAW course and the students learn both short circuit transfer and spray transfer in my course.  When I explain how the welding machine can be set for either the spray transfer or short-circuit process, I refer back to the advance organizer:

“We spoke about the fact that it is possible to weld both thin and thick metal with the GMAW process.  This is an important advantage, because when you think about the welded products you have seen, you can recall that many welds are made on thin material.  This welding machine can be set to weld thin or thick material.  Lets see how we do this.”

The advanced organizer has some very specific characteristics.  To begin with, it is always “more abstract” than the actual lesson material.  This means the advanced organizer is always general in nature, and is built around the main ideas of the lesson. 

Notice in the example above (where I discussed that the welding machine can be set to weld thick or thin material) I didn’t detail how to set the controls (voltage or wire feed speed), the type of welding gas you need to use, or the size of wire.  This material will be covered in the lesson.  Instead, I asked the learners to recall old information -- the fact that you can weld thick or thin material with the GMAW process -- and I prompted them to remember seeing this in various welded products they have encountered.

If the students have prior welding knowledge, the instructor faces a different kind of challenge.  How do you use the principle of linking new information with old information when the information you are teaching is similar to what they already know?

A comparative organizer is designed to solve this problem.  Instead of creating relationships between information (settings on the welding machine and welding thick or thin metal, for example) a comparative organizer is designed to integrate information that is similar.  To accomplish this goal, it is necessary to discriminate between the previous knowledge and the new information.  To do this, you concentrate on developing the similarities and differences between the new lesson material and what is already anchored in the learners mind.  Lets take an example of students who are familiar with GMAW, but have no experience welding aluminum.  Your organizer may be constructed as follows:

Until now you have welded mild steel. However, aluminum is a commonly used where lightweight and relatively high strength is an asset, or sometimes when rust would be a problem.

GMAW can be used to weld aluminum, but there are some differences when welding aluminum with this process.  To begin with, the welding gas is different than you use when welding mild steel.  The wire speed system has to be adapted to feed aluminum wire.  In some cases, a different kind of wire feed system is used altogether, particularly when using small diameter wire.

There are also slight differences in technique when welding aluminum -- the angle of the gun is critical when welding aluminum -- but you will be able to adapt quickly to welding aluminum because of what you already know about torch manipulation.  

By using this technique, you use the students existing knowledge of shielding gases, the wire feed system, and torch manipulation as the basis for teaching the new material.  However, the organizer is still more abstract or general than the lesson.  In the lesson you will describe how proper feed rollers must be used, and how the cable assembly will require a nylon liner, and the exact gun angle that is required when welding aluminum.

When you use an advanced organizer, it is important to construct the organizer so the learner can perceive it is different from the learning task or lesson.  In addition, the organizer is actually a separate learning task: in other words, the advanced organizer must be taught, and the instructor has to explore the organizer by explaining, illustrating the main points of the organizer, and providing a number of examples.

When I teach my welding course, I use an advanced organizer in my first class, and then provide shorter advanced organizers at the start of each lesson.  However, instructors must make a conscious effort to relate the advanced organizer to the lesson material being taught -- throughout the instructional period.

Many instructors start their lesson by reviewing the material they presented in the last lesson.  Or, students will be asked questions designed to test their understanding of previously studied material.  In some instances, the instructor will provide a brief overview of the material presented in previous lessons before starting the new lesson.  While all of these are useful (and effective) strategies, they are NOT advanced organizers. 

As previously discussed, the advanced organizer is a separate idea, and learners have to perceive the organizer as being different from the information that is taught in the lesson.

Finally, when an advanced organizer is used, the instructor must take the time to explain and explore the organizer. Making sure learners understand the organizer -- by asking questions, providing examples, and illustrations -- is essential.  An advanced organizer only works if the student can use it to organize the new learning material in the lesson.

Advanced organizers are effective because they provide a framework to which the student may attach the lesson information: this is sometimes referred to as “intellectual scaffolding”.  In other words, the advanced organizer is like a scaffold and students attach the information or ideas contained in the lesson to this scaffold.  As a result, students are able to process the information, and transfer it into long-term memory.

Additional Instructional Steps

There are three phases or teaching steps required when using an advanced organizer.  In phase one, the instructor starts by presenting the objectives of the lesson.  The objectives are short statements that describe the main points of the lesson.  For example, if you are introducing the subject of aluminum welding, the objectives may be as follows:

Objective Of Lesson:

• Learn how to weld aluminum with the GMAW process

• Discover how a GMAW machine is set up to weld aluminum

• Understand the advantages and disadvantages of welding aluminum with the GMAW process.

Presenting objectives at the start of the class is important.  Objectives focus the learner’s attention on the lesson and provide students with a clear idea of what they are expected to learn.

After presenting the objectives, the instructor delivers the advanced organizer.

In phase two, the instructor teaches the lesson.  The lesson may include a lecture, video presentation of the information, graphics or illustrations.  It is important to structure the information so there is a clear sense of direction, and a logical order to the material.  This is achieved by presenting general ideas first.  Gradually, the amount of complexity and detail is increased.  Finally, the instructor explains how this information links to the advanced organizer.

The next step (phase three) involves anchoring the new lesson material in the students mind.  This is achieved by reminding them of the main ideas of the lesson, asking them to summarize the main points of the lesson, repeating the technical definitions, or asking questions designed to explore differences and similarities -- for example, between welding aluminum and mild steel.

In addition, the teaching curriculum should be organized so every lesson is related to what has been taught in previous lessons.  The goal is to bridge new ideas with the previously learned material in order to promote effective learning and information retention.

There are two challenges when using an advanced organizer.  The first involves selecting the general information to use in the advance organizer.  The second is to provide the technical information in a logical progression, moving from general to specific.  The Hobart Institute Welding Training Materials can help.

The Hobart Institute offers complete welding curriculum packages for all the major welding processes.  These intensive training courses provide instructors with an Instructor Guide, Student Guide and a series of videotapes or DVDs that demonstrate the techniques described in the student guide.  This provides a step-by-step exploration of welding concepts in a logically organized sequence.

I used the GMAW Curriculum to create my course, and it simplified the task of creating advanced organizers and structuring my teaching lessons.  Best of all, the material is constructed in progressive skill steps, making it easy to link each lesson to the previous lesson.

Benefits of Advanced Organizers

The advanced organizer provides instructors with significant benefits.  To begin with, it is an effective way to teach a skill-based course like welding.  The information contained in the advanced organizer can be referenced in both the theory portion of the lesson as well as the practical exercises.  This provides a very strong association between the new lesson material and previously learned information.  As a result, information retention (and understanding) is maximized.

In addition, instructors who use advanced organizers develop well-organized lessons.  When I started to use advance organizers, my lectures became more structured.  This is another benefit of using a proven teaching strategy: as my lectures became more organized, my teaching improved. 

Studies confirm that an advanced organizer is an effective teaching tool.  A few years ago, educational specialists reviewed over 100 studies that evaluated the effectiveness of advanced organizers.  They concluded that advanced organizers improved learning and resulted in better retention of learned material.  A recent study confirmed these results: researchers found that advanced organizers help learners assimilate more information, and improve overall learning performance.

These studies are consistent with my own experience.  Students in my classes are able to absorb more information and remember the lesson material.  Recently, I was approached by one of my former students. “I can’t believe how much I remember from your classes,” she stated.  “I found your classes were so well organized…and the way you presented the information…it just seemed to stick in my mind.”

This is the power of an advanced organizer.  It provides instructors with a teaching strategy that works.  And, best of all, it helps both the instructor and student achieve better results.