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The effectiveness of graphic organizers and Baxendell's guiding principles for instructional practices with special needs students

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par Milien Yvon
The School of Education, The City College, The City University of New York - Master of Science in Education  2004
  

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Most of the students who are attending 753K have difficulty abstracting important information from their content area. In order to solve this problem, the administration requires that all its teachers incorporate graphic organizers into the body of their lessons to help students with special needs to gain an understanding of both content specific vocabulary and concepts. According to the administration, using graphic organizers will facilitate students' comprehension because of the visual display that demonstrates how information is organized.

The administration uses the three established principles for effective graphic organizers: be consistent, make the graphic organizers coherent, and find creative ways to integrate them into lessons (Baxendell, 2003). As a result, learners will pay attention to the relevant information in the text and they will select to build connections among ideas in the text. They will organize information into coherent structure and integrate the new information and/or connect it to their prior knowledge. Therefore, learning will be meaningful. Nevertheless, a history of reports indicating that for many students with special needs, the process of abstracting important information from their assigned content area is difficult because of poor reading and study skills (Deshler, 1978; Torgesen, 1985; Zigmond, Vallecorsa, & Leinhardt, 1980).

It is reasonable, therefore, to propose to determine the effectiveness of graphic organizers for helping students with special needs at 753K to abstract information. Most of the learners at 753K have serious reading and study deficits skills and the use of graphic organizers may facilitate their understanding of content specific.

In this study, the use of graphic organizers along with the proposed guiding principles for instructional practices of the administration will be analyzed. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the use of graphic organizers in conjunction with the proposed guiding principles of the administration will help students with special needs develop their interest in understanding, organizing, or recalling important concepts or content. The result of the study should provide information whether displaying information graphically along with the three established principles, consistent, coherent, and creative need to be adjusted or modified for learners having learning disabilities and who also are emotionally disturbed.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

In this study the focus is on the effectiveness of graphic organizers and the three basic principles guiding instructional practices: consistent, coherent, and creative (Baxendell, 2003). The review of the literature includes guiding principles for instructional practices strategies when using graphic organizers, graphic instruction and free or direct instruction, and content areas in which graphic organizers are used.

Although each content area has its own special vocabulary and concepts that must be developed, there are several specific strategies for the use of graphic organizers that can be incorporated into the body of a lesson to help students organize or recall important information. To help general education students understand, organize, or recall important concepts or content, some teachers supplement graphic organizers with questions, study guides, small group discussions, or use graphic organizers as post organizers after content area reading is completed (More & Readence, 1984). Throughout graphic organizers' history, the uses of these strategies prove the effectiveness of graphic organizers with general education students (Fountas & Pinnel, 2001; Ausubel, 1960; Guastello, Beasley & Sinatra, 2000; Jitendra, Hoff & Beck, 1999; Fisher & Schumaker, 1995; Griffin, Malone & Kemeenui, 1995; Griffin & Tulbert, 1995). Recently, the question facing some educators no longer centers on whether graphic organizers are valuable instructional tools, but rather on how to use these learning devices effectively to meet the needs of students with special needs (Baxendell, 2003). In response to this educational issue, Baxendell (2003) suggests that «graphic organizers must be used coherently, consistently, and creatively» to be effective for students with special learning needs (p. 46).

There is reason for optimism that graphic instruction is more effective than instruction free of visual representation (s). A study on the effectiveness of graphic organizers in content area classes found that graphics organizers were more effective than self-study for students with learning disabilities, remedial students, and students in regular education (Horton, Lovitt & Bergerud, 2001). The same results were found in a previous study about secondary students with learning disabilities (Bergerud, Lovitt & Horton, 1988). Therefore, displaying information graphically facilitates comprehension among all types of pupils.

Graphic organizers are used in almost all content areas. They are used in Social Studies, Mathematics, English language Arts, Science, and so forth. For instance, they are used in English Language Arts to find main-idea-and-detail in a topic. They are used in Mathematics to review similarities and differences between the metric and customary measurement systems. They are also used in Mathematics for comparing fractions or to solve verbal problems (Baxendell, 2003; Horton, Lovitt & Bergerud, 2001).

The results from the various studies lend support to the notion that graphic organizers are valuable tools, and that displaying information graphically is more effective than instruction free of visual representation (s) of knowledge because students learn significantly more when taught with visual displays than when taught by a teacher-directed activity (Darch & Carnine, 1986). Furthermore, although each content area has its own special vocabulary and concepts that must be developed, there are many strategies utilizing graphic organizers and that some strategies are effective for general education students while others are effective for learners with special needs.

The three general principles (consistent, coherent, and creative) for the use of graphic organizers emerge from practice in inclusive classrooms (Baxendell, 2003). Would they also be effective for emotionally disturbed students who have learning disabilities? The result of this study may provide information that will determine whether graphic organizers and the three general principles for the use of graphic organizers help emotionally disturbed students who also have learning disabilities understand, organize, or recall important content.

Assumptions

According to Ausubel (1963) and McEneany (1990), when students are introduced to material for which they have little background knowledge, their learning and their ability to retain new information will be improved if they have a structured and clear method for organizing the information. That is, if learners have graphic organizers, they will focus on relevant information within a text or problem, build connections among ideas within a text or elements of a given problem to solve, integrate new information, and perform independently.

It is asserted that the use of graphic organizers will enhance learners' performance. Four types of performance are considered within the research: (1) skills in choosing relevant information (either most significant, or revealing some pattern) with an average of percentage of accuracy; (2) skills in building connections among ideas with an average of percentage of accuracy; (3) skills in integrating new information with an average of percentage of accuracy; and (4) skills in performing independently with an average of percentage of independence.

The assumption in examining the effectiveness of Graphing organizers is that graphic organizers or structured overviews function as a tool kit from which learners clarify, organize information so that new knowledge could be assimilated efficiently (Moore & Readence, 1984; Alvermann, 1982; Alvermann & Boothby, 1993; Herber & Riley, 1979; Herber & Sanders, 1969, Herber & Vecca, 1977). For instance, learners having difficulties learning new concept or solving a given problem will show improvement in their learning or in solving a problem and retain new information when information is structured, or arranged in a labeled graphic pattern because such arrangement will help them see the organization within a text or concept (Bromley, Irwin-DeVitis, & Modlo, 1995, p. 6).

Given students with multiple disabilities with low academic performance in Mathematics and Science, how effective are graphic organizers for helping them in the process of focusing their attention to relevant information in the text, building connections among ideas, and integrating new information, or connecting it with what they already know?

The researcher will seek data to answer the following questions.

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