According to A Handbook for Classroom Instruction that Works (2012), questions, cues, and advance organizers are a way to help students access and organize prior knowledge and understanding of content.
Cues - reminders or prompts about what the students are learning
Questions - serve the same purpose as cues, but can be used to elicit basic recall of background knowledge, analysis, or connections to new learning
Advance Organizers - provide a framework to document prior knowledge about content and can be three different types of tools:
Expository - including words and pictures
Narrative - Stories that may connect prior knowledge to new content
Skimming - Students preview a text paying special attention to text features such as headings, subheadings, and diagrams
Learn more about questions, cues, and advance organizers
Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, and Stone (2012) offer some additional classroom tips to consider when implementing questions, cues, and advance organizers:
Focus on what is important - be sure questions that are asked focus on the objectives being taught
Use explicit cues such as directly asking them to pay attention to important information directly related to learning objectives
Ask inferential questions that require students to fill in the blanks
Choose a minimum of two videos to watch.
SQ3R advance organizer strategy
Advance organizer examples
KWL strategy
Making predictions based on picture clues and prior knowledge