The world of Knowledge Organisers is often a dichotomous one. Are you team ‘narrative’, or team ‘grid’? In this blog, Becky Sayers and Nathan Burns explore the purpose of both types, as well as their respective advantages, disadvantages and applicability across subjects. So place your bets, as the fight is about to start…!
Becky Sayers writes about the definition,
purpose, advantages and disadvantages of the ‘narrative’ Knowledge Organiser.
The ‘Narrative’ Knowledge Organiser
Why do we use Knowledge Organisers?
As a faculty, we have been using Knowledge Organisers for
around seven or eight years. If I’m honest, the original reason I used them is
because I was told to do so by a faculty leader in whom I had immense trust. I
did not understand their overall purpose and, as a result, the pages I produced
were fairly poor quality. However, over the years we have thought carefully as
a team about their purpose and, as a result, the Knowledge Organisers we have
produced as a team are much higher-quality and form one ‘cog’ of how we teach
Humanities to our pupils. As a faculty, we view Knowledge Organisers and
homework as a means of consolidating input from lessons. We rarely ever use Knowledge
Organisers in lessons, but rather show pupils how to use them as a means making
further meaning of what they have already learned and strengthening those memories
so that they have quick access to them whenever they need them in the future.
What do our Knowledge Organisers look like?
We use the ‘narrative style’ of Knowledge Organisers.
Although we sometimes use tables, we mainly write in bullet points and give
pupils a series of short sentences which concisely explain key facts and
threshold concepts. Over the last two years, we have also begun to use graphic
organisers, primarily flow charts, to demonstrate key processes or narratives.
This also means that we produce individual Knowledge Organiser pages for
sub-topics, rather than using a single page for an entire topic.
The content of our Knowledge Organisers is designed to be an
exact mirror of the content which is taught in lessons. We normally plan and
resource all lessons before producing the Knowledge Organiser. This allows us
to develop a list of threshold concepts and facts which form the content of the
Knowledge Organiser. In the past, when we have used generic Knowledge Organisers
or we have failed to adapt them year on year, we found that pupils didn’t see
the value in them, found them difficult to connect with what was being taught
in lessons, or found them overwhelming.
How do we use Knowledge Organisers?
Our Knowledge Organisers are mainly used outside of the
classroom or normal lessons. At the beginning of each unit, every pupil is
given a copy of the Knowledge Organiser and an accompanying ‘quiz booklet’ with
questions about each section of the Knowledge Organiser. Every teacher is also
given a ‘teacher copy’ of the quiz booklet which is pre-populated with answers.
Pupils’ homework then consists of a combination of answering questions for the
first time using the Knowledge Organiser or testing themselves on previous
quizzes from memory. We use the same structure for cover lessons (we have a set
of cover booklets and Knowledge Organisers ready to go), subject content
revision, and to help pupils with significant periods of absence to close gaps
in their learning. Essentially, we usually expect pupils to use their Knowledge
Organisers independently.
Why do we use this approach?
One of the main reasons why we opted for a narrative or
graphic organiser based approach, rather than the ‘grid approach’, was that
pupils almost always use their Knowledge Organisers outside of the classroom
and usually use them independently. As a result, we wanted to create a document
which would be concrete and which pupils could quickly connect to the content
they had learned and would learn in lessons. By giving pupils sentences, which
often sit the fact they are learning within a narrative, we believe that they
are able to more easily understand why they need to learn it. Similarly,
by using structures such as flowcharts or diagrams, we believe that it easier
for pupils to make connections between different facts, thus more developing
‘chunks’ of information and developing a schema.
Using flowcharts and diagrams also has an added bonus in
terms of workload: the vast majority of our input in History lessons is
complete through whole class reading. This is then followed by an activity
which is designed to check pupils’ comprehension of the text while also
allowing them to consolidate their knowledge. Often, this task takes the form
of a flowchart, the teacher copy of which can be quickly and easily transposed
into the Knowledge Organiser. Pupils get access to a high-quality diagram which
is familiar to them, and teachers can quickly produce high quality Knowledge
Organiser pages.
Possible pitfalls of the narrative approach:
As a faculty, we have now been using this style of Knowledge
Organiser for over half a decade. We have noticed two main pitfalls with this
approach:
-
Not using a format which limits space can make
it tempting to write bullet points which look more like paragraphs. This not
only makes it more difficult for pupils to access content, but also runs the
risk of including information which is interesting rather than necessary. Knowledge
Organisers lose their focus on threshold concepts and look more like miniature
textbooks.
-
Narrative style Knowledge Organisers take longer
to write. Writing them can appear daunting. However, this also means that
teachers are often loathe to edit or update them for fear that they will need
to essentially start a rather daunting task from scratch. Without a rigorous
continual quality assurance process and continual work on these documents year
on year, these barriers can lead to Knowledge Organisers become ‘bolt ons’
rather than complements to learning, defeating their purpose of consolidation
or ‘gap filling’.
Nathan Burns writes about the definition,
purpose, advantages and disadvantages of the ‘grid’ Knowledge Organiser.
The
‘Grid’ Knowledge Organiser
I’m a Maths
teacher, spreadsheet lover and a bit of a nerd. Is it any surprise therefore
that I’m a big fan of the grid type of Knowledge Organiser? However, there are
of course times and places for both types of Knowledge Organisers, and so
hopefully over the next few paragraphs I’ll be able to clearly define the grid Knowledge
Organiser, as well as the benefits and usability of such a document.
What is
the grid Knowledge Organiser?
So, the
grid type of Knowledge Organiser is fairly easy to explain. Information is
organised within tables and grids, often with two columns including details
such as key words, dates, definition, formulas and events. An example of how a Knowledge
Organiser in the grid format might work for Maths is shown below.
What are
the benefits of the grid Knowledge Organiser?
1)
A
grid type Organiser allows us to avoid the textbook-esque appearance of the
narrative type Organiser. With streams of sentences, paragraphs and an
abundance of text, a narrative type Organiser can be incredibly overwhelming
for students, not just with the sheer volume of text and not knowing where to
go on the Organiser, but also from a cognitive load perspective.
2)
Due
to the limited amount of text, the grid type Organiser is considerably clearer
than most narrative type Organisers. It is far easier to align boxed and grids,
making it not just more aesthetically pleasing, but again, simpler for students
to access, and also limiting the cognitive strain on students.
3)
As
briefly covered in the above two points, the ‘grid’ type Organiser is often
considerably less daunting for students to access than a narrative type
Organiser. With clearer boxes, headings and limited text, students are faced
with less text and clearer signposting as to where they need to go to retrieve
the information required. Of course, a narrative Organiser can have clear
sections and headings, but it will always be more difficult to access an
Organiser with greater amounts of content.
4)
Due
to the limited amount of text that can be included within the grid type
Organiser, it ensures that the focus on content within the Organiser is purely
on the key fact that we would expect students to memorise. It is crucial to
come back to this definition of the Knowledge Organiser – a document containing
only facts which we would expect students to memorise and recall at any given
point. By limiting the amount of text we can include within the Organiser, it
allows us to prioritise the key information that we would expect students to
memorise. Where limits are less of an issue in the narrative type Organiser, it
is easier to include content that we might not expect students to memorise.
What are
the weaknesses of the grid Knowledge Organiser
1)
It
can be considerably more difficult to link together knowledge using a grid type
Organiser. Where a narrative type Organiser has greater space for text and
sentences, in the very fixed nature of the grids columns, it is difficult, nay,
impossible to link together knowledge either within the Knowledge Organiser or
between Knowledge Organisers (I.E. with other topics). So where the grid type
Organiser is strong at keeping information limited and to the point, the
inflexible nature of its headings and columns makes drawing links and
comparisons impossible.
2)
One
major advantage of the Knowledge Organiser more generally is its benefit in
supporting students in catching up if they have missed a lesson, or where they
are completing a lesson without the teachers support – for example, in
isolation. However, and linking to the above point, the limited nature of the
grid type Organiser means that students who are purely using that Organiser to
support them in their learning will not have enough explanation or context to
the facts on the document in order to apply them to their learning. Where the
narrative type Organiser is based in context and provides links, it is more
useful to students working independently.
Where is
the grid Organiser helpful?
Where the
grid Organiser might prove useful may now be jumping out at you. Where there is
very clear and explicit set of facts to learn – such as key words and
definitions, topics and formulas, dates and events – a grid type Organiser is
the most useful way to present this information. It is far easy to present this
type of information within a table that it is within sentences or mis-aligned
boxes, anyway.
Where
greater context is needed, or slightly lengthier explanations, such as the
context to an event or such like, the narrative method of course is more
suitable.
Perhaps in
reality, the best Knowledge Organiser isn’t the grid type or even the narrative
type. Perhaps a hybrid of both, with tables used where appropriate, and longer
sentences and paragraphs used where appropriate, is the way forward? Horses for
courses, as they say!
Becky Sayers is a faculty leader for Humanities at a 11-16
comprehensive school in Wiltshire
Nathan Burns is a teacher of Mathematics and KS3 Assistant
Progress Leader at an 11-18 school near Nottingham.
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