{"id":700,"date":"2026-04-10T03:45:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T03:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobs.qalamscholar.com\/?p=700"},"modified":"2026-04-10T03:45:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T03:45:24","slug":"guest-post-using-knowledge-organizers-as-effective-study-tools-repost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobs.qalamscholar.com\/?p=700","title":{"rendered":"GUEST POST: Using Knowledge Organizers as Effective Study Tools (Repost)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

One of my approaches to teaching (and to work in general) is to impose organization and structure for my students. It helps to decrease uncertainties, but it also makes tackling tasks more efficient and manageable. While a structured approach can help with the general management of tasks, it can also be applied on a smaller scale, namely to studying itself. In a previous guest post (originally posted on July 11, 2017<\/a>), Helen Sharpe described knowledge organizers as a studying technique. She provided examples on how systematically structuring knowledge can be support comprehension and how this technique can be combined with other effective learning strategies. I thought it would be a good idea to repost her guest post and to remind our readers of this useful technique.<\/p>\n

\n

By Helen Sharpe<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Helen works at The Radclyffe School in Oldham as English AST and Lead Teacher for Literacy. She blogs <\/em>here<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>on the Teacher Toolkit blog<\/em><\/a>. You can find her Tweets <\/em>@Hdsharpe.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I read with interest this blog post on six strategies for effective learning<\/a> and immediately began to think about how knowledge organizers could be best utilized to encourage and explicitly model habitual use of these strategies in students\u2019 revision.<\/p>\n

According to the book Make it Stick<\/em>, “one of the best habits to instill in a learner is regular self-quizzing”\u00a0(1)<\/em>. I give my students self-quizzing revision homework from Year 7 (6th Grade). This activity is knowledge-based and informed by the contents of a knowledge organizer provided for them. For example (see below), on a Shakespeare scheme studying A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream, they are given a summary of the plot, key characters, important contextual information and key vocabulary (this is what Joe Kirby refers to as \u2018core knowledge\u2019<\/a>).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Then self-quizzing activity involves students reading the one section of the knowledge organizer, covering it up, and then writing it out from memory [a note from the editor: this activity might be even more effective if there is a gap between reading and retrieving!]. They then uncover the information and check it against what they have written, using a different colored pen to fill in any gaps and make visible the current gaps in their retention. This method involves students applying retrieval practice<\/strong>: number two on the list of six research-based strategies for effective learning<\/a>. and heralded as one of the most effective study methods of the list according to research.<\/p>\n

The next strategy on their list is elaboration,<\/strong>\u00a0and they define \u2018elaborative interrogation\u2019 as “ask[ing] yourself questions about how and why things work and then produc[ing] the answers to these questions”. For this study method, I added an extra page to the knowledge organizer with key quotes from A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream such as “she is mine, I may dispose of her, which shall be either to this gentleman or to her death”\u00a0spoken by Egeus in Act 1 Scene 1. The idea is that students will \u2018interrogate\u2019 the quotes as part of their revision, asking questions such as:<\/p>\n