Activating prior knowledge allows students to think about or recall what they already know. An excellent strategy strategy that the book suggests for doing this is the K-W-L. With this strategy, students tell what they know about a topic, what they want to know about it, and after discussing it, what they have learned about it. Teachers have to explain to students how it works in order to activate prior knowledge. I think prior knowledge should be activated because students build on what they already know. They have to have something to relate new information to in order to retain it.
I also like the priciple Present Content in Interesting Ways as a means of increasing motivation. The author states that, "Content is interesting when it is accompanied by engaging activities." That is so true. I can remember back when I was in elementary school when we had to read all of those stories from our reading textbook. The teacher did nothing to make it engaging. I only got excited about reading the plays. She assigned roles to my classmates and me, and it seemed like everyone was eager to read. It was only when I was interacting with the text that I enjoyed reading it. The content was presented in an engaging way to me, and I appreciated reading the stories in which roles were assigned so much more than the others.
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I also agree with having engaging activities to motivate students because that is what is going to stick in their minds when it is test time or recall time. I love my teacher that I follow at South Forrest because he engages his students in all of the lessons that he teaches. For example, when he taught a lesson on Mexico, he had the students to dress up Mexican style on one day, bring a Mexican dish on another day, and do their reports on the last day. In math, he introduced his lesson by showing a clip of Chris Brown demonstrating that same lesson and then dancing at the end. What kid wouldn't like and remember what Chris Brown did(and I don't mean beating Rihanna, which is what one boy said at the end of the clip)? Now, that's engaging! In thinking about your elementary teacher, what are some ways that you would engage your students or what should she have done to physically make it more engaging to you?
ReplyDeleteI believe activating prior knowledge is essential in learning. Not only does it allow teachers to see what students know, it also allows students to interact with each other and discover interesting things that they may not have known. Motivation is also key in learning and can be increased by using the information gained from retrieving prior knowledge from students. Your example about your classroom readings made me think about my elementary days. I, too, disliked reading when it was not engaging. As you mentioned, I enjoyed reading plays because I was able to take on the role of that character. It was fun and motivated me to actually pay attention to what was going on. What do you think teachers should do for students like us, who are uniterested in the text?
ReplyDeleteKWL charts are a great way to activate prior knowledge. Like you said, the students write down their background knowledge of a topic, their questions about the topic, then what they have learned. By doing this, the students have to consider everything they already know about a topic, which is a great way to activate prior knowledge. Then, when the students write down questions about what they want to learn, it guides their reading and allows them to explore a topic, rather than simply reading a passage. It gives the students something to search for. And because the questions are student-generated, the students will be engaged in what they are learning. Lastly, when students write down what they have learned after a lesson, it is a way for them to monitor their own learning. It allows students to visually see what they have learned. It also teaches students that if they have questions, they can seek out their answers through studying and learning, rather than asking a parent or a teacher.
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