Activating Prior Knowledge and Increasing Motivation
Like what we have been talking about since Intermediate block, Chapter 7 highlights the importance of prior knowledge. With prior knowledge students are able to connect what they already know to what they are learning. Therefore making learning more authentic. Page 191 in the text describes the three phases that teachers should go through to activate prior knowledge and increase motivation.
During phase one the teacher should interview an adolescent about his or her prior knowledge and motivation. Phase Two involves observing and interviewing teachers. Last but not least phase three calls for the teacher to compare results of the student interviews with results from the teacher interviews. Everyone should check this out because in order to successfully engage our students in learning we have to activate their previous knowledge and understandings. I believe one of the best ways to activate the students prior knowledge is to have them to complete a KWL chart. This informal assessment is wonderful when you want to quickly take inventory on what the students already know.
Every teacher should be aware of their students’ strengths and weaknesses. As we have discussed in one of the previous chapters different students may have multiple literacies so it is important to be aware of each literacy and to motivate students to succeed through each literacy.
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Hi Tezie, strong post as usual. I appreciate your direct reference to Conley's p. 191 for others to revisit. Just curious, it seems almost everyone is a fan of KWLs--do you think it's b/c they're easy to implement and more imp, how do you think kids feel about them?
ReplyDeleteI think they are easy to follow for both the teacher and the students. The organization of the chart helps to give students the visual aspect of what they know. I don't think its the fact that they are easy to implement because some students may not be familiar with KWL charts.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you stated about building on students prior knowledge. How would you interview students? Individually or in a whole group setting? How would you compare the results of the students interviews with those of the teachers?
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