Activating Prior Knowledge and Building Background
READY
What do I know?
It’s vital for students to connect
their ideas.
Information can be recollected
from different subject areas.
Students can communicate
with their surrounding peers to
gather more information.
It is essential to give students
a way to connect their current
learning to what they have
already learned.
When we activate prior
knowledge, we bring it back to
the surface, and allow students
to more easily be able to then
connect the dots.
I can build background
knowledge by having them
stretch their prior knowledge
because they get to add onto
what they already know.
Pre-quizzes are a great way to
learn what they already know
about an upcoming unit.
SET
What new information do I
think I will gather?
I think I will find new ways for
students to think about the
content and activate their prior
knowledge.
Students have various learning
styles so with the video and
articles, I think I will find
different ways to connect it to
their lives.
Finding different ways in which
the content areas can be used
interchangeably to gather prior
knowledge.
I think I will learn new ways to
make sure that my students
are all starting from the same
point.
I will learn ways to use digital
experiences to build a
student’s background.
Students have many diverse
backgrounds. With this in
mind, I believe that these
articles/texts will help make it
so that I do not use specific
wording or visuals that some
students will not understand.
GO WHOA
What new information do I What questions do I still have?
have?
Teaching with Challenging Is there a benefit to
Text: communicating prior
There’s benefit to reviewing knowledge with classmates?
prior knowledge.
Misconceptions are vast and
Reviewing prior knowledge wide, how can students be
should be kept brief. reminded of them and be
steered away?
Building and Activating
Background Knowledge: What if a student’s prior
It’s important to address knowledge is a believed
misconceptions when they misconception? How do I help
arise and explain to students correct that without offending
what the real conception is them?
Misconceptions are essential Since students have different
to comprehending how people background knowledge, how
learn. can we get them all on the
same page?
Observe how students are
communicating with each other Is there ever a point where
about their prior knowledge to utilizing prior knowledge is not
ensure everyone is being important?
heard.
The Glue That Makes It
Stick:
Incredible significance that
background knowledge has in
learning new knowledge. They
even quote that all learning
involves transfer from previous
experiences. This means that
the more you know allows for
more
Prediction is also another good
way to assess students' prior
knowledge.

Provided a short list of useful

questions that can be asked
when checking for prior
knowledge.

When we discover what all the

students' prior knowledge level
is at, the teacher can raise
everyone to the same playing
field, so that they can all start
out with the same information.