Activating Prior Knowledge in Remote Learning: Applying Prior Knowledge Skills to Enhance

Analysis

David Beaver

Manhattan College: Education 403

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Abstract:

While observing and tutoring junior Social Studies students at Cristo Rey High School,

the challenges of remote learning presented themselves during every visit. Students who were

once achieving high 90s began to decline, and many educators wondered how they could help

these students improve their students' analysis of DBQs. Throughout the experience, I observed

classroom practices, and worked one-on-one with students, and realized the issue was related

to reading comprehension and applying prior knowledge. Together the students and I used

various prior knowledge strategies such as Brainstorming, Pre Reading Plans, and Mental

Images, applied to both secondary and primary sources to help students recall prior knowledge

and connect the information to the reading directly. The overall reading comprehension of

students increased, as well as their overall confidence to analyze DBQs.

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Looking at the Problem

Remote learning in the age of COVID-19 remains one of the most challenging and

difficult situations teachers have had to differentiate. Teachers must ensure that students are

well engaged with the material while at the same time ensuring students receive the same

levels of content knowledge to prepare students for the next level. I began working with two

Cristo Rey High School students, Ariana and Jackie, beginning the third week of March. Their

teachers informed me that both students’ pre-remote learning had been strong, both regularly

achieving scores in the high 90s. They incrementally began achieving lower and lower grades

during remote learning when I first met; students both had achieved grades in the mid-80s the

previous semester. I immediately began to wonder what the impact remote learning had on both

students? While examining their previous unit DBQs, the students showed immense prior

knowledge of the content and were eager to discuss their experiences with the material.

However, both students would regularly be deducted points because both students would use

their prior knowledge to answer questions rather than analyze the primary sources. Students

began to have difficulty connecting groups of documents in their analysis, which often resulted

in students deviating from the essay prompts. My research aimed to uncover remote strategies

to improve both students’ application of prior knowledge when analyzing texts.

Examining What I Know:

From my time observing and tutoring, I began to identify the challenges remote learning

has on students. The abilities for cooperative learning virtually remained a challenge for

teachers. Breakout Rooms in Zoom intended for students to talk in small groups to analyze and

share prior knowledge and understanding; often resulted in silent individual reading with limited

conversation. Even when my cooperating teacher entered the rooms to engage students, only

one or two students would engage. The lack of classroom engagement with peers has

unfortunately become a consequence of remote learning. Tutoring one-on-one provided

students an opportunity to engage and apply their prior knowledge to the reading. Likewise, I
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would contribute with culturally responsive prior knowledge I had to engage students further with

the material. Overall, as I began to examine the surroundings and problems faced by both

Ariana and Jackie, I recognized that I needed to discover more information about how to

activate students' prior knowledge to improve reading comprehension. Ariana and Jackie both

demonstrated throughout the sessions that they had the prior knowledge stored in long-term

memory; however, they had difficulty transferring the information to the working memory, where

they would apply it within their analysis.

Acquire Knowledge

In an attempt to better understand the problem I observed, I first began researching the

importance of prior knowledge and the impact of lecture seminars. According to Addison &

Hutcheson (2001) the demonstration of prior knowledge, as individuals receive sensory

information, the mind separates the two within the working memory between visual and auditory

information, this information is then stored in the long term memory, based on a hierarchical

network permanently; prior knowledge seeks to prime student learning by tapping into the long

term memory to enhance comprehension and analysis of the new sensory information (Figure.

1). Prior knowledge is a foundational skill in Social Studies classrooms, as our content

knowledge regularly relies on the concepts and discussions had in previous lessons. Addison &

Hutcheson (2001) also found a strong relationship between a student's prior knowledge and

their performance resulting from “people have poor memory for words, but good memory for

meaning” (p. 2-3). The emphasis on concepts and meaning, over words and quotes, is a vital

aspect to consider when developing my plan. Therefore, the activities should reflect the focus

on purpose rather than how they express their prior knowledge.

Once I received the foundational knowledge of concepts related to memory, I began to

search for strategies other researchers have discovered to help students apply concept-based

prior knowledge to reading comprehension. Massey & Heafner (2004) discussed how to

encourage students’ understanding at various increments of the reading activity, pre-reading,

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during reading, and post-reading (Table. 1). The pre-reading comprehension highlights the

importance of connecting prior knowledge to the current topic. According to Massey & Heafner

(2004), teachers should use one- or two-word topics from the reading; this allows students to

begin making connections to their past experiences with the word(s) presented (p. 30). The

process illustrated the theoretical approach of information retrieval from long-term memory into

working memory. The process is refined as students move as a class to explain how they

created a connection between their prior knowledge and the term (Massey & Heafner, 2004,

p.30). The process ensures that students appropriately retrieve prior knowledge related to the

readings, which allows them to elaborate and practice higher-order thinking.

During reading strategies, focus the student's attention on structure and relationship with

other texts. According to Massey & Heafner (2004), in Social Studies, students need to identify

the relationship between two or more texts; activities, therefore, need to facilitate independent

readers to compare and contrast texts (p. 35). Activities such as Brainstorming helps students

organize their background knowledge and new sensory information to help create physical

connections. According to Li, Wu, & Lin (2019), Brainstorming activities provided a more

effective cognitive strategy and reduced cognitive load stress for content-based lessons (p.

117). Brainstorming, therefore, allows students to retain more information in the working

memory, which would later be permanently encoded in long-term storage.

Another during reading strategy, regularly discussed in the research, impacted

comprehension when students create mental images to represent content-based knowledge.

According to Gambrell, Kapinus, & Wilson (1987), “Mental imagery is an unobtrusive and

natural text processing strategy that even very young and poor comprehenders know how to

induce” (p. 639). The universal benefit for students helps prepare differentiation within the

activity, ensuring that even students who may not be on the same comprehension level are

engaged.
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Post-reading strategies other researchers have implemented focus on monitoring

comprehension through questioning. According to Massey & Heafner (2004), comprehension

monitoring questions need to be beyond literacy-level recall questions and allow students to

“monitor reading comprehension through reciprocal questioning” (p. 36). The process would

require students to generate their questions and answers. According to Massey & Heafner

(2004), to produce reciprocal questioning, teachers should take the following steps:

1. Identify a section of text and prepare a few higher-level questions for each part of it. 2.

As students read, they are to think of questions they will ask the teacher. 3. After

students have read the text, they ask the teacher as many questions as they can think of

from that section. The teacher should respond without looking at the text. 4. When

students have asked their questions, they close their books and the teacher asks them

questions. These questions should serve as a model for higher-level questioning (p. 36)

Therefore, the post-reading activities help students critically improve their reading

comprehension. Students are prepared to work with exciting questions that explore concepts

beyond the surface of texts, such as biases, historical context, and motives.

Devise a Plan

Over the semester in Education 403, we have looked at various strategies to improve

reading comprehension and writing. Several of these strategies directly relate to the pre, during,

and post-reading comprehension strategies, which researchers identified as strategies that

increase students' application of prior knowledge. The first strategy, Prereading Plan (PreP), will

help students identify all the related prior knowledge held in long-term storage and transfer the

knowledge to the working memory. In the PreP activity, students will generate as many related

words, phrases, events that they remember from their prior knowledge. Following the list’s

creation, students will have to justify how their list relates to the central term. The PreP activity,

very similar to the research of Massey & Heafner (2004), highlighted the importance of pre-

reading activities to help students appropriately apply prior knowledge to support reading
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comprehension (p. 30). Students will then read a short article and then revise their lists to reflect

the new learning, including new words and revised justification statements.

Another strategy that I will examine is a during reading strategy, Photographs of the

Mind, which can visually incorporate students’ prior knowledge with the primary sources,

encouraging dual coding of both primary and outside sources. The final strategy we will

examine is Brainstorming. The approach combines both of the previous methods. Students will

read a short text, taking various breaks throughout the reading, and will be asked to develop an

image (picture, music, meme, favorite book, etc.) which they believe relates to the section of

text they just read. Following this, students will be asked to describe their images and how they

justified the connection between their prior knowledge and the new learning. This strategy will

help students practice applying prior knowledge within a reading activity similar to the research

found in Gambrell, Kapinus, & Wilson (1987) discussing during reading strategies to increase

reading comprehension (p.639). The mental image activity helps students recognize how the

mind processes information and generates relationships between prior knowledge and the new

learning.

Finally, Brainstorming will prepare students to structure an essay, allowing them to map

out how the grouped primary sources relate to one another and how the prior knowledge

connects to the given sources. For this activity, students will develop an outline combining the

learning from the previous texts with current texts to create a thesis statement for a DBQ. This

strategy will also mix the reciprocal questioning methods to encourage higher-order thinking

before developing a DBQ. This strategy is similar to the one used in Massey & Heafner’s (2004)

research using prior knowledge in post-reading activities to increase reading comprehension

(p.36). Brainstorming will also mix the reciprocal questioning methods to encourage higher-

order thinking before developing a DBQ.

I decided to examine how the use of all three strategies would impact the

comprehension of both students. Massey & Heafner’s (2004) research prioritized using some
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form of reading strategies at all stages of textual analysis (Table. 1). Students’ would be given

two different readings based on “Westward Expansion” and use their prior knowledge to

develop their analysis of the texts fully. Following the readings of secondary sources, students

would then have the opportunity to apply the new learning to analyze a DBQ: summarizing the

significance of each document and develop a thesis statement that best represents the “Causes

of the Civil War.”

Execute the Plan

The following weeks during the one-on-one tutoring sessions, I began to notice an

immediate improvement in the students’ ability to apply prior knowledge to the unit of Westward

Expansion. Student engagement with texts increased significantly from their previous work. The

most attention often had been during activities such as the PreP and Mental imagery activities

where student’s prior knowledge led the activity. To begin the activity, I asked each student to

think of as many words they believed corresponded to the central term “Westward Expansion”

and justify how the words connected to the term. As demonstrated in Appendix A, prior student

knowledge during the PreP activity allowed students to be more engaged with the readings and

interested in expanding their prior knowledge with support from the text (Appendix A). We then

read the text aloud, taking various breaks to discuss the significance of each section, and clarify

any unknown vocabulary. Finally, I asked each student to revise their initial justifications with

what concepts appeared in the text. When comparing the justification statements before and

after the reading, the student’s new justification improved to include supporting details such as

people, dates, facts, which become essential when developing DBQ essays.

The next activity saw students’ developmental images to represent concepts from the

text Westward Expansion. The students’ mental images ranged from music to meme images,

representing specific readings (Appendix B). Throughout the reading on Westward Expansion, I

would ask the student to take a moment to create an image (meme/music/movie/etc.) to

summarize the previous section. Students used their imagination to use pop culture in an
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academic setting. The activity presented another opportunity for students to justify and apply

their prior knowledge to enhance their understanding of texts rather than supplement

comprehension. The student’s responses to explain their images encourage creative thinking

and artistic expression within a Social Studies context (Appendix B). The creative extension of

the activity enhanced the students’ engagement and allowed students to increase their

comprehension.

Through Brainstorming, students connected their prior knowledge with the new learning

to develop a DBQ thesis. As demonstrated in Appendix C, students were asked to analyze their

previous understanding of the Second Great Awakening and the Market Revolution and draw

connections between the two concepts with the new learning from the earlier readings used in

Appendix A and B (Appendix C). The Brainstorming activity outlined the structure for a DBQ

essay’s body and helped students organize their ideas before writing the full DBQ essay.

Students were then given several primary sources and asked to identify the significance of each

text, similar to the type of question asked during the DBQ section of the AP exam. Each student

confidently applied their prior knowledge and the new learning from the previous texts to

develop their answers fully.

Overall, both students increased their reading comprehension of each respective text

and primary source during each activity. However, both students favored the mental imagery

activity over all of the strategies. Mental imagery adapted to be open to other forms of

illustrations which is self-conscious of the remote settings, and how newer generations

associate with images allowed for higher engagement. Unfortunately, the students have not

had the chance to develop a full DBQ essay with their teacher. Students reflect on their learning

following the three activities, all similar sharing responses of becoming more familiar and

comfortable with the concepts discussed in the unit of Westward Expansion.

Repeat Steps
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While the activities should have strong engagement and improvements, I believe both

students would benefit by continuing the activities in subsequent units. Likewise, students

should be tested and asked to complete a full DBQ essay to analyze the strategies’ success

thoroughly. Further research is still needed to examine various variables which may contribute

to the problem I observed with the students. Researchers should, in time, evaluate the three

strategies during an in-person classroom to evaluate the impact these strategies have on

reading comprehension.
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Work Cited

Addison, P. A., & Hutcheson, V. K. (2001, February). The importance of prior knowledge to new learning.
In 10th Annual Teaching Learning Forum, Perth: Curtin University of Technology.

Gambrell, L. B., Kapinus, B. A., & Wilson, R. M. (1987). Using mental imagery and summarization to
achieve independence in comprehension. Journal of Reading, 30(7), 638-642.

Li, C. H., Wu, M. H., & Lin, W. L. (2019). The use of a “Think-Pair-Share” brainstorming advance
organizer to prepare learners to listen in the L2 classroom. International Journal of Listening,
33(2), 114-127.
Massey, D. D., & Heafner, T. L. (2004). Promoting reading comprehension in social studies. Journal of
Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 48(1), 26-40.
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Appendix A: PreP activity

Westward Expansion:
Brainstorm Concepts Reasons

Manifest Destiny - Belief that it was Americans purpose

to expand land

Mexican War - One of the effects of Expanding West

Indian Removal (Trail of Tears) - Prior example of Americans

expanding West

Migration - A lot of people moved to the US while

Americans were expanding west

Reading: https://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion/manifest-destiny

Westward Expansion:
Brainstorm Concepts Reasons

Manifest Destiny - Originated in 1845

- Democrats
- Idea that the US is destined by God to
justify native removal and colonization
- National unity
- “Manifest Destiny” in reference to the
Oregon territory
- Idea of Manifest destiny lead to War
with Mexico and mistreatment of
Native americans
- Many believed that the US should
expand all the way to the pacific
ocean

Mexican War - Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended

the Mexican-American War
- In 1830 Mexico passed a law
prohibiting US immigration to texas
- Andrew Jackson and Martin Van
Buren feared war with Mexico
because they considered that the
annexation was tied to the expansion
on slavery in the South

Indian Removal (Trail of Tears) - Mistreatment of Native Americans

- Dislocation of Native Americans

Migration - Outburst of immigrants from 5 million

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to 23 million by 1823
- Economic depressions were also a
factor of immigration
- Americans immigrated West
searching for new opportunities and
new land
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Appendix B: Mental Images

https://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion

Create an image of the excerpt (drawing, memes, music, etc.) that came to your mind after
listening to the excerpt.
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*music/ movies can be used

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hajfdGmtZI4&ab_channel=nurakid

How do these pictures help you understand what’s happening in the story?

1st Image: It reminded me of the Mexican people fighting back and not backing down for their
independence. Now they can trade with more people. Spain is obviously the cat in this situation
since they are put in their space.

2nd Image: It reminded me of the Native Americans/Indians that scouted along the routes and
there were some that invaded fellow travelers.

3rd Image: This reminded me of Bent’s fort in two ways. Bernie could represent William Bent
watching his trading post being burned down to the ground on multiple occasions. Or Bernie is
the actual fort feeling unappreciated.

4th Example: This movie reminded me of the growing tension between Americans and
Mexicans over the land that the Americans were so greedy for. In the movie, the parents are
eager for the frats to leave the neighborhood just as Americans were to the Mexicans. *Spoiler
Warning* In the end, parents won with devious plans as did Americans.

5th Example: The movie Wall-E reminds me of the Santa Trail being forgotten and unused after
time passes. This is because after all the humans left Earth due to all the trash, the next
generation of humans forgot about Earth and the ship they were living in became their new way
of life as the new inventions in America became America’s new way of going about.

Appendix C: Brainstorming
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