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m6 Act1 Activating Background Knowledge
m6 Act1 Activating Background Knowledge
Jean Kang
1. Review the three strategies described in the text for activating background knowledge (i.e.
PReP, Anticipation Guides, and Planning Think Sheets): pp. 296-300
2. To get additional ideas, review this website with several strategies for activating background
knowledge:
3. Choose a topic to teach at the elementary level. (If you are a speech pathology major, choose a
lesson you might use in a therapy session to develop language and/or supplement class
instruction.) You might already have a topic of interest in mind to teach or you might use a lesson
plan that you found on the internet.
Some resources for helping you to choose a topic to teach are below:
In 1-2 paragraphs, briefly describe your lesson. Describe how long the activity will be (somewhere
between 2-4 hours over the next 3 days), how many students, grade-level, what are the objectives
and outcome(s). What is the direct instruction part (teacher-led) and the student-centered part
(activity[ies]) of the lesson. Your description will be thorough with supporting details. If you
choose a lesson plan from the internet include the URL of the lesson plan in your description.
4. Now chose one of the activating background knowledge strategy from #1 or #2 that you will use
prior to starting your learning activity in order to determine what students know about this topic.
B. Describe how you will use the strategy to activate background knowledge for your activity (in
#4 above). Make sure you include each step of the strategy, embedding your topic into the
description of the strategy sequence. Script the steps if need be. You may describe your strategy
in writing or by videotaping yourself explaining the steps.
C. Predict possible answers you might get after using this strategy. What will you do with the
information in order to make your learning activity successful for all students?
https://www.education.com/download/lesson-plan/find-the-perimeter/find-the-
This is a third-grade math lesson. The title is Find the Perimeter: Real Life
Objects. The lesson plan has Objectives, Introduction, Instruction (Concept and
Closure, totally seven major steps. The following is a brief description of the major
steps.
Perimeter. It is followed by a second activity, all the students in a line walking around
the classroom with one hand touching the walls. Though touching and walking, students
are supposed to acquire the idea about shapes, lines, length, and perimeter.
Immediately following the activities, teacher introduces the definition of Perimeter with
words that students can comprehend. These serve as the introduction for the lesson.
Instruction
As the major instruction, the teacher start to explain how to use math to get
perimeter. A rectangle is drawn on the board, the measurement of the four sides are
written at each side. And a student is invited to come to the board to explain how to find
the perimeter and if possible, calculate with the lengths and get the numerical value of
the perimeter. The teacher comments and explains the procedure again to clarify and
reinforce the concept and procedure, followed by two more examples of perimeter
Guided Practice
In the guide practice step, the teacher pairs up students as a work group. The
groups work on practice sheet which is color coded with sufficient blank space.
Students work on calculating perimeters for simple geometric shapes and basic
polygons. Generally, the teacher circulates the classroom to help students, or gives a
small group more intensive instructions during the time students practice on the
questions. And finally, in the step of Independent Practice, students give presentations
about their calculation procedures and results. And the teacher gives positive feedback,
Teachers often use the last couple of questions on the practice sheet to assess
students’ mastery of the content. So, the last two questions on the practice sheet can be
used as assessment. Teachers get an idea whether students have mastered today’s
content.
Review and Closure
Based on the results of the assessment, the teacher can reexplain the key
As an inclusive lesson plan, it also included strategies for English Learners (EL).
For example, as an assistive technology, the teacher can provide the definition and
images of the following vocabulary words: side, side length, border, and perimeter. For
the intermediate level of EL students, the teacher can assign them the group
discussion: use their own words to what perimeter is and how to calculate it.
understanding of the content to a large degree (Friend & Bursuck, 2019). So, it is
of INCLUDE procedure for students with special learning needs. In this part, I am
introducing new content. They are PReP (PreReading Plan) strategy (Langer, 1984:
Vacca, Vacca, & Mraz, 2013, as cited in Friend & Bursuck, 2019, p298) and Anticipation
PReP
students have about a topic and how much background information the teacher needs
to present so that students can understand the upcoming new content. In the lesson of
Find the Perimeter: Real Life Objects, the lesson plan previews the key concept of
Perimeter before its introduction. This can be accomplished in three phases. In Phase
1, teachers ask students to conduct a brainstorm to think what Perimeter is. Students
can either write down the answers or orally present their answer. Teachers can collect
analyze how they get their answer. And teachers can use this opportunity to determine
their depth of the prior knowledge. For example, students may say,
The word Perimeter has a prefix of peri-, which means about or around. And
meter is a unit of measurement for length. So, perimeter may mean that how long
is the total meter surrounding an object. Students may get only part of this. But
this means that they are on the right track and they have some background
As a second possibility, they may say that peri- means before, prior to, in which
case the students mixed up the peri- with pre- and gave a wrong educated
guess. But they may still figure out Perimeter is related to a geometric shape
Another possibility is that students did not know what meter is and did not know
With these answers, teachers can go on to Phase 3, where teachers clarify the
confusion about peri- and pre-. And explain what perimeter really means. As a result,
teachers have a good idea about how many students will need him/her to review the
basic concepts of Geometry, such as shapes, sides, length, etc. And if most students
did not have a clue of meter, or length, he/she would better to review intensively on
these background knowledges before the introduction of Perimeter. On the other hand,
if only a few students need to make up these knowledges, the teacher can just give a
Anticipation Guides
Anticipation Guides can help students activate knowledge about a topic (Friend &
Bursuck, 2019, p299). In this strategy, a teacher gives multiple statements about the
will-be-introduced topic. Students predict with their prior knowledge whether each
statement is true or false. This process catches students’ interest, gathers their attention
around the topic and aids their comprehension on the topic. For example, in the lesson
of Find the Perimeter: Real Life Objects, the following statements can be given to
students.
Perimeter is related to meter, and meter is related to length. So, perimeter must
mean length.
Students read these statements either in a pair, or individually and predict whether they
are true of false. Through their answers, a teacher can have a general understanding on
how much students know about basic geometric shapes and concepts and determine
whether to give an intensive review before the introduction of Perimeter. It also activates
students’ knowledge and positions them in learning the new concept, Perimeter. It is
worth to mention that students with reading difficulties may need accommodation from
the general education teachers, such as a small group instruction with teachers reading
aloud for them, teachers highlighting some critical words, and even with the help of
In addition to PReP and Anticipation Guides, there are many other strategies for
activating background knowledge, such as Planning Think Sheets (Friend & Bursuck,
p296-303), K-W-L Chart (Alber, R. 2011, Edutopia.org), Word Sorts (Blackburn, B.,
2017, middleweb.com), etc. And experienced teachers may be creative to use some
knowledge too.
References
Alber, R. (2011) Are You Tapping into Prior Knowledge Often Enough in Your
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/prior-knowledge-tapping-into-often-classroom-
rebecca-alber
https://www.middleweb.com/36652/8-strategies-to-quickly-assess-prior-
knowledge/
Find the Perimeter: Real Life Objects. Retrieved on August 6, 2020 from
https://www.education.com/download/lesson-plan/find-the-perimeter/find-the-
perimeter.pdf
Friend, M. & Bursuck, W. D. (2019) Including Students with Special Needs: A Practical
Guide for Classroom Teachers (8th Ed.). New York, NY: Pearson