Two Instructional
Approaches for Activating Prior Knowledge (
Author: Santosh Kumar
Biswa, Sr. Teacher, Damphu CS, Tsirang, Bhutan
Introduction
Students possess pre-existing knowledge, beliefs, and skills at a large scale that has a direct impact on their learning process (CMU, 2022). Learning becomes effective when students recollect what they already know to build initial knowledge for better access to the upcoming topic because it improves their academic skills (Ferlazzo and Sypnieski, 2018) and supports their memory and reading comprehension (Strangman, Hall, and Meyer, 2004). During the process, students are involved in processing their prior knowledge through the application of their existing knowledge to create new knowledge (CMU, 2022). Learning becomes easier if students correlate their prior knowledge. It enables students to make connections to the information that they are going to study and helps teachers provide necessary assistance to them during the learning process (Lee, Bottem, and Sanvik, n.d.). This paper discusses two approaches that can be used to activate students’ prior knowledge with methodologies and limitations.
The KWL Strategy
KWL strategy was designed by Ogle in 1986 with the intention to help students in the classroom recollect their background knowledge before starting to read any texts. In the acronym KWL, K stands for ‘Know in which students access and record what they know before the lesson, W stands for ‘Want to Know' in which students determine what information they want to know by setting a specific purpose for the lesson maintaining the focus, and L stands for ‘Learned’ in which students recall what they learned after the lesson through reflection and reviewing (ASC, 2019). During the learning process, students will be asked to use the KWL chart to organize their information in written forms. It enables teachers to track students’ preconceptions based on the particular lesson and derive their misconceptions. The advantage of this strategy is that it increases the retention ability of the students and they would be able to make connections easily with other different information (Strangman, Hall, and Meyer, 2004).
An Example to Demonstrate the Methodology in the Classroom
The KWL strategy is used most frequently in my reading lesson during the opening and closing of the lesson. It allows teachers to know students’ background knowledge before starting the lesson through the formulation of questions. Finally, students will be asked to record the information, they acquired with the help of KWL charts. During the process, students are asked to draw the printed KWL chart in their notebooks. The lesson begins with the oral discussion session whereby students write whatever they know about the new topic introduced in the ‘Know Column’ of the table. They are engaged in brainstorming ideas reflecting on the topic and identifying the knowledge they already have about the topic based on the categories of information (Strangman, Hall, and Meyer, 2004). Next, the teacher will promote a pair discussion activity whereby they discuss what they want to learn and list the questions or ideas in the ‘Want to Know’ column. Finally, students will be engaged in reading the new text, after which they will be engaged in sharing the information that they have learned with their group members, peers, or class. At the end of the lesson, the teacher will ask students to revisit the questions or ideas they have listed in the ‘Want to Know’ column and let them discover if they got the answers (The Teacher Toolkit, n.d.). Finally, students write the summary based on their learning in the ‘Learned’ column.
Limitation
Employing the KWL strategy in the classroom can be challenging for many teachers for various reasons because it is purely reader-centered. It is limited to the prior knowledge of the students and information shared by them can be sometimes incomplete or inaccurate which may result in confusion during their reading (Pennington, 2009). Alternatively, due to the lack of prior knowledge, students can skip the knowledge they just don’t understand or may directly copy it from their text, which defeats the purpose of learning (Brabant, 2014).
CONTACT-2, Computer-Assisted Activation Strategy
Contact-2 is a process-oriented teaching strategy that was developed by Biemans & Simons in 1996 with the intention of helping students away from face-to-face discussion. It is purely a continuous computer-based approach that provides a forum for students to activate their conceptions by searching for preconceptions (Strangman, Hall, and Meyer, 2004). Students can construct better conceptions for higher learning performance (Biemans and Simons, 1996) because they will be engaged in making the comparison and contrasting those preconceptions that they have derived with new information. During the process, they will formulate, apply, and evaluate the new conceptions to derive new knowledge from them (Strangman, Hall, and Meyer, 2004). This approach is as successful as the one that tee teacher-directed lessons get the success. The main advantage of such CONTACT-2 instructional strategies is that they provide specific support to the students as per the needs of individual students and solve their metacognition problems (Biemans, 1966).
An Example to Demonstrate the Methodology in the Classroom
Contact-2 is used in the classroom to process the expository text as this strategy engages students to perform desired learning activities to construct, change, and use the conceptions of the content (Biemans and Simons, 1996). This strategy can be used in the classroom following the five instruction models suggested by Biemans and Simons (1996). Firstly, the teacher will engage students to search their own preconceptions using the computer. After students complete finding their preconceptions, they will be encouraged to compare and contrast their preconceptions with the new content that they will learn. Here, the teacher encourages students to accentuate the crucial concepts focusing on the important elements from the conceptions they have and from the text. Next, students will then be asked to formulate new conceptions based on their comparison and contrast that they have derived based on the information from the text. Students present the idea question in different modes so that students optimize their opportunity to activate their conception (Biemans and Simons, 1996) followed by some monitoring questions to check their understanding. After the formulation of the concept, the teacher will engage students to apply their new conceptions based on their findings. Finally, the teacher will ask the class to evaluate their new conceptions based on the application they created while carrying out the previous step. The teacher must ask his students to repeat this process stated above twice for effective learning (Biemans and Simons, 1996). By following the above steps, the teacher will be able to make his students reinforce their ideas through the integration of the prior and the new knowledge (Strangman, Hall, and Meyer, 2004).
Limitation
Although this strategy is new, it holds its own limitations due to the time factor as it consumes much time. Moreover, if the students are not familiar with the central concepts in the texts, they may lack making meaning out of their conceptions as they lack former learning experiences. Students are mostly focused on the central concept of the text alone and there are chances that they may not concentrate on the information related to the concepts they are learning (Biemans and Simons, 1996) would result in the low performance of the students. Finally, the strategies will not be applicable to lower-class students as it is difficult.
Conclusion
Activating prior knowledge is a successful way
to help students excel in learning and gain confidence. They should be able to
make connections between prior and new knowledge during the learning process.
Thus, preparing students for such skills is crucial and the teacher should be
vigorously involved in inculcating such skills to their students. As a teacher,
to ensure that students share their prior knowledge comfortably and learn
through it, better relationships between the teacher and the student are
integral (Ferlazzo and Sypnieski, 2018).
References
ASC. (2019). Reading Strategies: The KWL Method. https://asc.tamu.edu/Study-Learning-Handouts-(1)/Reading-Strategies-KWL-Method#:~:text=Reading%20Strategies%3A%
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H. J. A. (1996). Fostering Activation of Prior Knowledge and Conceptual
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https://repository.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/2066/146341/mmubn000001_238538710.pdf?sequence=1
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226715983_Contact-2_A_computer-assisted_instructional_strategy_for_promoting_conceptual_change
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Lee, M., Bottem, D., and Sanvik, M. (n.d.). Strategies.
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Pennington, M. (2009). Problems with the KWL Reading Strategy.
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/the-dark-side-of-the-kwl-reading-strategy/#:~:text=Because%20KWL%20is%20reader%2Dcentered,may%20well%20confuse%20their%20reading.
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