ABSTRACT
Activating prior learning helps students connect new learning to knowledge that they may already have about the subject-matter. As illustrated in Figure 6.1, Teaching For Historical Literacy chart, on the facing page, the first phase of historical literacy focuses on the getting learning underway. While effective learning is dependent on many factors, as Robert Marzano (2004) points out, what students already know influences how well they can learn new information. Activating prior knowledge, in turn, helps them store, recall, and process the new information they are learning. Teachers use a variety of activities to activate what students already know or believe they know about a topic. We will examine two of the best known, the Know-Want-to-Know-Learned (K-W-L) sequence and Anticipation Guides (AG). However, activating prior knowledge is less a matter of the kind of activity than the purpose for which it is used. Even the most traditional modes of instruction can accomplish this purpose.
