ABSTRACT
This chapter encourages participants to examine why it’s necessary to access, activate, and connect to learners’ prior knowledge in their practice. An investigation is used to invoke participants’ prior knowledge and experiences with the subject matter in order to help them explain what they observe. The two most common lived experiences recalled by participants in the US are “salt causes ice on roads to melt” and “salt is used in making ice cream.” Some people also recall adding salt to ice coolers to keep their beverages extra cold. Categorizing is the process of identifying a new concept and assigning it to a known category to which one feel it belong. This process is an important learning mechanism, because in assigning something into a category, it inherits the features and attributes of that category. As a result, a learner can use knowledge of the category to make many inferences and attributions about the new concept, object, experience, or phenomenon.
