Module 6 Activity 1.

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:

Edutopia Background Knowledge Strategies (Links to an external site.)

Strategies for Activating Background Knowledge (Links to an external site.)

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:

Wiki-Teacher: http://wiki-teacher.com/ (Links to an external site.) - Scroll down to see content

standards
Education.com (Links to an external site.) lesson plans
Teacher.org (Links to an external site.) lesson plans
NEA.org (Links to an external site.) lesson plans

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. 

A. Identify the name of the strategy

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?

5. Now chose a second, different, activating background knowledge  strategy from #1 or #2 that

you could use prior to starting your learning activity in order to determine what students know
about this topic. Repeat what you did in #5 above but this time with a different activating
background knowledge strategy. That is, you will complete A-C above for this second strategy. It
will be the same learning activity that you developed in #4 above. You may submit the answer to
#6 as a media comment instead of writing it out if you wish. 
 Strategies and Description of the Lesson
Find the Perimeter: Real Life Objects

In this activity, I will use a lesson plan available on

https://www.education.com/download/lesson-plan/find-the-perimeter/find-the-

perimeter.pdf to describe my lessons, activities and two strategies of activating

background knowledge in details. It consists of two parts.

Part I Description of the Lesson Using a Lesson Plan Example

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

Definition), Guided Practice, Independent Practice, Assessment, and Review and

Closure, totally seven major steps. The following is a brief description of the major

steps.

Introduction: Brainstorming and Walking Activities

The lesson starts with an activity, brainstorming on the vocabulary word,

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

calculations, one on a square, and the other on a triangle.

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,

corrections, and clarifications.

Assessment, Review and Closure

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

concept, perimeter, provide a summary and close the lesson.

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.

Part II. Description of Two Strategies of Activating Background Knowledge

A student’s background knowledge can influence his/her learning and

understanding of the content to a large degree (Friend & Bursuck, 2019). So, it is

imperative to activate students’ background knowledge. It is especially critical as a part

of INCLUDE procedure for students with special learning needs. In this part, I am

describing two strategies used to activate students’ background knowledge before

introducing new content. They are PReP (PreReading Plan) strategy (Langer, 1984:

Vacca, Vacca, & Mraz, 2013, as cited in Friend & Bursuck, 2019, p298) and Anticipation

Guides (Friend & Bursuck, 2019, p299).

PReP

PReP is a strategy that a teacher uses to determine how much knowledge

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

the answers by listening, or using a google form, or Kahoot. In Phase 2, students

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

knowledge of geometry, measurement, and shapes.

 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

since meter means the length of an object.

 Another possibility is that students did not know what meter is and did not know

what peri- is. So, they could be totally blank thinking.

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

small group instruction of review.

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.

 Perimeter is related to peri-, it must mean surrounding something.

 Perimeter must be related to plants.

 Perimeter may be related to geometric shapes.

 Perimeter can be calculated to get.

 Perimeter means a geometric object.

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

some assistive technology like text-to-speech.

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

ideas based on their experience and understanding of students to activate background

knowledge too.
 References

Alber, R. (2011) Are You Tapping into Prior Knowledge Often Enough in Your

Classroom? Retrieved on August 6, 2020 from

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/prior-knowledge-tapping-into-often-classroom-

rebecca-alber

Blackburn, B. (2017) 8 Strategies to quickly assess prior knowledge. Retrieved on

August 6, 2020 from

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