filling the gaps and holes: building background for learners · filling the gaps and holes:...

Filling the Gaps and Holes:Building Background for Learners

Alicia Duncan

Filling the Gaps and HolesBuilding Background Knowledge

Alicia [email protected]

liveit2learnit.com

Today we will …• Establish an instructional toolkit for building

background knowledge.• Examine several anticipation guides using

three types of instructional supports.• Practice visible thinking strategies for building

background knowledge.• Plan anticipation guides that are differentiated

for various levels of proficiency.

Read each statement. Circle the number next to each statement that reflects your opinion. Share your answers with a partner and explain why you answered the way you did.

1 = Strongly Agree 2 = Agree 3 = Disagree 4 = Strongly Disagree

1If students lack prior knowledge or experience on a specific concept, they will not be able to completely understand the concept when it is taught.

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2Before introducing a new concept, it is important to consider a student’s cultural background in order to anticipate if he or she has enough background knowledge on a concept.

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3Before I introduce a new concept, I always assess a student’s background experiences and knowledge, and connect it to the new information.

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4 I always teach key vocabulary before introducing a new concept or text. 1 2 3 4

5The characters in the texts we use in class reflect diverse backgrounds and experiences to which my students can relate.

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Anticipation guides can …• Support learners with limited or interrupted

schooling.• Assess prior knowledge. • Provide explicit links between background

experience, past learning, and new concepts. • Guide students to make their own links between

background experience, past learning, and new concepts.

• Focus attention.• Encourage critical thinking.• Promote discussion/interaction.

• How do people usually feel about …? • Have you ever … (fill in blank with activity)? • Have you ever seen a …? • What would it be like to …? • What are your thoughts about …? Why? • What do you already know about …? • What are some things you wonder about …? • Look at the pictures. What do you think this chapter is about? • Look at the title. What do you think this story is about? • Does this remind you of other things we have learned about? • How is this similar to what we discussed yesterday? • What connections can you make between … and …? • What things come to mind when you think about …? • What do you notice about …? • What does … mean to you? • What do you think is important about …? • How would it feel to be a …?

Background Building Questions

• Questioning: Ask a simple question, “Who remembers what we did yesterday?” and solicit responses.

Charts: Make a chart of key information being studied and keep the chart as a reference. Call students’ attention to it as needed.

KWL: Have students create a KWL chart individually or as a class, and refer back to it during the unit. Check off things in the “want” column when they have been explored and add things to the “learned” column as appropriate.

Student Journals: Have students write down what they have learned in a journal or notebook.

Lesson Connections: Make explicit statements to connect what the students are going to study with what they have studied. Help students see a continuum of the content concepts and build a bigger picture in their minds.

Ways to Tie Prior Learning Into the Classroom: What We Already Know

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Types of Anticipation Guides• Before/after predictions (with varied

supports)• Exclusive brainstorming• Predict-O-Grams• Categorizing• Visible thinking routines for introducing and

exploring ideas


Plan Types of Instructional Supports

Sensory Supports Graphic Supports InteractiveSupports

• Real-life objects (realia)

• Manipulatives• Pictures &

photographs• Magazines &

newspapers• Physical activities• Videos & film• Broadcasts• Models & figures

• Charts• Graphic

Organizers• Tables• Graphs• Timelines• Number lines

• In pairs or partners• In triads or small

groups• In a whole group• Using cooperative

group structures• With the internet

(websites) or software programs

• In the native language (L1)

• With mentors

Lower Elementary


Types of Anticipation Guides

Before/After Predictions (with varied supports)• Exclusive Brainstorming• Predict-O-Grams• Categorizing• Visible Thinking Routines for Introducing and

Exploring Ideas

Exclusive Brainstorming

Used for:Building vocabulary for text, priming the brain, self-assessment Priming the brain Anticipating answers Validating predictions

Directions:Students look at the list of words and pictures with a partner. They circle the words they think they will hear in a lesson. Each pair shares ideas with another pair of students and adds new words to the list if needed.

Windmill Cowboy Airplane

Boomtown Factory Farm

Sod house Tenement City

Telephone Covered wagon Skyscraper

Railroad Homestead Automobile (car)

Hunger Gold Miner



Rural Mansion

Urban Areas Lot of land

North Upward mobility

South Suburbs

Industrial Revolution congestion

Migration fringes


Predict-O-Gram:

Used for: Building vocabulary before engaging in a text or a lesson Priming the brain Anticipating answers Validating predictions

Directions:Students look at the words that will appear in a text or in a delivered lesson. With a partner, students “pre-tell” astory or lesson.

Predict-O-GramGeorge cozy happy

zoo sleep restaurant

zookeeper curious kitchen door

not payingattention

street open

hiding scared spaghetti

hay climbed on

elephants bus


Predict-O-GramInternal energy Potential energy

Collision Solids

Particle Liquids

Molecule Gases

Atom Plasmas

Electron Vibration

Kinetic energy

Categorizing

Used for:Building vocabulary before a lesson Priming the brain Anticipating answers Validating predictions

Directions:Students use a word bank of vocabulary before a lesson and predict which category each term belongs in.


Elementary

World Languages


Upper Elementary

Types of Anticipation Guides

Before/After Predictions (with varied supports)Exclusive BrainstormingPredict-O-GramCategorizing• Visible Thinking Routines for Introducing and

Exploring Ideas

Visible Thinking for Introducing and Exploring Ideas

• 10x2• Zoom• Take a look (gallery walk)


The central idea of Visible Thinking is very simple: making thinking visible.

Alicia Duncan: [email protected]

• Dance ‒ chassé, pas du bourrée, … – Dancers are invisible.

• Sport ‒ double scissor, inside boost, …– Players are unseen.

• Thinking ‒ synthesize what you know about ….– Thinking is unseen.

• We watch, we listen, we imitate, we adapt what we find to our own styles and interests, we build from there.


When thinking is visible in classrooms, students are in a position to be more metacognitive, to think about their thinking. When thinking is visible, it becomes clear that school is not about memorizing content but exploring ideas.



10 x 2A Routine for Noticing Details, Listening, and Generating New Ideas

1. Look at an image or artifact quietly for at least 30 seconds. Let your eyes wander. List 10 words or phrases about any aspect of it within

two minutes.

2. Listen to another’s list of words/phrases. Look at the artifact again.

3. Repeat Steps 1 and 2. Look at the image or artifact again and try to list

10 more words or phrases to your list.


Reflections and Applications

• Think about things from multiple perspectives.• Use logic and knowledge to formulate opinions.• Articulate and defend positions.• Read and write at high levels with purpose and

clarity.• Apply what knowledge to solve authentic problems.• Work collaboratively with others for a common

purpose.


See–Think–Wonder Purpose:A Routine for Exploring New Ideas and Building Learning Purpose

• What do you see?• What do you think about that?• What does it make you wonder?



See Think Wonder





Zoom InPurpose: A Routine for Noticing Details, Inferring and Constructing

Ideas Before a Lesson

1. Look closely at the small bit of image that is revealed.– What do you see or notice?– What is your idea, hypothesis, or interpretation of what this might be

based on what you see? “What do you think about what you see?”2. Reveal more of the image and question.

– What new things do you see? – How does this change your ideas, hypothesis, or interpretation? – Has the new information answered any of your wonders or changed

your previous ideas? 3. What new things are you wondering about now?

– Repeat the Reveal and Questioning step until the whole image has been revealed.

4. What lingering questions remain for you about this image?


Take a Look

• Purpose: explore new ideas and generate purpose for learning.

• Use several images that students observe independently.

• Students share ideas/opinions.• Students synthesize information to predict

information before a lesson.




Today did we …• Establish an instructional toolkit for building

background knowledge?• Examine several anticipation guides using

three types of instructional supports?• Practice visible thinking strategies for building

background knowledge?• Plan anticipation guides that are differentiated

for various levels of proficiency?

ReferencesBuehl, D. (2011). Developing readers in the academic disciplines. Newark, DE:

International Reading Association.

Cantrell, S. C., Burns, L. D., & Callaway, P. (2008, December). Middle- and high-school content area teachers’ perceptions about literacy teaching and learning. Literacy Research and Instruction 48(1): 76–94.

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Washington, DC: CCSSI.

Forget, M. A. (2004). MAX teaching with reading and writing: Classroom activities for helping students learn new subject matter while acquiring literacy skills. Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing.

Holliday, B., Gilbert J. C., Marks, D., Casey, R. M., Moore-Harris, B., Carter, J. A., Day, R., & Hayek, L. M. (2004). Algebra 2. New York, NY: Glencoe/ McGraw-Hill.


Kozen, A. A., Murray, R. K., & Windell, I. (2006, March). Increasing all students’ chance to achieve: Using and adapting anticipation guides with middle school learners. Intervention in School and Clinic 41(4): 195–200.

Lannin, J., Ellis, A., Elliott, R., & Zbiek, R. M. (2011). Developing essential understanding of mathematical reasoning, pre-k–grade 8. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008, Spring). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy. Harvard Educational Review 78(1): 40–59.

Wade, S. E., & Moke, E. B. (2000). The role of text in classroom learning. In Kamil, M. L., Mosenthal, P. B., Pearson, P. D., & Barr, R. (Eds.). Handbook of reading research, 3: 609–27. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum

Wood, K. D., Lapp, D., Flood, J., & Taylor, D. B. (2008). Guiding readers through text: Strategy guides for new times (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

References

www.liveit2learnit.com Download anticipation guide templates

Alicia [email protected]

Resources


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