Setting the Tone and Activating Prior Learning

The first step in moving from telling to teaching is to set the tone at the beginning of the session. "What your learners see, hear and feel when they arrive sets the tone for the rest of the session." If you want people to be receptive to participating, then they need to feel safe. It is your responsibility to help them feel safe in this environment.

Activating prior learning presents the concept that we learn best when we connect new information to what we already know.
Activating prior learning can happen in many ways. Simple open ended questions can start the process. Be sure you ask open ended questions with no right or wrong answer. You could even start the class by asking students what they dislike about being called upon for an answer. The answer usually is:" I won't know the right answer to the question." Explain to them that you ask questions, you are not looking for a right or wrong answer.

The KWL format for activating prior learning; The instructor puts up a 3 column chart, with the following columns Know, (K); Want to learn, (W); Learned, (L). Ask your learners to jot on post its what they know, and what they want to learn and post their notes to the columns. They return to the (L) later to name what they learned

The author also explains the importance of warm up activities relating to the learning. Learners remember the most at the beginning and the end of the session. Thus for warm ups to be effective they should be linked to some degree to the topic that the learners are going to be studying. This type of warm up takes into account the principle of activating prior learning.

Do you have any suggestions that you use for activating prior learning?