How Learning Works: Prior Knowledge

I'm Brian Myers. I'm Mike Ratowick. I'm Becky Hiddad. And this is Alpelleons, a podcast featuring tips for Adteachers.

We are your agricultural education resource across the web, sharing research-based tips and tackling the tough questions facing agriculture teachers every day. Welcome back to our Alpelleons mini-series on how learning works 80 research-based principles for smart teaching. In our last episode, we talked about how prior knowledge can set the stage for learning. Today, we're building on that by tackling chapter 2, which focuses on how students organize knowledge.

And I don't know about you, this is one that I forget about all the time. I think it ties into some of the stuff we talked about in our intro, where, hey, here's the content. Oh, wait, I have to organize it. If I think about even some of the organizational things in my own life, it's things like, oh, wait a second.

I don't do it because it's going to take more time. I'd rather just figure out where it is. So that's what we're going to do today. We're going to really think about why some students can recall facts but struggle to apply them and how you can help them build stronger, more interconnected, mental models.

And so that's where we're jumping in today as we think about that crucial difference between isolated facts and a deep, usable understanding and why it's really key to turning your students into true crop pollensolvers. So I think starting out really in this idea, like this idea of prior knowledge that I think we even as I think about how I teach about it in college classes, I often think about how we erase it and how we move it forward. It can both help and hinder learning. And I think we sometimes miss the hinder part.

Yeah, I think absolutely. I mean, we start talking about prior knowledge. I think many times we probably jump in the classroom and make assumptions about where students are, what they know, what they don't know, without spending any time thinking about that. And to that point, not only knowledge, but also misperceptions, perceptions, preconceived notions about the topic at hand.

And so a lot of times, I think at least me as a teacher, I forgot about that and never explored that and found out where the students were at, what they knew, what those misconceptions were, what those attitudes are, GMOs as an example in sustainable agriculture. And so we can have students in there that are super in favor of that. We can have others that hear things at home or hear things in media that really change that. And so knowing where those students are, allowing them to have those thoughts, but then also building them out so that they can create some thought around other things is important piece of that.

So prior knowledge is an important aspect. My first thing when I think about this is in addition to working with ag and education teachers, I get to do a lot of work with the extension agents. And I think here's where our brothers and sisters over in extension probably maybe a little bit more tuned into this because for some reason, you know, in the non-formal setting with extension, we do it need to understand the prior knowledge or adult learners come in with experience, understand what that is. But for so too often, when we're doing the formal education in schools, we just think all of our students are on this assembly line and they all know exactly how all of this same experience is when they come to us and they don't.

And so I think we can learn from our non-formal friends in this idea of using prior knowledge as well. I don't know about you. I'm not just guilty of thinking that they all have this set of common experiences. I'm also, I can also be pretty guilty of thinking I know what those prior experiences are.

So I know exactly what you got in the class before. I know exactly where you are in your biology class and it wouldn't take me that much more time to ask, but it's not something that I always would keep front of mind as far as just, hey, where are we at? What are you doing in biology right now? What are you doing in some of these other classes?

Where, however, are you thinking about your role? Because I think that just, I think that was a really important, what Brian is talking about that because it's just really, how often do I just forget that I'm not my students? Well, that experience, I mean, they learn from biology in the previous classes, but they're also learning from life experiences. Like if you're going to teach about the wheat in the western part of the country, maybe that somebody took a cake out there and saw it at that particular time, or you're going to teach about small engines, maybe someone, this one of your students under a parent, run a small engine shop, it has that stuff that's happening there that they all bring in that experience as well.

I'm going to share a couple statements only to cause some thought. And I think if we as teachers took time to reflect, I think we could all find instances of both of these things happening. One, misconceptions can interfere with new learning unless it's addressed directly. And so, all of a sudden, learning can't take place if there's this disconnect between what I believe and what I think I know versus whatever that new knowledge is.

And so, you know, certainly that's a huge interference. And I think we can all probably point back to times where we didn't connect with students because of their misconceptions or their ideas or approaches around a certain topic. And then just the opposite then, activating relative prior knowledge and hands this comprehension. And so, if we can connect and help students connect new information to what they already know, their comprehension, their understanding, their ability to use that knowledge, new knowledge that they've created certainly goes a lot further along the way.

I appreciate you bringing misconceptions back. So, we got to take a deep dive in misconceptions a couple of seasons ago with the Help People Learn series. We got to really dig in on wrongness in those misconceptions. And if it's been a while or you haven't gotten to hear that episode, I think we'll spend a little time on it here, but we really got to take a deep dive into misconceptions a couple of seasons ago.

I definitely encourage you to check that episode out. So, I think in that vein, as we're thinking about, particularly the balance between misconceptions and prior knowledge, I think there's an important and or that's at play when we're talking about this. And it's both this idea that learning happens when prior knowledge is activated, sufficient, appropriate, and accurate, and that we're knowing our students and content. And when we sub or in for that and we get ourselves into some tricky places when we just, I think, and I think I'm often guilty of this, right?

Okay, well, prior knowledge is activated. Check. And I apply an or two that it's sufficient, appropriate, accurate. We miss the depth of where we really need to get with understanding our students prior knowledge.

That's one of those things I get hung up on from time to time, particularly maybe more so today than in the past. But, you know, we have to hang a lot of what the student learning around deep factual knowledge. And a lot of times we bypass the facts piece and we want to talk about these big concepts and we'll have you, but students still need to understand and know the factual elements and pieces around whatever the content is, biological principles, soil science principles, animals, whatever we're talking about in agriculture. So, even the math or basic science behind those, I had a student in my class who said, well, I expect them to come in with this math, like they need this math to do these equations.

Yes. So you might need to reteach that math. We might need to, we might need to give a reminder. Maybe it's been a while since they've done that math and it only takes that prior knowledge being inactive or insufficient or inappropriate or inaccurate to kind of throw off how prior knowledge actually helps.

It just doesn't take that much for prior knowledge to hinder learning. That's a big piece where there was, you know, all those things, they're really flums out, then it really becomes a problem then. So that's why teaching is a hard job, but a rewarding job because we get to do all those different pieces. And I think one of the other piece, particularly if we're talking about how people are organizing their knowledge and thinking about it, we probably don't allow students enough time to think about how they would or even allow them to reflect on how they would organize those concepts and how those concepts connect.

And too often again, we're thinking about just the facts, but how do those facts hang together? How do we think about animals and thinking about it from a systems perspective? Do we even take time? We talk about doing animal science curriculum for a year or semester and okay, we're going to talk about digestion.

We're going to talk about circulatory. We're going to talk about all of these pieces and yet we really don't put all those pieces together. And so helping students or allowing students that time to connect those doubts, I think is helpful. Well, I think you can bring another great point up, Mike, is I think about activating prior knowledge.

I had students, I remember teaching, but I knew them, knew their family, knew their situation, knew whatever and I knew they had experience in the thing that we're talking about. But if I asked them, I don't think about this, I'm like, don't you really, when you've done this and this and this, this is the same thing we're talking about today. And they're going, oh, so sometimes we have to really help them make that connection to activate it. And that's where this connect happens.

And for sure. Then what happens when you have a relationship, I think, with the students? I think a tough part of that is also helping them kind of then assess what they know to be activated, but then for both us and them to determine that it's sufficient knowledge for what we're doing. Well, I can well, yeah, I can, okay, show me.

Okay, no. That is not a sufficient prior knowledge for what we're going to be doing. And I think that do we give our students opportunities early to show us in that part knowledge that we've been attempting to activate? And helping them, I mean, I find myself in the classroom a lot talking about those principles and trying to connect it back with an analogy that to something that they know.

So if we're talking about animal anatomy, we might point back to something that human anatomy or pointing back to a biology class or someplace where they can, or they've seen it, you know, I think about soil profiles and soil horizons. And it's like, okay, you're driving down the road and you've seen, you know, this road construction, you see these different colors and it's like, oh, yeah. And so just helping them connect to those things that they might see and kind of the natural world is always helpful too. Yeah, which brings in not just enough, but appropriate prior like where have you seen this or where have you interacted with this?

How does this, how does this connect? And I think that's an opportunity for us as teachers to kind of step back. So we're not necessarily saying, here's the example. Here's where I've seen this before, but really kind of finding that way in to say, we're having used this before.

So that our examples really are connected and appropriate when it comes to prior knowledge. But we can have some really great examples of these concepts and these ideas. But if they are outside of what our students know, I think about the students that I got when we had our school gardens, who I have never planted seed before. I have never, like, I have never harvested a plant like it just was not even in like, so when we're talking in plant science or like introducing some of these concepts, they hadn't seen a plant that way.

It was only whatever was produced or ended up ended up at home. So thinking about how do we really reframe what we activate so that we are getting examples from our students' own lives? Yeah. I mean, I'm just thought of this, I don't want this analogy hold it on, but as you're talking about examples that have to resonate with them, we pick on the time, we talk about, well, I can't use movie references anymore because the students have ever seen these movies.

What does things happen? They don't get the movie reference, so they don't get the connection there. If they don't have the background knowledge, we don't activate that form and make that connection. It's the same thing that happens, it falls flat, it does nothing to enhance the learning opportunity.

So when we're talking about background knowledge, just recap, because we've talked about a lot of these pieces, we're thinking about how prior knowledge can help our head learning that there's this importance of it needs to be all of these things, it needs to be activated, sufficient, appropriate, and accurate to actually be helpful, but it can be hindered very quickly by being inactive, insufficient, inappropriate, or inaccurate. So it needs to be all forward to activate, but only needs to be one and to get in the way. That's a big job. I think we'll move it to this a little bit.

We talked about some things that we could potentially do into these areas, but Brian, you already mentioned how this is a big piece of knowing your students and your content and how you can teach the hack out of something and not have your students learn a day and a thing. Yeah, and that's the fun part because we get to deal with both the person and the individual students, but also with the content and bring those things together. It would be a whole lot easier to focus on one or the other, but by doing both, it's more of a challenge, but also more rewarding as long as we remember to do both of those. Absolutely, absolutely.

So we think about really intentionally working with prior knowledge. There are three key strategies that we want to leave you with as we think about that big job of making sure prior knowledge is activated, sufficient, appropriate, and accurate. The first one we're going to throw out there is talk to your colleagues. Your colleagues do not have to be in your same discipline area.

Your colleagues are in fact, everybody at your school, they might be other folks in your community, but really it's not to gauge the extent to nature, like actually sit down with the science teacher and where they are thinking, like, you know, it might not be something that you do every, like for every subject, all at once, maybe you say, all right, I'm really going to focus on science this year. Hey, science teacher, here are the concepts I cover. Where do these where do these hit and what does this look like and what should I be bringing in especially what should I be bringing in from last year? Yeah, I think it's a great point.

I just want to underline circle italics one topic, one class, one focus a year to do this because I think as a teacher, you're trying to sometimes add teachers, we have several different preps that we have to teach. And so if you're trying to do all those things at once, you're going to be fine, focus on improving one course and then build it to the next one over there and give yourself a patience to do that. And if you're at a starting point where you're at a point, you're going to say, oh my goodness, I can't imagine sitting down and planning out or like looking through my whole plain science curriculum with my science teacher, maybe just the next test if students really bummed a particular component. And then as you go ahead, you're not saying, hey, where should they be?

What should they know? Well, also giving some greater students that just because the material was taught doesn't mean they learned it. Men. So another strategy to just throw out there quick is this idea of brainstorming and concept mapping.

And I think this one can be a pretty low stakes way at the beginning of a unit to just have students start making connections. And this can be beginning of the unit throughout the unit end of unit where students connecting the dots between things you're talking about in class, ask them to make specific connections beyond the classroom. Where do they see this at home? Where do they see this industry?

Where do they see these things showing up in that concept mapping? Just let some illustrates in a different way to think about, okay, how do we let them how do we let our students really engage what's activated in terms of prior knowledge and if it's efficient and appropriate and accurate? This is a great suggestion, Becky. It's just one of the coolest things I ever did and I should have done a concept map really as this teaching tool to allow the students to illustrate their learning over time.

So, you know, so often we just did the concept map as a phase in time, but we remembered we started the unit and said, hey, do the concept map on this topic. And then every day, well, we were doing the lessons. If something changes, change your concept map. So they were able to see their learning change over time to their end.

So they had a map of like, here's what I think now. Here's what I thought before and I was a working document helping them guide their learning. So it's a great tool. That's a great way for them to kind of assess their own prior knowledge to when we think about those oars.

Like, oh, man, that wasn't enacted. Like they're not going to use these words, but it gives us that opportunity to kind of think about, oh, man, I thought that in years it was inactive. Oh, shoot, I thought I knew something about this, but it turned out there was a lot more to know. My prior knowledge was insufficient.

Oh, shoot, I applied that example. That was not an example of this concept that was in a hurry or just wrong. It was inaccurate and giving our students those visual representations and opportunities to say, how do these things come together? How am I thinking about this?

It also adds that metacognitive layer to our teaching that really lets our students do the work of assessing their own learning in the process of doing learning. So the last one kind of ties into that, but it's just this idea of using lots of forms of questions and really asking students to read something out. We talked about this in a previous episode, but thinking about in anything I do, how am I asking my students to essentially show their work or justify or test or make predictions and how do I just kind of build that into how I engage with my learners? Yeah, this is that idea really getting them to pop the hood and explain how they made, how they got to their conclusion, how they got there.

And I think it takes more time to go back over to that concept of time to do that, but really help with them through their thought process. It really is so much more important and sometimes I even get the right answer on those early, those simple questions because we have more complicated questions. I think this is a big thing in mechanics. I can remember looking like when I taught welding, when you had to do this well, why did you set it up the way that you did?

Why did you do this? Why did you do this? That's going to help you with the simple thing when you're going back and we're going to put together a trailer or we're going to put together whatever else feet lag. So you can think through which do I well first, what do you order to go into so you don't end up going to prom somewhere?

I think any of those as we think about that, those opportunities for students to justify their work or to reason something out, I think it sounds really great when we're sitting here in front of our mics talking about it, not like our co-hosts, like our show back customers. And I think it sounds like a great idea. I think what we also need to keep in mind is that can be really, really hard for students to do because often the way we have just let students go through school, I got the right answer, I move on. I got the right answer, I move on.

Oh, wait, I have to justify it, that's scary. That's tough. That's hard. We're going to think that also requires us to then take the time to set up an environment where our students can process that and can work through some of those things.

And so also recognizing that we're going to have to build some trust to be able to ask students to engage differently in our classes. So with that, those are kind of some ideas as we think about how students organize knowledge. We talked about strategies as we think about activating prior knowledge, talking to our colleagues, brainstorming and concept mapping, asking our students questions in lots of different ways and letting them get those responses in different ways too. So we think about how do we have them maybe, maybe they're writing this one so it's not such a public justification or feeling like a contrial.

So as we think about those and as we move those things forward, this is really stepping out of this idea that I'm just filling it up with facts but really helping my students build a strong interconnected mental web when it comes to what we're trying to do through our ag content. So when you see a student struggling to apply concept, it's probably a good signal that a piece of information is isolated and not connected to the broader understanding. In our next episode, we'll dive into chapter three that focuses on motivation and how to get your students to care about what you're teaching. We know you're going to want to be here for that.

So we'll see you next time on OwlPell at StepsForAgTeachers. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of OwlPell atse. Check out our website for more information on this topic and to learn more about our guests. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay connected and be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never miss an episode.

For Mike and Becky, this is Brian here by The OwlPell atse saying thank you and we look forward to seeing you again on another episode of OwlPell atse Tips for AgTeachers.