VKP Glossary

	Click on the links below to explore the concepts:
	Active Learning Authentic Assessment Authentic Learning Cognitive Apprenticeship Constructivism Distributed Intelligence Inquiry-Based Learning Intermediate Cognitive Processes Learner Centered Novice and Expert Learners Peer Review Prior Knowledge Problem-Based Learning Scholarship of Teaching Uncoverage Understanding

Prior Knowledge

From: Shulman, "Taking Learning Seriously." Change, July/August 1999, 12.

We now understand that learning is a dual process in which, initially, the inside beliefs and understandings must come out, and only then can something outside get in. It is not that prior knowledge must be expelled to make room for its successors. Instead, these two processes--the inside-out and the outside-in movements of knowledge--alternate almost endlessly. To prompt learning, you've got to begin with the process of going from inside out. The first influence on new learning is not what teachers do pedagogically but the learning that's already inside the learner…. Any new learning must, in some fashion, connect with what learners already know….learners construct their sense of the world by applying their old understanding to new experiences and ideas.

From: Strategic Teaching and Reading Project Guidebook (revised edition). North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1995. http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/learning/lr1pk.htm.

Prior knowledge can be explained as a combination of the learner's preexisting attitudes, experiences, and knowledge:

Attitudes

Beliefs about ourselves as learners/readers

Awareness of our individual interests and strengths

Motivation and our desire to read

Experiences

Everyday activities that relate to reading

Events in our lives that provide background understanding

Family and community experiences that we bring to school with us

Knowledge

Of the reading process itself

Of content (literature, science, and math)

Of topics (fables, photosynthesis, fractions)

Of concepts (main idea, theory, numeration)

Of different types of style and form (fiction and nonfiction)

Of text structure (narrative or expository)

Of the academic and personal goals

From: John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking (eds.), How people learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. http://books.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/ch3.html.

One aspect of previous knowledge that is extremely important for understanding learning is cultural practices that support learners' prior knowledge. Effective teaching supports positive transfer by actively identifying the relevant knowledge and strengths that students bring to a learning situation and building on them.