Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning

by James M. Lang

Or you can always ask students to make predictions about new content based on their knowledge from earlier in the semester, from their previous courses, or from their own general knowledge. How Learning Works gave two quick examples of this: “Before asking students to read an article from the 1970s, you might ask them what was going on historically at the time that might have informed the author's perspective. Or when presenting students with a design problem, you might ask them how a famous designer, whose work they know, might have approached the problem.” In these kinds of questions, again, you are requiring students “not only to draw on prior knowledge but also to use it to reason about new knowledge” (Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett, and Norman 2010, p. 33). Ideally, you will both ask for the prediction and give them the opportunity to explain why they made it; doing so will require them to examine their thinking and might help them recognize fluency illusions. Even more ideally, after you give them the answer you might ask them to explain why their predictions did or did not hold true.