Building Background knowledge with Kagan

Building background knowledge is something we often skip over or forget about due to pacing and time constraints.  Often we want to just dive right into that days learning.  However, in an effort to both provide engagement on the new topic being learned, while also providing support for your English learners, it really is an important, yet simple step that we should take.

If you're looking for a cooperative learning structure to help you support building background knowledge when introducing a new topic, there are several Kagan structures you can use.  I am going to talk about just a couple of them here.  Like with all Kagan cooperative learning structures, these support learners at all academic levels, while also providing engagement, which research shows is key to student learning and success.

Three Step Interview
This structure is super easy and fun to use during Day 1 of the ELA Wonders curriculum when you introduce the new Essential Question for that week. In our Wonders curriculum, on Day 1 of each week it has us "Introduce the concept."  This is  where you could easily take the essential question/concept and turn it into a question the students can relate to, and then implement this Three-Step Interview process.

 For instance, in Wonders 5th Grade Unit 3 Week 4 the Essential Question is, "What benefits come from people working as a group?"  You might then pose the question to the students, "Tell about a time where you succeeded at something when working together in a group."  You would pose the question, and either give students time to think, or have them quickly write their thoughts down.  Then proceed with the Three-Step interview process.  To summarize, Partner A would ask partner B the question and then visa versa.  They would then pair up with the other A/B pair at their table and go around the table sharing not their own thoughts, but rather their partners thoughts.  A very quick and easy way to get students engaged, talking, and sharing in groups!

Jot Thoughts

Jot Thoughts is another fun Kagan structure than can be implemented in the beginning stages of building background knowledge of a topic or concept. Jot thoughts is a fun and  engaging way to have students brainstorm ideas about a topic.  For instance, in Wonders on Day 1 where you would introduce the topic, you always see the word web with a word (based on the essential question) in the middle.  It asks students to brainstorm words they know about that topic.  So in place of this, I will often use this Jot thoughts structure.  If we take the above mentioned essential question, the word provided in the word web for that week is "teamwork." So I will set a couple of decks of sticky notes on each table group and then ask them write down as many words, phrases, or ideas that come to mind when they think of "teamwork."  They are supposed to announce the word they're writing as they write it to prevent duplicate words.  You can then extend this Jot Thoughts activity into many other things.  For instance, once time is up, I will often times have the students work in their teams to categorize their words and develop names for the categories.  I then might ask them to do a free write about teamwork using as many of the word they can, etc.  It's fun, engaging, and gets students ready to learn more about the new concept that week.  Its also another opportunity to provide students with collaborative talk time, which supports ALL learners at ALL levels.

Additionally, this structure could also be used as a culminating activity at the end of the learning, to summarize what was learned about the topic!

Collaboratively Learning,

Megan Brown

megan.brown@omsd.net