My Version of the KWL

Prior Knowledge

For students that have some prior knowledge in an area that might come from TV, books, or movies, there are definitely some things that they will find to add to this category.

1 At a Time

Also, after trying this strategy with high school students many times, I have also found that only giving one of these questions at a time is much more effective. The students need to spend time thinking, writing, sharing and hearing the ideas of others before they go onto the next question. Giving all 3 questions at once, always resulted in the students rushing through the questions and putting as little time & thought into the question as possible. Developing the culture in your classroom of allowing students time to think and write before they share out, is also very important for this strategy to be effective. A classroom of students who know they have an allotted amount of time to write what they are thinking and know the expectations of the classroom, are much more likely to contribute to the success of this instructional strategy.

Sharing Out

Another mistake I made early on was telling the students if they were right or wrong about what they might know. Classic. For me, knowing the right answer was what I thought was most important. I didn't realize that my actions would put a damper on the conversations that I needed to happen in my classroom. Mistakenly, I thought teaching was about telling.

What I've discovered is that allowing the students to share what may or may not be true uncovers a multitude of areas to explore. In fact, this part of the strategy can take up your whole class period if you want it to. If you have time, let it. Let the students wonder, speculate, and drive their curiosity forward. Some students might even make a claim about what is really true and support with evidence they have from their prior knowledge. Now you're getting somewhere.

Harness Their Curiosity

This portion of the strategy provides something you'll want to learn to harness. Find an effective way to keep a record of student answers. Refer back to them when planning your instruction and extensions. Use them to connect to students in conversations. Brainstorm ways to work these ideas into your unit of study. Encourage students to explore these ideas both in and out of the classroom. Provide scaffolding like challenge boards or playlists for students who need a little extra push to explore on their own. Consider offering students time in class to explore as well.

In my forensics class, some of the things that students really want to know are things that can be found out by experimenting, developing models, testing them, and continuing in the iteration process. Those are the things I want to encourage and support the most.