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Strategy 1: Cognitive Interest Cues
What is it?
Cognitive interest cues are strategies used to engage students and have them engage with content. Educators can spark student interest by incorporating student background, real-life situations, or comparison metaphors. This strategy is often used as an anticipatory set when introducing a new topic. Beginning with a controversy, a riddle, or a discrepant idea or event will tap into student curiosity and spark internal motivation. In this way, “Curiosity Cues Learning”.
Why does it work?
Anand and Ross, studying 5th and 6th-grade math students, found that when lesson introductions incorporated personal student information such as friends, interests, or hobbies, those students not only showed greater interest than their counterparts but also performed higher on post-tests.
(Anand and Ross, 1987, as cited in Goodwin et al., 2023, pp. 16-17)
Psychologists and educators make a distinction between external and internal rewards. They've found that over time students who are externally rewarded begin to view school and learning as a chore. Educators who put a dominant emphasis on external rewards run the risk of sending students the negative message that "learning is a trial to be endured rather than an opportunity to be relished and enjoyed". (Goodwin et al., 2023, pp. 13-14)
How can I implement it?
Example 1
Activate Prior Learning to Create Knowledge Gap
Teacher, "You've all used money to buy things. But have you ever wondered how does money work? Why do we accept a piece of paper in exchange for goods and services?"
Allow students to speculate and give examples before leading into the day's Social Studies topic: How Money Works
Source: Goodwin et al. - ASCD - 2023, p. 19
Example 2
Use a Video
Briefly review, “Who remembers how we can tell if a word is a noun?”
Students should hit on the idea that a noun is a word that names a person, place, or thing.
“We’ll watch a brief video about nouns. As we do, I’d like you to listen for three types or categories of nouns.” Provide a graphic organizer with three boxes or blanks.
In the video students will see these categories: common/proper, singular/plural, concrete/abstract.
After the video have students identify the three categories and tell them we’ll be learning about each of them over the next three days, and today’s lesson will focus on common and proper nouns.
Adapted from: Hanson, D. (n.d.). Anticipatory set: 8 ideas for engaging students. Crafting Connections. https://www.crafting-connections.com/2017/04/anticipatory-set-8-ideas-for-engaging.html
My Authenitc Example
This example applies the Context Interest Cue Strategy to a 4th grade math lesson on area. The strategy is used as the Anticipatory Set as students evaluate the math skills required to solve area for an irregular shape. The strategy could also be used as an extension later in the lesson by adding more features to the room or in a later lesson by having students calculate the cost of using different types of flooring for the game room.
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