1. How will participants’ relevant experiences be drawn out and shared through the PD?
2. How does the PD give learners opportunities to ask each other questions and share best practices?
3. What protocols or structures in the PD allow the facilitator to gain a better understanding of participants’ knowledge and experience?
4. How does the PD design give the facilitator flexibility to modify instruction based on participants’ prior knowledge, experience, and needs?
Discovering and leveraging participants' prior knowledge accomplishes two major tasks:
It allows the facilitator to tailor instruction, helping participants feel seen in learning.
It allows the participant to be an active versus passive learner.
If we design the PD learning experience to help participants make connections between previously-acquired knowledge and the new content, we can increase the likelihood that learners will retain new information.
Linking new learning to previous experiences also helps learners revisit and revise their past knowledge, as they draw out incorrect information and clarify possible misconceptions.
Teaching adults is often just like teaching children. Adults need their prior knowledge activated first, too!
When you activate prior knowledge, the building blocks of understanding start to form.
Prior knowledge could take the form of life experiences or content knowledge.
“Every learner brings a perspective that is unique and valuable to the collective learning process. Our job as educators is to ask the right questions and foster an environment that encourages participants to share their ideas and beliefs so that we can all learn from each other.”
–High School Teacher
“One way to change low expectations for competence is to design a situation where the student who is expected to be incompetent will actually function as an expert.”
–Cohen & Lotan, Designing Groupwork: Strategies for the Heterogeneous Classroom. (2014)
Ahead of time: Observe and talk with relevant stakeholders about your unit content. What might participants already know? What might they already do? What might they already think? Additionally, you can send an intake survey using a tool like Google Forms!
During the session: At the beginning of a unit, host an icebreaker than asks participants to share a piece of information they know about the topic at hand. Pay attention and gauge their prior knowledge through whole group conversations, small group conversations, etc.
Culturally Responsive Teaching is..."An educator’s ability to recognize students’ cultural displays of learning and meaning making and respond positively and constructively with teaching moves that use cultural knowledge as a scaffold to connect what the student knows to new concepts and content in order to promote effective information processing. All the while, the educator understands the importance of being in a relationship and having a social-emotional connection to the student in order to create a safe space for learning."
Funds of knowledge refer to "historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for individual functioning and well-being."
Designing learning to be inclusive to different funds of knowledge welcomes the wealth of cultural and cognitive resources present in households and communities of all types.
Questions you might ask to understand funds of knowledge:
Why is it important to understand the background of my participants?
How do I find out what my participants' family backgrounds are and what funds of knowledge they draw from their households?
How do I use funds of knowledge in my PD session?
EXAMPLES OF FUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE
Agriculture & Mining → Geographic planning
Ranching → Horse training skills
Business → Appraising
Household Management → Cooking
Construction → Carpentry
Repair → Tractor
Contemporary Medicine → Midwifery
Folk Medicine → Herbal knowledge
Religion → Moral knowledge and ethics
"Fostering candidates’ awareness of their own background, as well as the diversity of their peers, helps candidates realize the wealth of experiences within a classroom and view diversity as an asset in a classroom."
– Oakes & Darling-Hammond. "Preparing Teachers for Deeper Learning" (2019)
