NCMCS

Activating
Strategies
PD in Your Pocket Series
Learning Target
I can apply my knowledge of
activating strategies to
enhance my instruction by
linking/building background
knowledge to guide student
learning.
 Anticipation Guide of Your Knowledge

Before After
T/F T/F
A bellringer is an activating strategy.
An activating strategy can link to prior knowledge or
build background knowledge.
A video is not an activating strategy.
An activator should always be 3-5 minutes.
Activators should be mentally and emotionally
engaging.
An activator is a warm up activity that reviews the
previous lessons content.
 What are activating
strategies?

Strategies used in the Ways to spark mental and

Build on prior knowledge
beginning of a lesson to link emotional engagement for

to background knowledge higher order thinking

Activating strategies should take
10% of the total lesson time.
 Activators vs. Bell Ringers
Numbered Heads:
1’s What is the difference between a bellinger and an activating
strategy?
2’s How will using an activating strategy impact your lesson?

Activator Bell Ringer

Teacher-guided and Often times a review or
connects to the
lesson that is going
vs. activity for students to
complete when they
to be taught walk in
Why activate
Techniquestudents’
01 current knowledge prior to
instruction? Technique 02

Strategy Hattie’s Effect Size

Activate Thinking 0.75

 How do activating
strategies impact Teachers:

instruction?
❏ Assesses prior
knowledge
❏ Drives context
and relevance
of the lesson
❏ Identify
Students: vocabulary
❏ Provides opportunities for students to deficits for new
link and/or build on prior knowledge material
❏ Promotes higher order thinking
 Which One Doesn’t Belong
Anticipation Guide Bellringer (review)

Wordsplash Give One - Get One

20%
The average person only retrieves
20% after 31 days.
Activators promote retrieval.
 Types of Activators
Ask yourself if students should link to prior knowledge or build
background knowledge.

LINK BUILD
Brainstorm WordSplash
Categorize Anticipation Guide
Give One / Get One Multiple Meaning
Words

Activators should be 10% of total lesson time.

Brainstorm & Categorize
salamander
whale shark
lizard
pelican
Vertebrates
dolphins

Amphibians Birds Fish Mammals Reptiles

frog pelican whale shark dolphins lizard

Link
Anticipation Guide
Activate prior
knowledge BEFORE
the lesson, and
then follow-up with
summarizing new
knowledge AFTER
the lesson.

Link
 before link
WordSplash

plan
beginning

ACTIVATING STRATEGIES
vocabulary background
knowledge
hook
new learning

Link
Video with Questioning

As you watch this 2 minute video on our topic,

what are three ah-ha moments where you
learned something new about the topic? Build
 Activating Strategies
Continuum
1 2 3 4 5 6
No evidence of an Daily bell ringer Loosely Lasts longer Activates All students are
Activating connected to the students thinking actively engaged
than the first 5%
through discussion
Strategy lesson topic of - 10% of the about the lesson
questioning, and
Lesson Essential lesson topic daily (i.e…
content interactions
Question prediction,
instructional (i.e.. virtual field
reviewing, trips, read-aloud,
time
clarifying, photos or videos,
summarizing, etc,) demonstrations,
etc.)
Learning Target
I can apply my knowledge of
activating strategies to
enhance my instruction by
linking/building background
knowledge to guide student
learning.
 Purpose
● Mentally and emotionally motivate
● Link to prior knowledge
● Build background knowledge
● Preview key vocabulary of the lesson
● Provide an Advanced Organizer or map of the
concepts, skills, and content of the lesson
●
●
Hints
● Allocate time for this (approximately 10% of
total time for lesson)
● Link new content to prior content experience
they have had or a new experience with them
to hook the lesson to

Effective Strategies Is Not

.
● Are mentally active
● An announcement of what learning is going
● Contribute information or personal ideas
to happen.
● Use new vocabulary appropriately during the
● A list of the new content
lesson
● A warm-up activity that reviews previous
● Can connect new learning to current and
content.
previous knowledge
A picture is worth a
thousand words
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 CREDITS
This presentation template is free for
everyone to use thanks to the following:

SlidesCarnival
for the presentation template

Pexels
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