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The critical importance of activating prior Knowledge when it comes to online Learning

May 4, 2022

  What IS Previous Knowledge?  

For purposes of designing instruction, previous knowledge refers to knowledge that the learner has already stored in their knowledge bank prior to stepping into your new learning experience that the instructor is providing in your online course.

An informal method to consider this is to ask yourself:

      "What do students require to know to be prepared to, willing and ready to comprehend what I'm going to share with them?"    

In the event that someone signs up to take an online course One of the most important aspects they're looking for is the instructor's expertise in providing the correct prior knowledge at each step of their learning process, to reliably deliver what they are looking to see.

Jump into:

What is the importance of activating prior knowledge in education?

      What is the reason to focus on previous knowledge in your online course or learning program? Why does it matter?  

The prior knowledge is important since it makes it simpler, or more difficult, to help people learn the latest information you're teaching in your class.

  Without prior knowledge is unguided exploration learning  

In the event that learners do not have prior knowledge of the topic, they are thrown in a blind "discovery" education.

The majority of human life is a process of discovery that's unguided (otherwise referred to as "learning the hard method").

Although unguided learning CAN be enjoyable (for kids playing, or for advanced experts exploring the frontiers of their respective fields) , more often it is neither entertaining, fun, or particularly secure (as as in the current global Covid outbreak that has forced the entire planet in a bind that requires a long period of discovering and learning).

In the context in creating online courses individuals do not sign up to an online course in order to experience unguided discovery learning.

Studies have shown that unguided discovery learning doesn't work as well than structured learning when it is done when it is conducted online. The purpose of online courses is to give the user with a GUIDED learning experience, one in the sense that the creator of the course is able to create a path taking the user through the course from Point A to Point B. That's what people want when they take an online course: a reliable constructed, well-built, GUIDED journey.

A way to make sure that your course is well-constructed and provides guidelined learning experience is to incorporate the previous knowledge your students need at every step of the journey. So they will be able to follow a path that really does start from point A (their previous knowledge prior to beginning the course) up to Point B (the change they wish to see happen by taking the course ).

  Then... How do you do that?  

If you are planning to create your online course, it helps to "begin by putting the final goal in mind" with a system of reverse design.

If you start with an idea of the things your course participants can do in the course of the course's completion You can utilize backward-looking design to think through the prerequisite capabilities they'll have to acquire at every step that it takes to reach this learning goal.

Kinds of prior knowledge

  Essential and prerequisites for its use  

Educational theorist and researcher Robert M. Gagne distinguishes between two kinds of prior knowledge :

  • The essential or enabling requirements  that require prior knowledge that learners MUST HAVE to be able to comprehend what you want to impart now
  • Prerequisites for support  Prior knowledge that it would be useful to have to understand what you're currently teaching

Space for mental processing is hugely favored for online learning as contrasted to traditional learning in person, due to the complexity of navigation, the absence of instant feedback as well as the social isolation that is a result of online learning. Therefore, in designing an online course you may want to concentrate on acquiring only the essential previous knowledge your students need to have to achieve the goal (Point B) the course is aiming to provide.

Unhelpful, but not helpful prior experience prior knowledge

Previous knowledge can be beneficial if it serves as a base that can be used to create the next step in the learning process. If, for instance, one already has Latin, they have helpful prior knowledge for learning Romance languages like Spanish or French. Students of Spanish and French who have a basic understanding of Latin can benefit from the knowledge they have of language roots and rules of grammar that are applicable to the Romance family of languages.

If someone knows Latin and now would like to further study Chinese, Arabic, or Hindi The rules for grammar and vocabulary of Latin are not helpful to them. Applying Romance-language rules to non-romance languages leads to a phenomenon called "Language interference" that occurs when the incorrect prior knowledge gets in the way of developing new skills, rather than helping it.

If you were to teach Arabic as well as Hebrew to those who speak Romance languages, you'd first need to build in helpful prior knowledge by giving Semitic-language-related rules regarding word roots and grammatical structures, and also instruct learners to ignore their unhelpful prior knowledge of Romance rule of language.

If you were teaching Turkish to speakers of English as well as Arabic You would have to teach them not to follow the ineffective (in the context of this) regulations of both Indo European AND Semitic languages and instead teach pertinent rules that pertain to "agglutinative" languages such as Turkish and Japanese, that build words through "gluing" small units of sound and meaning on top of each other in order to create words.

When you've identified and eliminated (or instructed your students to ignore) their unhelpful prior knowledge, the next steps are to:

  • Build upon top of their useful prior knowledge
  • Fill in any missing essential prior information
  • Construct your course in order to give you the necessary basic knowledge step-by-step

Let's look at the most effective approach to implement all of these methods of activating learners' prior information.

Steps to follow as you build the right foundational knowledge for your online education programs

  1. Understand the prior knowledge the target group does (and doesn't) possess.

The tighter and more specific your subject matter is, the more uniformity is likely to be the quantity and types of knowledge that your students have about your class's topic. Understanding their previous knowledge will allow the course to be designed to be a success for everyone in that specific audience.

Another reason that it isn't feasible to create an online course that is accessible to "everyone," is that "everyone" has not the exact same level or amount of previous knowledge. So while it's true that it's crucial to "everyone" to consume a balanced diet but the details that go to eating healthy are distinct for Sumo wrestlers, macrobiotic vegans, athletes on endurance bikes, finicky 4-year-olds and those who reside in a nursing facility.

In order to identify the point of entry for your course (Point A) You must take the previous knowledge of your target audience into account.

Start by conducting market research so that you can gain insight into what information the target market has.

Then, analyze whether the prior knowledge you have is useful, or unhelpful, for the things you would like them to learn.

  2. Build on top of learners' existing helpful previous information

  • Step 1: Determine the purpose of your school, course or lesson (whatever size you're designing instruction at). It's "Point B" ... what you would like to bring about.
  • 2. Determine your students who have prior experience with the subject (that corresponds to "Point A" ... their starting point).
  • Step 3: Draw the most direct path which will lead you from Point A to Point B. This is the journey of learning that your course will provide.

Out of all possibilities to set up your course to take you to Point A to Point B What do you know which one is the easiest to follow? will be?

Course designers often find themselves stuck at this point in their course design process as they are armed with an extensive knowledge base of their subject matter, themselves and their subject matter, that it's impossible or difficult for them to comprehend the "the best way" is for a novice learner who does NOT share their level of proficiency.

A vast amount of subject matter expertise is, in a way, an incorrect prior knowledge base for structuring your course! (This situation is so widespread that it has a name, "The Expert Blind Spot". )

To overcome the blind spot of experts, it works both well and swiftly to depend on an alternative type of previous knowledge, based on Gagne's research into what types of people attain different kinds of learning outcomes optimally.

  3. Prior knowledge building across diverse areas of learning

This is how you can utilize Gagne's work to enhance and expand your students' prior knowledge, across the five areas of learning (verbal information as well as cognition strategies, attitudes and intellectual abilities (how-to) as well as motor skills).

Verbal information typically serves as essential prior knowledge to prepare students for more advanced learning that can be delivered in either the same course or one that comes later as a set of courses.

Verbal information learning helps learners make use of words to record and describe and so on. their knowledge.

In the world of online course businesses the majority of course makers use verbal information learning in the form of checklists, swipe file, along with short, informative PDFs and eBooksto serve to attract leads or offer free courses early on in an advertising funnel.

Information learning results that are verbal can range from the very basic to the extremely complex:

  • List
  • State
  • Describe
  • Remember
  • Analyze
  • Evaluate
  • Compare with contrast
  • Explain the significance of HTML0.

Basic verbal functions for information like list the items, explain, state and recall, are in the very beginning levels of Bloom's classification. More complex verbal functions, such as evaluate, compare and contrast, and articulating the importance of different factors as well as ideas are the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy.

For example, a very easy verbal course can let students list the names of five breeds of dogs. Let's call this course 1.

The more advanced course of the same sequence could help students to examine and compare advantages and disadvantages of different dog breeds to families with small children. This course is the second.

A more complicated course for veterinarians could have learners explain the significance of certain historical dog breeding protocols and the resulting health concerns that can be observed in all breeds at the genomic and the epidemiological level. This course is called 3.

In terms of previous knowledge, course 1 could serve as necessary prior knowledge for those wanting to take course 2 in the same online learning program. But course 3 has a different group, since veterinarians will know everything from course 1 and course 2 long ago and would not have the pertinent prior knowledge to what they want to learn online now at their advanced stage of expertise.

In analyzing the target market of any online course that you want to create it is essential to comprehend the level of your target audience's prior knowledge relative to the topic you intend to instruct. One of the most important aspects to market research involves deriving not only WHO the course is designed for (your specialization) but also what they already are aware of (their current level of information regarding the subject you're teaching).

  Learning to be skilled (How-to course)  

The initial step to mastering every performance ability (how to replace a tire, how to bake cakes, or make a million widgets in a day, without ever trying or even trying, etc.) is to learn the foundational theories or major ideas that are essential prior knowledge to master the skill.

You teach those concepts in the form of verbal instructions... therefore, it's often the knowledge required for a task (but it's not ENOUGH to master the skill... it's then that you must teach the actual action steps as well).

  Mindset alter your courses  

The most common knowledge required to change one's mindset and behavior, is a gut-level awareness of what DOESN'T perform. This is the reason why so many effective mindset change programs require that a person "hit low" before they can be ready to change their behavior.

Adopting the wrong mindset is an option that all students can make. In order to truly change to a more helpful mindset, one must have relevant prior knowledge about how to determine if adopting the wrong mentality isn't the one they want to make.

  Cognitive strategies courses (learning about how to learn)  

The key component in mastering a cognitive strategy (a method of "learning the best way to master" the subject), is practicing the technique... However, before anyone can try the strategy, they must learn how to use the strategy and how it works. Understanding how the strategy works is the fundamental prior knowledge they must acquire in order to implement the method into action.

  Motor Skills classes (movement)  

For a person to move effortlessly using muscle memory that is automatic the students must first have knowing the specific steps which comprise the routine. In order to teach a physical movement routine online it's essential to begin with breaking down the exercise into individual steps and teaching those steps one-by-one.

  4. Incorporating prior knowledge into various levels of education

  • Recall things they've been taught prior to (i.e., recall prior information)
  • UNDERSTAND the basic concepts and notions
  • APPLY what they've learned by applying it in practical ways (i.e. Utilize the prior knowledge)
  • ASSESS what they've learned (reflect on their prior experience)
  • EVALUATE the significance or significance of what they've learnt (put the prior knowledge in context)
  • CREATE something completely new based on what they've discovered (use the knowledge they have acquired to come up with something fresh)

If your learning objective involves higher level thinking abilities including analyzing, reviewing and/or creating something entirely that is completely new, ensure you've first incorporated the prior knowledge your learners require to achieve this goal within a prior lesson or earlier course. (The "Line of Understanding" from Learn and Get Smarter, Inc. offers a useful guideline to assist you in doing the above).).

Ask yourself to determinewhat among the five areas of education your goal requires  in order to organize the portion of your lesson where you present new instruction, based on the standards for the particular area of study.

The guidelines for setting up instruction are detailed on how to design instruction for each of the five learning areas, inside Course Design Formula: How to Teach Anything to Anyone Online, Chapter 7, pp. 151-160.

In order to incorporate prior knowledge into a course set up the course sections ( they are referred to as "chapters") in this manner:

  • Courses of information in the form of verbal (chunk of information with each chunk moving between lower and higher level thinking abilities)
  • Courses on Attitudes (wrong approach, the right one (role models, right way, wrong way, discover your why, support)
  • Cognitive strategies (explain the strategy, try the strategy, get feedback)
  • Intellectual skills/How to (foundational tools, concepts and steps to follow/fine tuning)
  • Motor skills (teach each individual movement/create smooth movement routine/practice/feedback)

  For the purpose of integrating previous knowledge into a course package or an entire online academy:  

Summary and conclusion

Having the right prior knowledge (and NOT having--or relying onthe wrong previous knowledge) is one of the most important factors in effective learning for all types of. Insuring that learners possess the correct prior knowledge is particularly important for online learning because it is more difficult for instructors to adjust and modify the material in real-time based on immediate learner feedback.

Understanding the prior knowledge they are equipped with, the prior understanding they'll need to comprehend what you're trying to teach, and how to incorporate this prior knowledge into every class, lesson, or bundle of the online academy is essential for ensuring your course participants' ability to achieve the transformation you promise.

What happens when you realize that your students require some prior information that you haven't yet provided to them in the course?

Your options are to:

  • Develop pre-requisite courses depending on the requirements
  • The learning process is a sequence in your course
  • Sequence courses in an assortment

makes it very effortless, simple and efficient for you to easily add an earlier section to an existing course, make new courses in order to fill any prior knowledge your learners need, or to create classes that build on one another in the form of an online school.

If you find something difficult for the students in your class to grasp, you should ask which Bloom's Taxonomy the learning goal requires, and then make sure you've not left out any prior learninginformation actions or stages of knowledge that your learners need so they will be able to meet that learning objective.

It's just not practical for an expert to say to a beginner, "Here's how I built an aircraft rocket using my 40 years of expertise in the field of astrophysics" Then jump straight to "Now you can build it!". The wildly imaginative example above is meant to serve as a reminder that learners need to begin a gradual trip, one tiny step at a time, so that they can build their prior knowledge each step of the way along the journey of learning you offer for your students.