{"id":156,"date":"2022-04-25T11:44:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T15:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/?p=156"},"modified":"2023-08-28T14:45:59","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T18:45:59","slug":"jumpstart-student-engagement-and-curiosity-with-abc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/2022\/04\/25\/jumpstart-student-engagement-and-curiosity-with-abc\/","title":{"rendered":"Jumpstart Student Engagement and Curiosity with ABC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Meg Van Baalen-Wood<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/teaching.temple.edu\/sites\/teaching\/files\/styles\/featured_image\/public\/edvice\/8.png?itok=Si-KKkVp&amp;c=0e442fc8968f82343936be3e00567fd0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Early in my first semester of grad school, a mentor introduced what was then a counterintuitive teaching strategy:\u00a0<strong>Activity Before Content<\/strong>, or ABC. The strategy is simple: have students explore concepts and ideas before presenting them with new content. For example, before introducing a new concept, ask students to define it, drawing from their experiences and expectations: What do they\u00a0<em>think<\/em>\u00a0it means? What does it remind them of? How have they encountered it in previous situations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ABC can be used with equal impact in both face-to-face and virtual learning environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why use ABC?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>ABC has many advantages. Among them, it<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Engages students in active learning&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Enables students to retrieve existing information and make predictions about new information<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Provides opportunities for students to review what they know, or think they know, before piling on new information&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Creates a preliminary foundation for new content<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Encourages students to share both knowledge and questions with their peers<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fosters a classroom community that values socially constructed knowledge<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Positions you as a collaborator and member of the classroom community, rather than a sage on the stage&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How does it work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Many familiar teaching strategies lend themselves to ABC, for example,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Write or project a question on the board for students to answer before class begins. Using a polling application (e.g., PollEverywhere), share responses as they accrue in real-time or immediately after everyone has responded, so students can see what their classmates are thinking. As a class, discuss the responses; be sure to explore any misconceptions\/outliers as well as correct responses.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Start class with a one- or two-minute freewrite. Discuss students\u2019 responses as a class or in small groups before sharing them out with the entire class. In online classes, leverage asynchronous discussion threads for these small group explorations.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Create a low-stakes quiz that students complete in small groups at the beginning of class. Provide a few minutes at the end of class for groups to revisit\/revise their answers after you\u2019ve presented and discussed the content.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you get started, you\u2019ll think of many more ways to pique your students\u2019 curiosity, engage them in active learning, and create a vibrant classroom community with ABC.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Meg Van Baalen-Wood is from the Elbogen Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Wyoming.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcreativecommons.org%2Flicenses%2Fby-nc-sa%2F4.0%2F&amp;data=04%7C01%7Cemily.barber%40temple.edu%7C9016166dd73e424cfd6f08d9792e1d28%7C716e81efb52244738e3110bd02ccf6e5%7C0%7C0%7C637674061239428447%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&amp;sdata=YyyBV00c2SWFaBGLGU78rfIaSVPbR8RWLbYZr0X9k8g%3D&amp;reserved=0\">Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International<\/a>&nbsp;(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/teaching.temple.edu\/sites\/teaching\/files\/edvice\/CC88x31.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meg Van Baalen-Wood Early in my first semester of grad school, a mentor introduced what was then a counterintuitive teaching strategy:\u00a0Activity Before Content, or ABC. The strategy is simple: have students explore concepts and ideas before presenting them with new content. For example, before introducing a new concept, ask students to define it, drawing from &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/2022\/04\/25\/jumpstart-student-engagement-and-curiosity-with-abc\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Jumpstart Student Engagement and Curiosity with ABC<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29430,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-course-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}