To teach an effective class, you must ensure your students enjoy it.
Curriculum
What I An Anticipation Guide?
To teach an effective class, you must ensure your students enjoy it.
One of the best ways to do this is by using an anticipation guide before the beginning of the school year. You’re probably wondering, What is an anticipation guide? – it’s a short series of questions designed to boost students’ interest in the subject you’re teaching.
Education resources
What Is An Anticipation Guide?
An anticipatory guide is designed to build student interest in a class, along with helping them connect the information they learned in the past with what you’re teaching them now. Here are three of the most important reasons why you should use an anticipation guide:
- An anticipation guide often provides myths and truths about your class’s subject.
- They can prepare students for the subject matter so that anticipation guides can boost student grades.
- They can make students more interested in the class, increasing grades and participation.
- They discuss some of the curriculum’s most important aspects, which help students prepare for the rest of the course.
How do you create an anticipation guide examples template for your class?
To create an effective anticipation guide, it’s important to consider the age of your students.
If you teach younger students, keeping the anticipation guide as simple as possible is important. In most cases, it’s best to keep the myths and truths fairly short. The list should generally be between four and six important key facts your students will learn in the course. This is especially important when teaching young children because younger kids typically have a shorter attention span than older children.
It’s best to read the shortlist of questions aloud to your students and ask them if they think the answer to the question is true or false. Each item in the list of questions should have a clear-cut true or false answer. Your students can answer aloud or mark their answers on a sheet of paper. After they answer each question, tell them the correct answer. You’ll often find that your students are surprised by the correct answers to the questions, which may improve student interest in your class.
How can you make sure that your anticipation guide is age-appropriate?
To create an effective anticipation guide for very young children, it’s important to use verbal information as much as possible. In addition, it’s often best to use images instead of written words in the anticipation guide itself because very young children typically have limited reading skills.
However, older children will have better reading skills, so it’s possible to use a list of written questions instead of imagery. Generally, it’s best to utilize exclusively auditory information and imagery for students who have not yet completed first grade.
Make sure that your anticipation guide is right for the subject that you teach
The type of content that you use for your anticipation guide depends on the subject that you teach. Here are some examples of how you can create anticipation guides for specific subjects:
- Language arts anticipation guides: Language arts anticipation guides may ask true or false questions about grammar or plot-line(s) in a book(s) that will be read during your class, but make sure that your anticipation guide doesn’t include any spoilers about books that the class will be reading.
- Social studies anticipation guides: Social studies anticipation guides should include true or false questions about key facts from the curriculum, such as important details about key events that occurred during the period your class will cover.
- Science anticipation guides: Science anticipation guides should include a list of true or false questions that touch on some of the curriculum’s most important principles or discoveries related to the subject matter.
How do you create anticipation guides if your students have special needs?
If one or more of your students have special needs, it’s important to ensure they can understand the material. For instance, if some of your students have a learning disability that limits their ability to read and understand written information, it may be best to give information about what’s in the learning guide by speaking to these students instead of having them read information.
In addition, you can alter the number of true and false statements, use color coding, or use simpler sentences to ensure that the needs of your students are met. Luckily, it’s possible to alter your anticipation guides to meet the needs of just about every student.
