Prior
knowledge
Assessing and making use of student’s prior knowledge in the classroom
Prior knowledge represents a decisive factor for learning success. How well learners can process new content depends largely on the extent to which they are able to link the information associatively with their existing knowledge network.
In this Refresh Teaching Event we will hear about and discuss different approaches to capturing and using student’s prior knowledge for teaching.
Zoom Meeting room:
https://ethz.zoom.us/j/577441230
Dr. Réka Mihalka
Language Center of the UZH and ETH Zurich
Lecturer
Dr. Elena Valdameri (D-GESS)
Dr. Elena Valdameri (GESS) is Oberassistentin at the Chair for the History of the Modern World in the department of humanities, social and political sciences (D-GESS) at ETH Zurich. In this Refresh Teaching event, she will show how students’ critical questions can be productively used to improve teaching and active learning. Her presentation will be based on her experience with a class made up of students from different fields.
Dr. Christian Pohl (D-USYS)
Dr. Christian Pohl (D-USYS) shares how they elicit student team roles with Belbin in their “Tackling Environmental Problems” course and use them for hands-on project work. In the course “Tackling Environmental Problems” 150 students in the first year of the Bachelor of Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich deal with selected sustainability problems of a region of Switzerland in this course. Using a concrete case, the students learn how to deal with environmental problems, from the analysis of the initial situation to the practical implementation of measures.
Dr. Réka Mihalka
Dr. Réka Mihalka (Language Center of UZH and ETH Zurich) uses the placement test in the Academic Writing Course as a form of diagnostic assessment. Students take the placement test in the first class, after which they are grouped in tiers in different learning areas on the basis of their language skills and familiarity with academic writing standards. This talk will outline the rationale for the use of this assessment tool and its implementation.
