Deeper Learning is A Lot Like Building A Snowman

As we begin to transition from Fall to Winter ?- the first official day of winter begins with the Winter Solstice on Dec. 21st - and children and families around the world begin the long tradition of building snowmen (Before ‘Frosty’: The origin story of the modern snowman); I began to think that learning and building snowmen is quite analogous.

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If you ever have built a snowman; what part do you start with?? The base right?? You roll out the biggest and most compact ball that you can and this serves as the foundation of the snowman.? Without a strong base, your snowman will not turn out very well, nor will it stand against the rigors of weather and changing temperatures.? Building a strong base, allows your snowman to take form and gives a strong foundation for building the successive sections.

From the base, you move up to form the body and the head of the snowman.? Progressively smaller than the base, these compacted snow balls are stacked one on top of the other to complete the body of the snowman.? Of course, the next steps are adding the eyes, arms, hat, scarf and any other features in all the creative ways that one can imagine.

??Snowmen and Learning??

When I was in college I took a philosophy class.? At this point in my life, I only remember two things from this class.? The first is how my professor, literally opened the first day of class, by writing, “PHILOSOPHY IS HARD!” on the chalkboard and then waiting in silence to let fear and the rigors of the upcoming semester sink in to all of us.? The other thing I recall, is the term, A priori, which means, “from what is earlier” and A posteriori, which means, “from what is later.”? While I can’t recall in much detail, I do recall writing a paper about this, and my key interpretation and application from this to education, is that students need prior knowledge in order to advance their understanding of a subject.

In current pedagogical speak, this same sentiment is summed up succinctly in the article, The Importance of Prior Knowledge,

“Prior knowledge is one of the most influential factors in learning (Ausubel, 1968, cited in (Hattie and Yates, 2014), p. 114). Whilst children may possess the appropriate prior knowledge, they may not make connections between this and the new content, hence the importance of prompting children to recall previous learning before the presentation of new knowledge (Howard-Jone et al., 2018).

??The Importance of Background Knowledge & Vocabulary??

When you think of the snowman, without a strong base, one can never create the body, the head, and all of the unique and whimsical additions.? It’s the foundation that allows for everything else. ??

The same is true for students and their learning. ?Students need a strong base in background knowledge and vocabulary.

Youki Terada in his article, Research Zeroes In on a Barrier to Reading (Plus, Tips for Teachers) shares how background knowledge is crucial to understanding a piece of text: “We short change the value of background knowledge, and leave young leaders without the vocabulary or the context.”? Education journalist Natalie Wexler concurs in her book, "The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System–and How to Fix It," by writing,

“Cognitive scientists have agreed for decades that the most important element of reading comprehension is knowledge and vocabulary about the topic.”

Simply stated, the amount and quality of prior knowledge that students have positively influence both knowledge acquisition and the capacity to apply higher-order cognitive problem-solving skills.

??Building Great Snowmen Starts With Background Knowledge & Vocabulary???

Educators?NEED?to build background knowledge and expose students to rich vocabulary. As a direct result of having a better understanding of the content students will naturally be more engaged, more confident and the academic discourse between students will be so much richer. And, when this occurs, achievement will follow.

??BrainPOP Provides A Foundation For Deeper Learning??

BrainPOP?is rooted in research & designed to meet the diverse needs of ALL learners, empowering every student to build essential skills (the base of the snowman). BrainPOP provides unique and equitable entry points for students to practice and apply complex, grade-level literacy skills while building critical content knowledge across the curriculum.?Making rigorous learning accessible to all students is what students need, and content and vocabulary are the keys that unlock knowledge for students of all backgrounds.

As we approach Winter and begin to move into the second half of the school year, let’s be sure that learning "snowballs" into empowering kids to shape the world around them and within them?by providing opportunities for them to gain essential literacy standards so that they can maximize their potential and achieve their goals.?The time is now to create equity and high levels of learning for all students.?

PS – BrainPOP has excellent movies on the topic of Winter, “Solstice & Equinox” that expertly explains how the tilt of the Earth’s axis leads to longer & shorter days, and “Winter” for our younger students.

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*The views and opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities within BrainPOP.