Two-for-One with Anticipation Guides

You may have heard of Frontloading before. Its a term that is used to describe teaching strategies that can be used at the beginning of a lesson to help prepare students with the basic-level knowledge they will need to be successful in that day's lesson. These strategies are especially beneficial because they help the students anticipate what topics will be discussed in class and help them to determine a purpose for their reading, listening, and learning.

There are many different teaching strategies that help with frontloading, but the one that I want to share today is an Anticipation Guide (sometimes called a Prediction Guide). I really like these activities because they are easy to create, quick to implement, and can be used for both opening and closing your lesson. Here's how it works:

1. The first step is to identify the major ideas and concepts that the students will be learning.
2. Then consider what students might already know about the topic so that they can respond confidently to some items on the anticipation guide. Additionally, try to factor in students' ideas and beliefs that might be supported or challenged by the information presented.
3. Create the anticipation guide with 6-10 statements about the major ideas and concepts of the lesson. The most effective statements are those that the students have some knowledge about but not necessarily a complete understanding.
4. At the beginning of a lesson, students could complete the activity individually, with a partner, or some other combination. Just don't tell them the answers until the end of the lesson! This should be enough to spark some interest.
5. Now that they know what to look for in the lesson, continue on with your lecture, reading, activity, etc.
6. At the end of the lesson, have students revisit their responses to see where they were right or wrong, and determine why they were wrong (maybe with textual evidence, or by indicating it in a separate column like the second example below).

Sometimes it helps to see teaching strategies in action. Below are some examples of Anticipation Guides. Feel free to use them as a template!

Anticipation Guide Sample 1

Anticipation Guide Sample 2