To think outside of your creative zone, try collaborating with your colleagues on ways to improve your anticipatory sets. Find out what other teachers have used to get students interested in lessons and try them yourself; you never know what new ideas this collaboration could bring!
You can also keep a journal and document the anticipatory sets that have worked well. Be detailed about how you presented the information and how students engaged with it. Consider lessons your colleagues and mentors are teaching—how are they using anticipatory sets to activate student engagement and learning?
A good anticipatory set can be presented in many forms. We want students to be excited about the upcoming lesson, and we can accomplish that in various ways. Using topics they are interested in, real life experience or current events is a great way to build interest. Once we lose the interest of students for a lesson, it’s very difficult to get them back on task. If we get their attention by using anticipatory sets before the lesson begins, we are already on the right track.
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