Prior knowledge

Prior knowledge is the orientation basis on which knowledge transfer and the formation of new knowledge and skills rest. However, prior knowledge can never serve as a learning environment. Constructivists like to make a comparison with a construction site where students acquire their own building materials and instruments to build bodies of knowledge. However, students are not on a construction site, but in a learning place where masters not only give them the assignments to work on, but also provide them with the right materials and teach them how to use them. The developmental phase in which students find themselves does not yet allow them to independently form meaningful bodies of knowledge. They need not only the help but also the guidance of adults.
Prior knowledge and metacognition are very important for learning.

Prior knowledge is the foundation on which students build bodies of knowledge. To continue with the constructivists' workshop metaphor: a student brings his own tools to the workshop. The quality of that tool is largely genetically determined. Some students have better tools than others. For example, they are better able to retrieve knowledge at a relational level, while other students store the stored knowledge more in separate compartments. They have more difficulty than the first group in seeing connections between bodies of knowledge. This means that they have to allocate more working memory capacity to the basic level of the task they are working on. For example, in arithmetic they make less use of skills such as estimating and evaluating the probability of their answer. They are also unable to recognize the relationship between presentations when information is presented in different ways. They get confused because they think the different presentations contain different information.

A teacher is needed to show how to approach the material and how to best use their tools (cognitive abilities). By allowing the students to practice a lot, they gain new knowledge and skills. The material provided by the teacher must be composed in such a way that students can make optimal use of the possibilities of their mental tools. The teacher transfers the new knowledge and skills to the student. The student uses his tools to properly store and master that knowledge and skills. He learns to use his tools by handling them and not by being taught about them explicitly, at a meta level.

Prior knowledge must be used to build further knowledge. But education must ensure that students receive sufficient prior knowledge to become involved and interested in the subject. Teachers must be aware that for many students, prior knowledge is completely lacking, has been lost due to lack of repetition, or is based on naive or incorrect concepts. If you then take the students' prior knowledge or frame of reference as the basis for education, a group of students will immediately become demotivated. There are students who have some prior knowledge but do not remember exactly how it worked. They also quickly drop out. But the most difficult group are the students who enthusiastically work on their prior knowledge only to discover after some time that they were incorrect concepts.

Example

Third grade of senior general secondary education students  are working on the First World War in history. The teacher begins by asking, “What time are we talking about here?” Glassy looks. “Come on, we're working on the 20th century.” Finger. “2001.” “No, that's in the 21st century.” Here and there there is some buzzing and chuckling. “Okay, open your book to the page… So on. The eyes remain glassy and the buzz continues.
In the parallel class he starts differently. He reads a passage from “Good-bye to all that” by Robert Graves and shows an excerpt from “No news from the Western Front”. To his question: “How could this happen, do you think?” Opinions roll over each other.