Anticipation Guides
Anticipation guides are an easy way to get participants to think of what they know about a topic and then help them link new information to their prior knowledge. Anticipation guides are a list of statements related to a topic. Participants read the statements and mark whether they agree or disagree. Anticipation guides also help participants set a purpose for learning because they will want to look for information to confirm their initial beliefs or provide reasons to rethink them.
Writing anticipation guide statements takes some thinking. Good anticipation guide statements should:
- Focus on the information you want participants to think about (learning outcomes)
- Be based on information in the course materials that either supports or opposes the statement
- Challenge participants’ beliefs
- Be general rather than specific
Instructions
How to use an anticipation guide:
- Create an anticipation guide using 2–10 statements and provide a way for participants to mark their agreement or disagreement. The statements should relate to the learning outcomes.
- Ask participants to complete the anticipation guide independently. Then ask participants to discuss their responses with a partner or small group. After the discussion, give participants the opportunity to change their response if they want.
- Participants read and/or listen and engage with your interactive lecture with the purpose of finding information about the statements. They take notes as to where they found their supporting or disproving information and should be allowed to change their response if they want.
- At the end of the lesson or unit, conduct a brief class discussion and ask participants if they changed their position about any of the statements. Ask participants to supply specific examples from the course materials.
Example
An example of one statement in an anticipation guide that Abdalla Abdelmoez could have used in his NHI “Instructor Development Course” training presentation, “Impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)”, is shown in figure 18.
| Statement | Before | Notes | After |
|---|---|---|---|
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) mandates are unreasonable. |
T/F | T/F |
|
| |
T/F |
|
T/F |
Source: Abdelmoez (2018).
Instructor-Led Training
Provide a printed copy of the anticipation guide questions as a handout for participants to complete and then revisit at the end of the lesson or unit. Or create the anticipation guide using a free online form-building software and send participants a link to complete it online. You can display the results and use them as a discussion starter later in the lesson. Allow participants to take the survey again at the end of the lesson or course to see if any of them have changed their minds.
Web-Based Training
Format anticipation guide statements as on-screen questions at the start of a lesson or unit (for example, “Do you think/believe ….?”). Follow up with the question, “Why or why not?” Present the questions again at the end of the lesson or module with slightly different phrasing (for example, “What do you think now?” “Do you think/believe ….?”). Again, follow up with the “why or why not” question. Self-answered questions like these increase the level of active learning in an independent study or online course.
Web Conference Training
You can enter the anticipation guide statements as poll questions that appear while participants are waiting for the online session to begin. You can display the poll results and use them as a discussion starter later in the lesson. Re-post them again at the end of the lesson or module to see if participants have changed their minds.