Supporting Background Knowledge is a UDL strategy presented in Chapter 6 of Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age. 

Key Concepts:

1.  New knowledge must be incorporated into existing neural networks and schema

2.  There is great variation in the amount of background knowledge that students bring to the classroom 

3.  Teachers can help with acquisition of background knowledge and integration of new knowledge

4.  Digital materials are useful for supporting background knowledge

In her Secrets of the Dance Unit, Colleen explores the question "Is it ever right to do something wrong?" with her grade two students!  She starts with a field trip to a longhouse to help establish background knowledge about First Nations culture and the practice of potlatching.  In the "anticipatory set" part of the lesson, she also has students express their personal views on a number of ethical questions. 

The "anticipatory set" section of the BC UDL LOR template reminds you to include supports for background knowledge.

Flickr CC Lyell Island Longhouse photo by sataylor

Teaching with a theme approach helps support background knowledge.  The 42explore section of the Eduscapes website contains themed collections in many subject areas.   Thinkfinity collects themed educational resources from a dozen other educational partner sites.   The educational staff at eThemes has prepared over 1000 themed collections of student-friendly links. 

Use simple pre-lesson assessment strategies such as red/yellow/green activity, I can statements, or KWL charts to informally assess background knowledge.  The Salmon Lifecycle Lesson for the SB uses a red/yellow/green activity to pre-assess knowledge about salmon.  Carmen's team is trying out a red/green card strategy.  Students hold up a red or green card to indicate whether they did or didn't know the answer to a question.  This gives the teacher a visual for informal assessment.

Brainstorming helps assess and pool class background knowledge.  The Salmon Lifecycle Lesson for the SB uses pictures to stimulate a brainstorming session to activate and share background knowledge about salmon.

Pre-teaching key vocabulary helps provide background information needed to comprehend a text, e.g. as in these 5 minute English lessons.  Use the  PWIM poster method to "shake" vocabulary out of a strong visual and then use the vocabulary in a number of categorization or sort and predict activities. 

The reading comprehension strategy "making a personal connection" is a way of integrating new information with previous experience.  (Education Oasis has a number of text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world graphic organizers and lessons.)

Embedding supports in digital texts helps support background knowledge, e.g. as in the CAST Editions.

The internet makes a tremendous amount of background knowledge available, e.g. videos,  dictionaries, encyclopedias, news, podcasts, webcams, simulations, and real-time data sites.

Use Text Notes, Sticky Notes, Voice Notes, or Bubble Notes in Kurzweil to provide background information.  Key vocabulary can be made into a custom vocabulary list.