Activators: Activity Structures to Engage Students' Thinking before Instruction

Activators is a collection of classroom-tested, practical activity structures for engaging students before introducing new content or skills.

Each structure is designed to elicit what students already know about a topic, to surface misconceptions, and to create cognitive hooks for presentation of new material. Many of the structures help students develop higher level thinking skills.

Each structure is fully explained with examples and step-by-step directions. Some lend themselves to use with individuals while others are better used with pairs, small groups, or full class. Most can be used at all levels with any content.