You can introduce KCF to your students in a number of different ways. Four are presented below. The last one, classroom dialogues, is the focus of this resource of the LearningGuide Advisor, but the others are mentioned to underscore that the introduction of KCF is a broader issue that can be approached in several ways. The dialogue format is a powerful and direct approach. It is one many teachers and students like, as it easily allows everyone to contribute and be creative. This resource explains how to use this approach to introduce KCF to the students in your classroom.

First, here are four different ways to introduce a KCF to your students:

1. You can introduce a KCF as part of a lesson where the function is needed for the students to master the lesson's academic content objectives. The academic subject area provides a context which serves as a point of departure for students to discover how this function, as a tool of the mind, can be applied across a wide range of tasks. This method uses what may be termed a 'contextualized' approach. In this approach, academic content provides the framework, or context, for the initial discovery and use of the KCF. Go to section B-4: Instructional Delivery to learn how to use this method to introduce KCF to your students.
2. You can use tasks that have been deliberately stripped of ordinary academic content to provide relatively direct access to processes of knowledge construction. An example of such as task, with detailed instructions for its use, is provided in section B-15: Teacher Resources under the heading Using Content Free Materials to Mediate KCF. This method uses what may be termed a 'de-contextualized' approach. In this approach, tasks are specially constructed to provide access to processes of knowledge construction with little or no overlay of ordinary academic content. The MindLadder Dynamic Assessment program provides tools that employ different degrees of contextualization. The range enables educators and students to more effectively set the KCF in motion within the academic modalities where they are needed to acquire knowledge and learn how to learn.
3. You can use mandated academic goals and curricular standards to frame the introduction of the KCF. In this approach, students analyze academic standards or curricular objectives in order to identify their underlying requirements for processes of knowledge construction. Findings may be discussed in small groups and further scrutinized in a whole group format. The method is sometimes identified as 'backmapping' an academic standard or curricular objective to identify its underlying functional requirements. Section A-5: Academic Standards provides examples of academic standards that have been backmapped to illustrate this process.
4. You can introduce a KCF using a dialogue format with your students. In preparation for using this format, look for a range of different situations that all require the use of the function you want to introduce. - You can consult section B-5: General Strategies for information about each KCF and how it can be developed. - Use the development of your examples as a way of sharpening your own understanding of the function and its applicability and significance.

Perhaps using one of the examples you identified, select an ordinary situation from the classroom or daily life as a context or point of departure for your introduction of the function. As you interact with your students, and they come up with different examples, gently move the dialogue from the factual to the conceptual and from the concrete to the abstract as a means of highlighting the brain tool you wish to introduce. Study the dialogues provided below to see how this is done.

With the assistance of the examples your students come up with, guide your students to an increasingly precise understanding of the KCF while emphasizing it is a brain tool they can acquire and learn how to use. Introductory dialogues usually transition into learning events from the subject area curriculum that enable you and your students to affirm the role, utility and meaning of the KCF you have just introduced.

Three dialogues are provided below. Written in a format akin to a small play, the dialogues are not intended as scripts but as contextually rich examples of the kinds of teacher-guided interactions that enable you to set the stage for the development of a KCF. Teachers use the prepared dialogues as a springboard for their own adaptations and lessons. Each dialogue is preceded by a brief summary of the meaning of the particular function and a series of examples that illustrate its application. The hotlinks below provide direct access to the dialogue for each of the following KCF.

• R-5: : Traces, Symbols and Signs - Dialogue Example
• T-10: : Ordering and Grouping - Dialogue Example
• T-14: : Establishing Relationships - Dialogue Example