4. Students need to get their mental processes and memories warmed up before learning new material. I call this "Priming the Pump".

"Prime" students for the learning experience before an input activity by:
- Asking questions to help students identify what they already know about the content
- Providing students with direct links between new content and old content
- Providing students with ways of organizing the new content or thinking about the new content
"What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action", Robert J. Marzano, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development ( 2003 )

As teachers, we are already mentally warmed up at the start of a lesson. We've been thinking about and planning the lesson for some time and we know we have to be mentally primed and energized when we entire the classroom. That's not true about our students. Depending on how they feel about us and our subject, and depending what they experienced before they enter the class, there's a good chance their brains are at a low energy level.

We need to change this. We need to quick create activities that get their brains working before we launch into new learning. This ensures that the students are as receptive as possible when new content or skills are presented. Such mental warm-up activities can also help lead a student from what they already know, towards something new and unknown. This helps establish connections between existing knowledge, concepts and skills and new learning. A warmed-up, stimulated brain works better and remembers more.

To achieve this the teacher must find ways to warm-up a student's thinking before presenting the main lesson: