Lesson previews accomplish the same purposes and have similar characteristics. When teachers allocate time before a lesson or unit to preview what students will be learning, it can have a large impact on successful learning during the lesson, particularly for struggling students. Through previews, students develop a context for what they will learn, connect to what they already know, build pre-requisite knowledge and become engaged and interested in the topic.
Just as a movie preview is not the movie, lesson previews are not the actual lesson instruction. It isn’t uncommon for teachers to mistakenly teach too much when previewing. Think of the preview as the preparation for the learning that will take place in the lesson, not the lesson itself.
