Constructing concepts and generalization (2)
- 2. Concepts: the fundamental building blocks of social studies.
- 3. Concepts can deal with: • places • persons • objects • institutions • events • ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving
- 4. Ten National Standards • Each of the ten curriculum standards developed by the National Council for the Social Studies is a concept or a group of two or three concepts. • Each of the national standards for Geography, Economics, History, and Political Science deal with various concepts. • So concepts must be important. Why?
- 5. Concepts... • reflect who we are as a culture. • are the foundation of our social studies curriculum. • are used to form generalizations (more on that latter).
- 6. Concepts • The term, concept, is used to mean idea. – concepts are abstract categories of meaning – concepts are removed from concrete examples – concepts deal with attributes – individually, concepts can have different meanings depending on past experiences of the individual
- 7. Concept • The concept (idea) refers to the critical attributes shared by all examples. • Individuals learn each concept and process the information it represents on their own. Each of us has a somewhat different understanding of a concept. The strength of well-defined concepts is that even though we form our own mental construction of a concept, its essential attributes are recognized by all of us.
- 8. Concepts • Concepts summarize factual statements that have a common characteristic and distinguish all examples of the concept from nonexamples. – facts are supported by observations – concepts are supported by facts • Think about the word grandfather. We each in our minds define what it means “to be a grandfather” (based on our own observations), which may or may not align. But there are certain facts we all would agree upon such as a grandfather being a parent’s parent.
- 9. Important • Without an adequate background of facts based on concrete experiences, a student’s understanding of concepts will be weak. • Facts in any social studies curriculum must be related to specific concepts that are part of the key ideas of social studies standards. • Factual information by itself is useless to students. (Unless they are on Jeopardy.)
- 10. When Teaching Concepts: • it is important to – help students experience multiple examples of the concept to be learned – guide the students to grasp the critical attributes that all the examples have in common
- 11. The Key • Allow students to explore three or four examples of the concept to be learned and then guide them to find the similarities across the examples. • It is more about exposure, exposure, exposure instead of I do, you do, we do.
- 12. Operational Definitions • Operational definitions usually contain two parts – First, it describes the conditions (what is done in an event or to an object being defined) – Secondly, it describes the effect of what is observed or what happens as a result of what is done) • My two parts are a little easier to understand. When I use an operational definition it includes – First, a student friendly definition (the teacher and students make it together) – Second, include at lease one example (if possible) • Powerful social studies focuses on using operational definitions to communicate meaning of concepts. • Guide the students in forming the operational definition.
- 13. Concepts are Interrelated • Two concepts often share some of the same facts and most concepts include other concepts as subconcepts. Concept maps help students see relationships among concepts. (They also are a tool teachers can use to diagnose student understanding.)
- 14. Concept Maps (Concept Webs) • Identifies concepts of major focus and organizes those concepts into a hierarchy ranging from the most general to the most specific concept. • By understanding the hierarchy of these concepts the teacher can better teach and diagnose difficulties students have in constructing concepts.
- 15. Key Terms • Superordinate concept is a larger, more inclusive concept into which a concept fits. (Example: family is a superordinate concept for parent) • Subconcepts fall under the concept. (Example: mother, father, foster mother are all subconcepts of parent) • Coordinate concept is one that is equivalent in some way to the concept. (Example: caregiver and parent)
- 16. Effective Teaching • Begin with sensory or concrete concepts and gradually progress to higher-level concepts. • Plan the learning of social studies concepts according to the reasoning patterns needed to understand the content. (Developmentally appropriate.) • Provide learners direct experience with a concept in order to develop a meaningful understanding of it. Use visuals and primary sources, when possible. • Don’t assume they already know the concept. • Provide plenty of exposure to the concept.
- 17. Effective Teaching • Identify all essential attributes of the concept (form a concept map) • Identify examples and nonexamples • Identify students’ prior knowledge of the concept • Use learning cycle format for the lesson • Use operational definitions • Teach interrelationships among concepts • Assess students’ application of the concept
- 19. Generalizations are the most useful and powerful ideas in social studies.
- 20. Generalizations... • enable us to explain processes and events we experience. • are often cause and effect. • develop from inferences we make through observations. • provide more information than a concept. • describe two or more concepts and relationships among them. • are big ideasbig ideas.
- 21. • Generalizations differ from facts and concepts because they: – identify relationships between two or more concepts – construct explanations of cause and effect – enable predictions of a future occurrence of the relationship stated in the generalization. (Hence the quote, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”)
- 22. • Generalizations – link facts and concepts – summarizes experiences – can be used to make predictions • Just because we form generalizations does not mean they are correct.
- 23. • Students have already formed some generalizations by the time they come to school. – “All people must eat to survive.” – “All parents want to make life difficult for their kids.” • Some may be inaccurate due to limited experiences. – “All grown up women are mothers.” – “Riding in a limousine means you have a lot of money.”
- 24. Generalizations: Learning Cycle Plan • Exploration: Question, or problem, is posedExploration: Question, or problem, is posed – Students form a generalization (hypothesis). • Lesson Development: Students gather informationLesson Development: Students gather information and form aand form a supportedsupported generalizationgeneralization – Students find evidence that supports their generalization or causes them to form a new one. • Expansion: Students determine how widely theExpansion: Students determine how widely the generalization can be appliedgeneralization can be applied – Students determine if this generalization is applicable to a similar event or situation.
- 25. Inquiry Learning • Instruction designed to help students construct meaning and learn generalizations is typically called inquiry learning. • Remember those inquiry skills (processing skills, thinking skills, etc.) we talked about in the previous PPT? Inquiry learning is dependent upon students being able to use those skills.
- 26. The inquiry’s findings: • Generalizations range in the amount of support they have. If the data students collect does not support the generalization then it needs to be changed. • Always demand your students support their thoughts with evidence. – Hypothesis-Test-Revisit the hypothesis
- 27. Generalizations • Range from simple relationships – Peer pressure can affect a person’s decisions. • to complex. – Emerging technologies are transforming relationships and heightening tensions through a lack of uncertainty of reliable information about current events. • Mostly, you will be dealing with ACOS generated generalizations such as: – 6:10 Explain the effects of immigration on Alabama and national economies since WWII.
- 28. • Your job is to: – provide guidance – give students time and resources to investigate their hypothesis or generalization – model seriousness of purpose – show interest and respect for students’ thinking but demand reasoning in their thinking
- 29. Sunal, C. S. & Haas, M. E. (2016). Social studies for the elementary and middle school grades: A constructivist approach. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.