Concept Attainment

Description

Concept Attainment is a strategy intended to support students as they refine their understanding of the critical components of various concepts presented during a lesson. This is done primarily through the provision of “yes” and “no” examples by the teachers. The teacher categorizes each example individually for students to provide think time and invites discussion to allow for students to verbally refine their predictions for the critical characteristics of each category. By the end of the activity, the teachers has supported students in fully understanding the concept presented by scaffolding their understanding and correcting misconceptions.

Why it works...

The efficacy of concept attainment leans heavily on Marzano and Pickering’s work with nine instructional strategies, specifically identifying similarities and differences and generating and testing hypotheses.

Additionally, there are three elements of a Concept Attainment activity that lead to student success.

1. Conceptual Clarity - When presenting “yes” examples, ensure that all critical aspects are present. When presenting “no” examples, ensure that some critical concepts are present. Doing so prevents misleading students by providing random examples. For example, when creating a Concept Attainment lesson about improper fractions, it would be better to use “⅔” as a non-example than “hamburger.”
2. Multiple Examples - Use many examples and start with easier ones before moving into more difficult-to-identify ones as students begin to refine their understanding of the concept.
3. Conceptual Competence - Students may be considered competent in their understanding of the concept presented when they can take the essential attributes of the concept and use them to create their own examples and non-examples.

How to plan it...

1. Choose the conceptual criteria you’d like your students to recognize.
2. Create yes examples (meet all the criteria established in step 1) and no examples (meet some, but not all of the criteria established in step 1).
3. Students begin exploring what yes examples have in common and try to identify how they differ from no examples. Students begin to create criteria consistent with the yes examples.
4. Create and provide more yes examples to help students test their criteria.
5. Create a final set of attributes as a whole class.

Tech Integration...

Use Google Slides and the explore tool to find images to place into examples and non-examples categories. Once complete, upload the slide deck to Google Classroom as an assignment where students can have their own copy. Students add an additional slide to create their own example and non-example, based on their understanding of the concept.