Concept cartoons

The use of Concept Cartoons in science learning was developed in Great Britain in 1991 by Brenda Keogh and Stuart Naylor in teacher education at Manchester Metropolitan University.  Concept cartoons is a strategy for visualizing and challenging students' perceptions of scientific concepts and phenomena. With the help of the strategy, the teacher gains knowledge about the students' perceptions - a knowledge that can then be used to adapt the teaching to the right level and to support the students to abandon concepts that do not correspond to the current scientific perceptions. Over time, the use of concept cartoons in teaching was extended to other scientific areas (e.g. mathematics) and more recently they have increasingly found their place also in teaching around various issues within the sustainability spectrum.

Over the years, there has been a lot of research into the use of concept cartoons in teaching. The research results show e.g. that the students perceive the concept cartoons as motivating, that the cartoons are a functional way of formative assessment, that the cartoons can support the students in creating a context for the concepts and that the cartoons create natural opportunities for conversation and argumentation. More about the research on the use of concept cartoons can be read here https://www.millgatehouse.co.uk/concept-cartoons-research/

Some examples: Below is an introductory text before a concept cartoon task and then the task itself (click on the arrow in the lower left corner to get to the concept cartoon task)