Concepts Drive Learning & Teaching

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𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫-𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭-𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐝

By Hanaa Ghadban

💡𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒏'𝒕 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒔𝒑𝒂𝒄𝒆, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒔𝒑𝒂𝒄𝒆?

We all know the feeling. The summer break ends, and a wave of exhaustion hits as we face the task of designing and decorating the 'perfect' classroom. This is often just one item on a long list, and the process is mentally and physically draining. But what if there was a better way, one that not only saved our energy but also empowered our students from day one?

The answer is to shift from preparing the classroom for students to co-designing and co-constructing the classroom with them. This isn't to say that teachers don't have a crucial role in preparing a welcoming, safe, inclusive, engaging, flexible, and adaptable learning environment. Instead, it's about fostering partnership, ownership, and a true sense of belonging through inviting students to co-design and co-create.

🎯𝐒𝐨, 𝐥𝐞𝐭'𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨-𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬!

👉𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐬

When posters are simply hung up all at once, they often mean very little to students and quickly become part of the classroom wallpaper. The point of hanging them is often to have a constant visual reference, but without context, what’s the point? Our classrooms become overloaded with information and abstract concepts that lack context, which creates a clear absence of students’ agency, voice and ownership.

👉𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐨-𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩

Students truly make meaning of visuals when they are an active part of the process, connecting the display to their own learning journey. The point of hanging posters shouldn't be to provide a ready-made classroom, but to create a visible record of learning in progress.

Inductive Learning and Teaching for Conceptual Understanding

By Hanaa Ghadban

💡Do you begin your units by explicitly presenting concepts and essential ideas, or by guiding students to reach conceptual understanding for themselves?

Two fundamental approaches to how we structure learning experiences are deductive and inductive teaching. While both have their place, understanding their nuances can profoundly shape how we foster true conceptual understanding.

Both approaches may incorporate inquiry learning and ultimately aim for students to grasp concepts and apply knowledge. However, they differ significantly in who does most of the cognitive thinking and how students arrive at conceptual understanding.

Deductive instruction offers speed and clarity by moving top-down from a presented essential idea. In this setting, most of the cognitive thinking is often done for the students.

Conversely, inductive instruction facilitates the integration of thinking and empowers student agency. This approach prioritizes student discovery, meaning-making, and the organic articulation of transferable conceptual understanding from the bottom-up.

Definitely, there is a place for both approaches in our classrooms depending on the instructional goals and student needs. For concept-based and inquiry educators, however, the inductive approach often serves as the cornerstone, empowering students to truly "own" their learning and build the conceptual architecture necessary for a complex world.

💡Which approach mostly lives in your classroom?

Guiding Questions: Educators’ Compass to Conceptual Understanding

By Hanaa Ghadban

➡️How can we empower our students to uncover big ideas and make lasting connections?

➡️What types of questions can we craft to provoke the intellectual mind of our students?

Strategic questions mean more than just pulling them out of our back pockets or spontaneously producing them in class. It is an essential tool that requires intentional practice and refinement. While many in education may not have been explicitly taught how to intentionally craft different types of questions, or when to effectively use them to boost inquiry, learning, and above all, foster students' intellect, it's a skill we can all cultivate.

Questions are superior to learning objectives because they engage students' minds, hearts, and invite them to activate their thinking engines right away. This was an 'Aha!' moment for me during my concept-based certification journey with Professional Learning International

Guiding questions are a fundamental instructional tenet in the concept-based approach. They facilitate student thinking toward conceptual understanding through an inductive approach.

In topic-based lessons and units, questions target factual objectives, whereas in concept-based instruction, we target factual and conceptual levels of thinking. Concept-based teachers don't share the conceptual understandings with students. Instead, we intentionally use a mix of questions (concept formation, factual, conceptual, and debatable) to guide and nudge students’ thinking until they arrive at the targeted conceptual ideas for themselves.

📝Consider this an invitation to utilize questions as a powerful tool to open your lessons, units, and inquiries, and to refine your teaching and their learning.

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