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Concept Development: A Thinking Strategy

Concept Development: A Thinking Strategy. Presented by Brenda Maier Enrichment Specialist, Union Public Schools OAGCT Board Member & newsletter editor. What is the Concept Development Strategy?.

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Concept Development: A Thinking Strategy

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  1. Concept Development:A Thinking Strategy Presented by Brenda Maier Enrichment Specialist, Union Public Schools OAGCT Board Member & newsletter editor

  2. What is the Concept Development Strategy? • Hilda Taba (1902-1967) drew on (among others) Vygostsky’s constructivism and Piaget’s assimilation and accommodation for this technique. • The goal is to clarify and extend the students’ thinking of a given concept. • It is a technique in which the teacher facilitates the students’ thinking through increasing levels of reasoning.

  3. Five Steps • Brainstorm data in response to topic question. • Group data based on similarities.* • Label the groups.* • Subsume grouped data.* • Recycle the data into new groups.* *Teacher asks for reasoning.

  4. Steps are Hierarchical Like Bloom’s Taxonomy

  5. Reasons for Concept Development Strategy • Puts responsibility for learning on the students. Teacher facilitates, but they do thinking & have ownership of their learning as they construct it. • Builds from concrete to more abstract, lower levels of thinking to higher ones, familiar to less familiar. • Can be used to assess prior knowledge of a concept or post-study understanding of a concept. • Open-endedness allows for connections across disciplines.

  6. More Reasons for Concept Development Strategy • Addresses affective domain as students respectfully articulate their reasons and politely listen to others’ viewpoints. Teacher models acceptance of all justified answers. • The processes of analyzing and labeling (with justification) mirror and support the concept of main idea and supporting details. • Allows students to “discover” relationships. • Trains students to think for themselves!

  7. Still More Reasons for Concept Development Strategy • Concept Development is compatible with Common Core; that is, it emphasizes critical thinking, analysis, reasoning, etc. • Concept Development with gifted kids gives them that opportunity to grapple with abstract ideas on a higher level, with other students who are on their level of understanding. • Compatible with smartboard to add a technological component that draws students in.

  8. Step 1: Brainstorm a List Pose a planned focus question to students, and write a dozen or so responses on a list. • Accept all responses. If one doesn’t fit, ask for reasoning. If the student can support it, write it down. • Don’t lead, nod, say “Good,” etc. It’s judging their responses.

  9. Practice your question. Is it broad enough to get specific responses? “What do you think of when I say ‘Oklahoma?’” “What are some resources one could find in our state?” (Carrie Underwood, Keystone Lake, oil, cattle, teachers, etc.) “What have you noticed about the stories we’ve been reading?” (talking animals, not “pretend things”) “What are some foods you eat?”(ham, not “meat”)

  10. Step 2: Group Data “Which of these items can be grouped together because they’re alike in some way?” Group them as directed. • Be sure to ask for reasoning. “Why you think these go together?”

  11. Step 3: Label Groups “Remembering the reasons we grouped these together, what would be a good name for the group?” “Why is that a good name?” • Again, try not to judge or help. • You can have multiple labels per group.

  12. Step 4: Subsuming “Which of the items under one label could fit under another label?” “Which entire labels/groups could fit under another one?” • Ask for reasoning. • When learning the strategy, you may have to ask group by group.

  13. Step 5: Recycle Looking at our original list again, what completely different groups can you make?” • Sometimes this step gets skipped; if you skip it, you’re skipping the most divergent thinking, that of re-evaluating and creating more abstract groups.

  14. Final Thoughts • As a sort of exit slip and informal assessment of their level of thought, I often ask each student to write me a one-sentence generalization of his/her overall take-away. • This isn’t to teach information, but to teach the how to organize and process information critically.

  15. Acknowledgements: Schiever, S. W., (1991). A Comprehensive Approach to Teaching Thinking. Allyn & Bacon Techniques and Models in Gifted Education, a graduate level gifted education course offered by Oklahoma State University. Van Eman, Dr. L., & Montgomery, Dr. D., past presidents of OAGCT, graduate professors of gifted education

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