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Conceptual Change. EDU 330: Educational Psychology Daniel Moos, PhD. Conceptual Change. What is conceptual change? Learning that generally changes an existing conception (i.e. idea, belief, way of thinking ) What are some strategies to support conceptual change?
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Conceptual Change EDU 330: Educational Psychology Daniel Moos, PhD
Conceptual Change • What is conceptual change? Learning that generally changes an existing conception (i.e. idea, belief, way of thinking) • What are some strategies to support conceptual change? The Conceptual Change Model (CCM) assists students by actively identifying and challenging their existing conceptions and skills.
CLASS #1 (former 6th grade colleague): • Ask students what they think history “is” (students generally have misconception that history is a series of facts, unaffected by the biases of those who document events) • Engage in class discussion (teacher does not attempt to address misconceptions at this point) • Class identifies “class definition” (typically reflects misconceptions)
CLASS #2: • Teacher walks into class dressed wildly (wig, wild clothes) • Acts oddly for 10 minutes (stands on table, speaks on topics unrelated to history, etc) • Asks students to record what they witnessed on a piece of paper (students record behavior as odd, etc) • Teacher concurrently records events (teacher records events as perfectly normal, “best history lesson ever”) • Teacher collect student writing, rips them up, and only reads his writing (which offers a much different perspective of events) • Asks students to think/reflect about the role of bias and perspective in history
CLASS #3: • Small and/or large group discussion on reflections written at the end of class • Class definition of history is revisited and revised • Teacher offers a historical account and asks to students to identify potential biases and/or additional perspectives that may be important to consider
Concept Attainment (I) • What is concept attainment? • Strategy that promotes independence, analytical thinking, and making connections between what students know and what students are going to learn • Why does concept attainment work? • Involves students in their own learning (metacognition, autonomy/motivation, scaffolding) • Consistent with how humans process information: Naturally organize things into categories based on common attributes (schemas according to Piaget and others) • How does concept attainment work?
Concept Attainment (II) How does concept attainment work? • Teacher Identifies concept • Teacher provides “Yes” and “No” examples • Students develop common definition for “Yes” examples • Students test and refine their list with more examples
Concept Attainment (III) • Teacher Identifies concept Develop a strong conceptual understanding of what a predator is and how they are uniquely adapted to the life they lead
Concept Attainment (IV) (2) Teacher provides “Yes” and “No” examples • Begins lesson by explaining to the class that some examples are yes examples and some are no examples. • Explains to the class how they are suppose to figure out what the concept is. • Shows a list of animals (note: examples should be relatively known and understandable by your students; that is, they should be able to easily identifies attributes that define the examples). • Cat (Yes) • Dog (Yes) • Rabbit (No) • Students develop hypothesis from first list
Concept Attainment (V) (3) Students develop common definition for “Yes” examples • Following initial list of animals (Cat, Dog, Rabbit, etc), students develop concepts (think-pair-share) • Discuss as class • Write some of the concepts on the board
Concept Attainment (VI) (4) Students test and refine their list with more examples • Provide additional examples (note: additional examples should represent more conceptually challenging examples) • Snake (Yes) • Horse (No) • Eagle (Yes) • Compare list with concepts listed on board • Refine list based on additional examples (class, think-pair-share, independent writing) • Teacher reveals concept and how concept reflects examples
Concept Attainment (VII) Concepts Attainment strategy can be used for concepts that are abstract/ difficult to convey with a simple definition: Science: Mammal Math: Linear Equations Social Studies: Communism English/LA: Noun Health: Balanced Meal Physical Education: Mechanics of a basketball shot Music: Characteristics of a Baroque Style