for this to occur, we need to nudge students beyond the learning of facts and skills to uncover concepts—transferable ideas that transcend time, place, and situation. for students to think conceptually, they need opportunities to head up to the mountaintop, pause, and take in the entire forest. by intentionally designing learning activities in which students move between the factual and conceptual levels of thinking, we can help them construct understanding, facilitate transfer, and build their sense of agency. if students do not have a strong understanding of individual concepts, they’ll struggle to see patterns and make connections between them. 1. using categorizing, naming, and sorting activities: in order to understand individual concepts, students need to grapple with examples, non-examples, and attributes of a concept. we can ask students, “what is it like?” and invite them to describe the key features.
by comparing these examples and non-examples of the concept habitat, students come to understand that a habitat is the natural environment in which an animal’s needs are met. 2. asking students to make connections: as students engage with a unit, they explore a variety of contexts that illustrate concepts in action. by drawing out connections between concepts such as protest and rights, students can zoom out to see the big picture of their learning. for instance, students in my grade 7 social studies class engaged in concept mapping at the end of a unit on sustainability. it’s important when facilitating such activities to ensure that students support their thinking using evidence from prior learning. 3. planning for transfer: activities that invite students to form concepts and make connections between them prime the brain for transfer—in each of these stages of conceptual thinking, we help students to reason abstractly and identify the “so what?” of their learning.
concepts are the big ideas or the “why’s” related to solving math problems. if you have ever learned another language, you know that the best approach is to experience speaking in the context of that language. the philosophy behind teaching conceptually is that students who learn this way understand mathematical ideas and then transfer their understanding to new contexts and problems. we like to say: empowerment is understanding the concepts. elephant learning helps you lift your students beyond mere memorization and makes it far easier for you, as a classroom teacher, to move onto more challenging concepts. you need to master the first set of concepts to progress to the next set. take the concept of multiplication, for example.
if you show a student four groups of five things and ask them how many, can they provide the answer, or do they have to count? they don’t truly understand the concept of multiplication. that is the reality for many of our children, and it is a cruel situation to be in. children understand later in life how to use multiplication to solve these problems, and that is the saddest part: they did not know when it could have made a difference. elephant learning also makes it easy for you, as the classroom teacher, to understand which concepts your students are struggling with, collectively or individually. you can drill down to individual questions and even try them for yourself or with the student to find out exactly where their understanding is faltering. the philosophy behind teaching conceptually is that students who learn this way understand mathematical ideas and then transfer their understanding of these ideas to new contexts and problems.
concept learning, also known as category learning, concept attainment, and concept formation, is defined by bruner, goodnow, & austin as “the search for and listing of attributes that can be used to distinguish exemplars from non exemplars of various categories”. coaching students to think in terms of concepts helps them understand how to apply their learning in the future. conceptual learning in mathematics focuses on teaching math by concepts rather than asking students to memorize isolated facts, methods, or formulas. an integrated understanding of important concepts is referred to as conceptual learning. students who have a conceptual understanding are more, .
conceptual learning involves students engaged in quality learning experiences based around key concepts and central ideas rather than using the more traditional method of focusing on learning on topics. insights into math concepts, montesssori, math, k-8, elementary, home school, homeschool, worksheets, download, pdf, fractions, decimals, percent, algebra, conceptual learning, or concept learning, is a learning method as well as a form of critical thinking in which individuals master the “conceptual understanding refers to an integrated and functional grasp of mathematical ideas. students with conceptual understanding know, .
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