Concept attainment lessons are teacher-centered, but target critical thinking skills. This model is used for teaching concepts that have clear criterial attributes. The content objective is not communicated to students. The teacher presents examples (pictorial or verbal) of the concept or idea and students analyze the concept
Concept formation is constructed by developing categories. The first stage is to identify and enumerate the data relevant to the topic or problem. The second step is to group these items into categories whose members have common attributes. The third step is to develop labels for the categories.
Resources
The Steps of Concept Attainment, Andrews University Summer Institute 1997,
http://www.curriculumfutures.org/instruction/a02-05.html
Concept Attainment Model http://www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEPC/WWC/1991/concept_waste.html
Concept Attainment and other learning theory:http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/math/gender/10in-service.html
Concept Attainment lesson: http://k-6educators.about.com/library/blseptrules.htm?once=true&
Feedback
Bruce
McVicker: Top marks! This was a
good demonstration with clear attributes at first.
That set the tone. The
exemplars were consistent and the lesson was extremely informative.
The PowerPoint makes this very easy to understand.
Use it often if you feel comfortable with the strategy and the tool.
Top
marks from Ryan, RJ and Gerald. They
enjoyed the modeling.
Comments
from Matt, Emily, Chris W. and Kim:
There could have been more scaffolding with the concept, and the look and
feel of the presentation might have been improved with a background other than
white. Some slides had too much
text.
Comments
from Henry and Doug: Graphics
were rather plain –not much to “grab ya.”
Too much text –not enough examples (better in small group, but 30
second synopsis is not enough).