Helping+Students+Construct+Concepts

Helping Students Construct Concepts An example of a fourth-grade social studies textbook passage appears below. Each sentence has been numbered for easy reference. Read the passage, then answer the questions that follow it. (1) The place where a river begins is called its source.(2) Many rivers begin high in the mountains. (3)Water from rain, melted snow, and underground springs collects. (4) The water begins to run downhill as a stream. (5) The picture on this page shows a stream carrying water downhill. (6) It moves fast. (7) It carries pieces of sand, soil, and rock. (8) These pieces grind a deep, wide path into the earth. (9) The bottom of the path is the rr~·erbed. (10) The sides of the stream are its banks. (11) The stream cuts into the land and becomes lower than the earth around it. (12) It becomes larger as rain and melting snow add to it. (13) Other, smaller streams join it. (14) Soon the stream is large enough to be called a river. (15) Smaller rivers and streams, called branches, join the river. (16) Branches are also known as tributaries (TRIB-yuh-tair-eez). (17) Look at the picture of tributaries flowing into a large river on the next page. (18)A river drains, or carries away, water from the land around it. (19) The land drained by a river and its branches is called a river basin. (20) Soil washed into the river is called silt. (21) The river collects lots of silt, small stones, and sand. (22)When the river reaches flat land, it slows down. (23) It no longer can carry a lot of silt, stones, and sand. (24)As the stream runs downhill, other streams join it. (25)Most of the silt, stones, and sand settle to the bottom and the river becomes shallower. (26) In some places the sand piles up. (27) Large piles become islands. (28) Small piles look like a low mound and are called sandbars. (29) Look at the picture of the sandbar on the next page. (30) Sometimes a sandbar is a mound under the water and boats can get grounded, or stuck, on it. (31) Most rivers reach the ocean. (32) The place where the river empties into the ocean is called its mouth. (33) This is where the river drops the rest of its silt and the fresh water it brings mixes with the salt water of the ocean. (34) Look at the picture of a river's mouth on the next page. 1. What are four adjectives that describe your impressions of the passage and the social studies content it presents? 2. How do you think a fOllrth-grader will respond to the passage? 3. What can a teacher do to help the average fourth-grader better understand the passage? 4. What social studies concept(s) should be selected as objectives for a lesson? 5. What activities should be used to encourage meaningful learning of the social studies concept(s)? We return to this passage at the end of the chapter for additional reflection. Reading a text passage or memorizing the statements·, is not enough if students are to develop a meaningful understanding of the concept it contains. Students need to understand the characteristics of each concept so that they can differentiate related concepts. The key concepts that form the basis for meaningful social studies for all students are summarized and identified as social studies standards in Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Studies (1994). Social studies involves mastery of key concepts and processes required for personal decision making, active participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity (National Council for Social Studies, 1994b). Factual information, or facts, is based on observations and inferences about objects and events. Examples of two facts follow: (1) the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution of the United States of America and (2) this author's family has two children, one girl and one boy. Concepts summarize a set of factual statements that have a common characteristic and distinguish any and all examples of the concept from nonexamples. The first fact, about the Bill of Rights, may be part of a set offacts used to construct the concept of governing documents. The second fact, about this author's family, may be part of a set offacts used to construct the concept offamily. The focus of this chapter is on facilitating students' learning of social studies concepts. Because students usually come to class with preconceived ideas and some misconceptions about the world, teachers plan and implement activities that encourage conceptual change toward greater accuracy and depth of understanding. 1. Identify and classifY different types of concepts. 2. IdentifY and classifY different levels of abstraction between concepts. 3. Describe the rationale for assessing and planning for working with students' alternative social studies conceptions. 4. Describe important elements of a teaching strategy that encourages and facilitates conceptual change and reconstruction. Concept Teaching Starts with Reflection and Practice In lessons that focus on helping students construct a new concept or reconstruct an existing one, the teacher's role involves two tasks: (1) providing students with information to work with and (2) asking questions to focus their attention on important aspects of the information. Although the teacher serves as a guide during lesson development, activities are centered on interactions between students and their social environment. Activities enable students to work with examples of the concept. Eventually, students reconstruct their ideas or invent a definition of the concept using the information they have worked with during the lesson development. A FOl/rY'th-C;Y'Plde CIPI$$Y'ool'vt Scene ~ As an exiiloratory activity for her students, Ms. Carlson asked them the following questions. How do you think her fourth-grade students responded? "Think about who sits next to you in one of your classes." "If someone sits on your left, is it a boy or girl? What is this person's name?" "If someone sits directly in front of you, is it a boy or girl? What is this person's name?" Then, Ms. Carlson instructed her students to draw a simple map showing themselves and the students sitting near them. Later, Ms. Carlson asked, "Do you know the people who sit near you better than those who sit farther away from you?" Finally, she asked the students to think about what characteristic, or attribute, they used to select the people to include on their map. She asked her students, "What attribute did they all have in common?" The attribute that was the focus of this exploratory activity was location. Students were asked to think about who was sitting in a classroom location near to them. They were not asked about others located farther away. To build on the exploratory activity, the following lesson development occurred .• A FOl/frth-CtrPtde CIPt'S'SrooM Scene: ~ Le'S'Son DevelopMent" . Ms. Carlson asked the students to imagine the following scenario. Imagine that the classroom walls have moved farther out so that the classroom is twice its size. When this happened, your chairs ended up being farther away from each other. Now the distance between your chairs is twice what it was before. The person who was on your left is still on your left. The person who was directly in front of you is still in front of you. The only thing that has changed is how far apart your chairs are. Even though the people around you are farther away from you, they are still on your lef.t, or in front of you. Ms. Carlson: What might we call someone who sits next to us in class or who lives next door to us at home? [The students quickly decide that such a person is called a neighbor.] Ms. Carlson: Using the characteristic of location, how would you define neighbor? Brian: A neighbor is "someone who is in a place close to ytru." Ms. Carlson: Do you think Brian's definition of neighbor is a useful one for you? [The students tell her they think it is a useful definition. Ms. Carlson writes it on the board as their working definition.] Ms. Carlson: Using Brian's definition of neighbor, if the person sitting on your left switched seats with someone on the other side of the room, would that person still be your neighbor? [After some discussion, students agree that the student who switched seats would no longer be a neighbor. They decide that an important attribute of neighbor is location and, specifically, closeness in location.] • l'-. I Development: Facts as Social Studies Content Facts are statements of observations about ob·ects, people, and events that provide eYiQ.e·ce oam:e:J!lP meaning for concepts, generalizations attitudes,l!~e..s.. Without an adequate background of acts ased on concrete experiences, a student's understanding of concepts such as consumer, peace, society, place, or authority remains vague. Factual information, or fact statements, is based on the observations we make about objects, people, and events. The following are e~ p",~ of facts: "!hm:8J1. e 0 house under ~c~ion i0..his-r:leighho.r..ho d' "The new road will be open on November 20," and "In 1874, the Women's Christian Temperance Union came together to fight alcohol use." However, facts in any social studies curriculum must be related to specific concepts that are part of the key ideas of the social studies standards. FJlctual information by itself is useless to s-tudents. . C..f}ILcep.ts iffer from facts i t QJilll,j.Q wa s. First.,.ia.cts are isolated bits of information ac uired thrQ]Jgh the senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, or sme ing. A conce t involves more than a sim Ie observation. Second, con-cepts summarize and group together observations into cate ories on the basis of shared_ characteristics,_ or attribute. In other words, concepts refer to a set or class rather tliaTI:a-single object, person, or event. C~_nceptsare formed by findin similarities between many facts and tern orar::ily_e.mp-h~s.izing_th.Qe similari~ For example, 1~7£eisaconcept formed b focusing -- ~on the shapJ~,_cntents -and-so-u-rc-es-of various l;>~diesofwater. In forming the concept oflake, we ignore small differences between lakes, such as their size and where they are found. Concepts are defined by humans and reflect our cult~eo Ie living in rainforest culture who e counter high humidity in their daily environment will construct the concept of shelter differently than those living in low-humidity desert cultures. Concepts are the fundamental building blocks of the social studies curriculum. We use concepts and their relationships to form social studies generalizations. The summarizing capability of a concept is very important. For example, people ride in many kinds of vehicles: big and small, with room for two or six, with or without air conditioning. To remember each of these with a name would take up a lot of mental capacity, so we form concepts that group together similar vehicles by shared attributes: such as pick-up truck, sport utility vehicle, or van. Understanding concepts involves identifying attributes that must be present. These are essential attributes for an object, person, or event to be a member of a class. Learning concepts also involves identifying those essential attributes that can vary over a range but are still part of the same concept. Variations can relate to a range in color, size, shape, place, and other essential attributes that still include the members of the set that represents the concept. Examples are any and all individual members of a category that have the essential attributes of a given concept (Seiger-Ehrenberg, 1991). Nonexamples are any and all individuals that may have some but not all ofthe attributes that make them examples of a given concept (Seiger-Ehrenberg, 1991). Other aspects used to teach concepts are nonessential attributes of the concept. Nonessential attributes are those characteristics that are not related to the identification of members of a category. To summarize, ~2.ncep~ i·'Represent a sl:ltorgr.:ou.Rof object~ eople, events -..QLsymbols_oOwoJIT.E.lore. rnembers-- • Include members sharmgs.<2-mm n attrIQ.I:lte_s_ ~ Include members identified by a name ~ label CIPIrOOMSCenPlrlo: Con~f"rlAcft"ng~ PI Concept" of Aggrelon Three teachers are involving their students in a unit on the concept of aggression. Mr. Hernandez decides to use examples of accidental aggression. He chooses three examples: tagging a friend too hard in a game of hide and seek, telling a joke that unexpectedly hurts someone's feelings, and crushing a butterfly in your hand in an effort to keep it from flying away. Ms. Wenta focuses on a set of examples of a child enjoying an aggressive action that inadvertently hurts someone: Roger feels satisfaction in a wellplaced karate chop that knocks down~Sammy's block building, and Elizabeth laughingly bites Tulana because it feels good. Ms. Michaels focuses on hostile aggression. Claudia pushes Jenny away from the water fountain because Jenny was first in line last time. Claudia sees this as "getting even," so it is premeditated and deliberate. Marisol grabs Bernardo's pencil box and stamps her foot on it, cracking it because Bernardo's pencil box was decorated with stickers that she envied. Each of these teachers is working with examples of planned or inadvertent aggression. Each example is a specific fact. When they are put together, their similarities conveya type of aggression. Each of these types of aggression is a concept: accidental aggression, aggression that inadvertently hurts someone, and hostile aggression. Each concept includes the facts or specific events used as examples by the teacher. But, each fact is not powerful by itself. It becomes powerful when it is grouped with similar facts into a social studies concept. Each of these concepts can, of course, be grouped into a deeper concept of aggression that is even more powerful. This deeper concept includes each of these three types of aggression, helping students to rec~nize that aggression is not just a "fact." • Facts are single occurrences, taking place in the past or present. They result from observations. Facts do not allow us to predict an event or action (Eggen & Kauchak, 2001). Using a fact about the number of houses built in a new development, we cannot predict the number of houses that will be built in the next development begun in the city. Effective strategies for learning factual information differ greatly from those used in learning other social studies content. Meaningful social studies content is not acquired by using or recalling facts when constructing or interpreting concepts. When recall is needed, a rote memory learning strategy can facilitate the learning of social studies facts. Rote memory learning requires repetition, immediate feedback, breaking down the content into small pieces, associating new material to be memorized to information previously learned, mnemonics, and attention to the motivational needs ofthe student (Joyce & Weil, 1992). Games, rewards, mnemonics, and quick pacing of instructional events are all effective techniques to facilitate the memorization of facts. Such rote instructional techniques should make up only a small part of social studies, probably no more than 10 percent of instructional time. Terminology, symbols, and spelling are factual information that might be included in a social studies curriculum. Useful facts a teacher might have students learn are the names of continents; the major steps for making a law; procedures for constructing a timeline; and names of coins used as money in our society. Teachers plan in advance for the memorization of facts and relate these facts to important social studies objectives. In a fourth-grade unit on landforms, for example, the names of specific mountains and volcanoes such as Mt. McKinley, Mt. Everest, and Mt. Kilimanjaro are facts that might be learned as a minor objective and. activity in the unit. In the absence of direct personal experience on the part of the students, a teacher may focus on teaching some facts so that students are better able to develop and understand more important concepts and generalizations. When the teacher shows students a video on mountains and volcanoes, such as one on Mt. McKinley, the video is the only source of common experiences the teacher knows the students can share. Direct experiences and the use of references for information provide important classroom sources of facts to be used in developing concepts. In the past, traditional social studies lessons focused on fact-learning strategies. These often resulted in elementary and middle school students having weak understandings of more interesting and advanced concepts needed to form conclusions and make value decisions (National Council for the Social Studies, 1994a). Today's teachers realize that only rarely should facts be the focus of what is taught. A heavy use of fact-learning teaching strategies neglects important social studies concepts. For example, emphasis on facts reduces learning the structure of U.S. government to memorizing the names of the branches of government and a statement explaining their powers. Yet the powerful social studies objective is developing a comprehensive, personal understanding ofthe judiciary, legislative, and executive branches of U.S. government. Each branch of government is a concept and should be taught using concept learning strategies. Without an adequate background of facts, a student's understanding of concepts, such as individual, group, or consumer, remains vague. Facts are a necessary part of instruction, but should not be the final outcome of lessons and units. Facts can only provide examples or partial meaning for the concepts basic to understanding social studies content, skills, attitudes, and values. Forming Concepts Conce ts are formed by-finding similarities between several facts that we have acquired from our experiences. fIVetemporarily emphasize those similarities and ig- with wlrom-we-have had contact. We ignore gender, age, cultural background, and} other attributes. We use similarities, particularly caring for children and providin for the basic physical, emotional, and health needs of one's children, to construc~ the concept. .For effective instruction, it is important tp identify all attributes or characteristics essential to a social studies concept. When concepts are complex, a child begins with a simple definition. As the child's experiences increase his or her abilities to understand an idea, the concept is refined and new attributes are added to its definition. Many social studies concepts such as democracy and justice have meanings that evolve over time as individuals mature and cultures change. }!_~_~ _~_~__~f_~_~!_<W?~ tJ)7!~!~_t _ Identify which of the following are facts. 1. The sand is wh ite. 2. The line that forms a border around an area delimiting that area is its boundary. 3. People's lives are changed by revolutions in technology as new jobs are created and existing jobs disappear. 4. Juan Ponce de Leone explored Florida in 1513. 5. The quickest way for women to gain the right to vote was to amend the U.S. Constitution instead of having a law giving them the vote passed in each state. Of the five items above, items 1 and 4 are facts. Item 1 describes a specific observation. Item 4 identifies a specific event. Item 2 is a concept statement defining a boundary. Item 3 is a generalization because it describes a pattern relating three concepts: people's lives, their jobs, and technology. (Chapter 6 discussesgeneralizations in depth.) Both items 2 and 3 describe and summarize a set of similarities found between the facts f'!:pmwhich they were formed. Item 5 is an inference, a statement that goes beyond the oDservations made. Do not be concerned if you are finding it difficult to identify facts. It takes some practice before you can quickly and easily do this. The discussion of concepts that follows should help you better distinguish facts from concepts. For example, in learning the concept of friendship, young children may consider a friend's similarity to themselves an essential characteristic (Singleton & Asher, 1979). With help, students experience and consider several characteristics of friendship: (1) perceived similarity in age, race, sex, interest, degree of sociability, and values; (2) existence of mutual acceptance, admiration, and loyalty; (3) willingness to help each other and to be satisfied by the help received; (4) caring about what happens to a friend; and (5) mutual understanding and closeness with an expectation that friends be useful to each other (Kostelnik, Stein, Whiren, & Soderman, 1998). The fourth and fifth characteristics usually are understood by students in middle school, but not by younger students. However, all elementary and middle school students can learn that some attributes, such as the size or hair color of a friend, are not essential. It is important to help students distinguish nonessential characteristics from those that are essential. For older students, a learning cycle could involve asking students, during the exploratory introduction phase, to make and discuss predictions and carry out tests using written scenarios in learning stations for several essential attributes. During the lesson development phase, students could discuss the results of the tests of their predictions. As the discussion progresses, they are provided with clear explanations of examples and nonexamples. The examples are carefully selected to make obvious the essential and nonessential characteristics ofthe concept. The expansion phase involves asking students to make further applications and transfer the concept to situations outside the classroom context. This could involve an everyday situation, such as how to help a friend who has left his lunch at home and doesn't have any money to buy lunch, or a not-so-common situation, such as how to help a friend get elected as class representative to the school legislature even though you were thinking about trying to get elected yourself. \\ Concepts c~nE~0.E.:user:aarth521cated in thr~e ~ays: 1. Formal definition: A carefully worded sentence often using abstract terms, for ,example, that given in a dIctionary Concept name; A naple in_dicated by a label or term Operational description: A definition that describes the concept in practical, everyday language often ~cco~panied by an -mple To understand the formal definition, which uses abstract terms and relationships \ among concepts, is a difficult task for students. Read the following example of a formal. concept definition for bar scale:"~ bax s.calejs a"seI:ies-QLIDark~I!!.g.d,e_along ~_line lar intervals to measu.r.e_distanc_l;Lona ma~' This type of definition is commonly found in elementary and middle school textbooks. Understanding this definition of bar scale requires knowledge of what is meant by a "series of marks," an "interval," a "regular interval," "measurement," "distance," and "map." Only when the student understands each of these concepts can they be put together to form a relationship that has meaning and can be applied to the bar scale found on a map. Concept names are the labels or terms used to communicate the concept. A:!ap is a conc~pinam~l:!.sed to describe a cla~ objects. Suffrage is a concept name given to' a class of actions and events. Some oTtile"manyconc8Rt names that are '~ortantinsocial studies ar.e..s:.ulture time, environment, i;;div~;;;roJ~ ,_ (abal cOnl'Le,ftion.s,civic...ideals,_aRd-golJer-nor.....J;;oncept names communicate different meanings to individuals. Young students may be able to focus only on one aspect ofgovernor: "can get things for me that I need." Older students may visualize a person who manages the work of many others and is responsible for putting into practice laws others make. Giving an event or object a concept name is a common textbook approach to social studies instruction. But just labeling something does not give it meaning. It is important to provide students with experiences, discussion, and time to reflect so they can give meaning to the concept name. Operational definitions describe a concept by providing a test for deciding whether an object, action, or event is an example of the concept. The test is described in terms and experiences that are familiar to the student. The definition excludes all reasonable statements that do not represent the concept for students. If the object or event does not meet the test, it does not represent an example of the concept. An example of an operational definition is "A.ftin on im ulse means that a person acts without thinking..ahe-a . an idea or desire pops into their heads a~d they are in motion; they see something they want and-grab for it; they think Below is a sample elementary social studies textbook passage describing a portion of u.s. history. As you read the passage, pay close attention to how the concept is defined with specific attri butes. Women's suffrage, or the right to vote, was important to many people. But, for a long time, women could not vote. After the Civil War, the Fifteenth Amendment gave African American men the right to vote. But women did not get the right to vote. Between 1890 and 1919 the women's right to vote movement grew. Women gained the right to vote in many states, such as Montana. In 1916 Jeanette Rankin was elected to Congress by the people of Montana. She was the first woman to serve in the House of Representatives. Jeanette Rankin, Harriet Stanton Blatch, and Carrie Chapman Catt were some of the women who worked for suffrage for everyone. Women were given the vote by one state, then another. But this was slow. The·quickest way for all women to get the right to vote was by amending the Constitution. Some men believed women should not take part in government. They also thought that women could not do certain kinds of work or understand certain ideas. The work that women did during World War I helped change people's ideas. They saw that.-Women could contribute much in government and work. -- In 1919, Congress passed an amendment to the Constitution. It said women could not be kept from voting. The amendment went to the states for ratification, or approval. Enough states gave their approval by August 26, 1920. 1. Identify and name the two important social studies concept(s) being defined in the sample passage. 2. Describe the attributes provided for the concepts in the passage. 3. For each concept listed, determine whether examples and nonexamples are provided in the passage. If provided, describe them; if not, indicate they are not present. The major concept introduced in the sample textbook passage is the women's suffrage movement. Ratification is another social studies concept essential to the process of women gaining suffrage in the United States. Attributes of the women's suffrage movement provided in the passage are (1) the right to vote for all women; (2) some states gave women the right to vote; (3) some men were against women's suffrage; and (4) an amendment would be the quickest way for all women to obtain voting rights. Among the examples provided is that Montana and some other states granted women suffrage. A nonexample is the Fifteenth Amendment giving African American men the right to vote. Other examples and nonexamples of women gaining the right to vote are possible. Ratification appears once in the passage and is defined as "approval." The word approval, but not ratification, appears in the concluding sentence. The passage fails to mention any time limit or the number of states required for ratification. It does not mention that the amendment had to be approved by state legislatures at special state conventions called for the purpose of approving the amendment. No examples of states that ratified the amendment or of states that voted against it or failed to consider it are given. The names of three women who worked for suffrage are given. But no specific information about how they approached and accomplished their task is provided. The passageindicates that the approval of the amendment ended the women's suffrage movement on August 20,1920. Attention to the complete meaning of the concepts and the use of multiple examples and nonexamples would strengthen this textbook passagepresentation of the concepts of the women's suffrage movement and ratification of amendments to the U.S.Constitution. Doing so would make the passagemore realistic. It would help students understand that the rights of democracy must be claimed and used by its citizens if democracy is to continue to exist. something and blurt it out" (Calkins, 1994, p. 59). Frequently, operational definitions have two parts. Tm-first part describes the conditions. The conditions include what is done in an event or to an object being defined, such as, "an idea or desire pops into their heads, and they are in motion." The second part describes the effect of what is observed or what happens as a result of what is done, for example, "they see something they want and grab it." Powerful social studies instruction focuses on the use of operational definitions to communicate the meaning of concepts. In the Time for Reflection examples on page 146, it is not difficult to identifY the more appropriate definition-one that students should be working with and learning. Other operational definitions may be more difficult to use or construct. For example, for a definition of hyperactivity, one might say that it is "inappropriate activity at a high energy level." However, one may find that all children are involved in inappropriate activity at times. Also, children usually show a high energy level at certain times during the day. So this operational definition may be more appropriate in some situations than in others. Additional description may be added to the definition if it is not useful. The operational definition of hyperactivity may be made more appropriate for teachers by expanding it as follows: "a persistent pattern of inattention and/or impulsivity that is more frequent and severe than is typically observed in individuals at a comparable level of development, often leading to inappropriate activity at a high energy level." Con.ce ts are interrelated. Two concellts often share .ElQmeQLtb~_s_am~fasJ;§.,.and ,!!l9§LconcellJ;s il}.clt!.q.eoth,eI.,con.£~_ptsas subconce ts. A gar~or examQle,Silll house a car, but it can also be a worksho or a storag~_area. eople are flexible in tnec~mcepts they form, allowing them to account for the ~y in the social world. A key concept in elementary and middle school social studies is government. Government includes the subconcept of branches of government. Branches of government, in turn, involves the subconcepts ofjudiciary, legislature, and executive, as well as other subconcepts. Executive, in turn, includes president, governor, and The following activity works with identifying and developing the skill of defining a concept by using operational definitions. For students, this skill is closely related to the skill of communicating. Making clear statements to others about the world is important. Also important is the idea that more than one satisfactory statement can be used to define a concept. Operational definitions define concepts so that they can be used in everyday situations. Identify the type of concept description each of the following statements represents. 1. A branch is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or river. 2. Children are self-disciplined when they can judge for themselves what is right and wrong and then behave appropriately even when nobody else is available to tell them how to behave or to make sure that they do it. 3. Culture. 4. A schedule is an organized pattern of blocks of time that is arranged in a certain order allowing individuals following it to predict future acti.iities. 5. A continent is one of the Earth's main areas of land. Items 1 and 5 are examples of formal definitions. These definitions involve language and terms that require additional definition. Items 2 and 4 represent operational definitions. These definitions adequately describe a procedure, concept, event, object, or property of an object in the situation in which it is used. Item 3 is a concept name. Two definitions are provided for each of the following concepts. Choosethe more appropriate operational definition for a sixth-grade student. 1.a. Humor is something that is perceived as funny because it is not compatible with the normal or expected pattern of events. 1.b. Humor is when something silly happens. 2.a. A game involves other players, has rules, and is highly social. 2.b. A game is not work. 3.a. A child taking on a character role is involved in pretend play. 3.b. A child taking on a character role engages in many behaviors appropriate for the part and demonstrates that the role is temporary and is defined by the actor in the present situation. Humor and game in items 1 and 2, respectively, are more appropriately defined operationally using the first definitions (1a and 2a). The second choice (3b) is the more appropriate operational definition for character role. More appropriate definitions allow the student to follow a procedure or carry out an activity whose result defines the concept. The lessoperational statements refer to abstract procedures or terms or may involve experiences that students are not likely to have had. J_!!_~_~J~_~u~_~fl_!!_!:~' tu?2~nm1337183113?unm_uuumm_mumnm nmn_mu_hmuuun Below are several beginnings of social studies definitions. Add to or change the definitions to make them more appropriate for a child in the upper grades of elementary school or in middle school. 1_ Citizen: An official resident of a country who votes. 2. Longitude: A line that runs from the North Pole to the South Pole_ 3. Discrimination: Unfair treatment. mayor, in addition to other subconcepts. These related concepts form a hierarchy. In a hierarchy, a key concept can incorporate many suQconcepts. In turn, a concept can be a subconcept to another more inclusive concept. So judge can be a subconcept to judiciary, and judiciary can be a subconcept to branches of government. Providing concept maps and having students make their own concept.maps can be an important tool to help students assess their own learning. Concept maps also help teachers diagnose learning problems. Concept maps and conce t web-Lare..t.erms_tha.LoftJ'm_.f!re used interchangeably. A co;cept;;:ap l:;lps students develo interrelated knowledgand_ undg-rstan.d- ,. ings~The'conce t ma has been defined as a roces that identifies concepts in...£. setof materials being studied, and tha OJ::ganizes hOS.e-CO~Slptsinto a hi~hi- .\"cal arrangement from the most general, most inclusive concept, to the least general, most specific concept (Farris & Cooper, 1994). Consider a very simple concept map: Peo-ple-eat-apples. Teachers ask students to define concepts on the basis of their own observations, thoughts, and experiences. Such definitions are operational definitions. Operational definitions are useful to students when they are built on their own experiences and observa· tions rather than the teacher's experiences. To reo quire students to use a definition that is not based on their own experience defeats the important process of helping students construct their own meaning. An operational definition is a tentative or working definition that can be modified and changed with new experiences. Teachers help students come to understand that definitions are constructed, then reconstructed, as we have new experiences with a concept. For meaningful learning, it is important to have the disposition to be willing to consider new evidence that will lead us to the reconstruction of the definition of a concept. L5'!l"'.Y u4Lo"t- fir",ft-o" CJ."t- ~o.. cJ\!ever J(,,,c~ by Grafton Elementary 5,c110015::.~n~'~Auser:aarth521;.':S "'J..,o,.;"J •• Jd,.., •....•••"',•••••'<J ",_,1.'IUJ,I',,'" St)<';;.-",&, ,. I .(...... . 00 O~ I :olI I I - \ ,t " ) 1"- \. ~J - '-~\ .1»1".:', Jf.:~t ",\. '1 1&1 Ii I If. '. J ; Students found the relationship between a stone quarry and the big building in their community and explained it in their book. Such a concept map shows how two concepts are related but does not describe a hierarchy As an instructional or assessment device, a teacher might draw a concept map for students and leave some blank spaces in it. In the example, the teacher might leave a blank space where apples is found. Students might use the map in one or more of a number of ways: to discuss and decide what concepts should be written in the blanks or to carry out investigations and other activities to decide how to fill in the blanks. Teachers m~y"u~ a~cept map throughout a unit beginning with students' pI-ior knowled e and addin to it and revisin it as the unit progresses.~QP_c~P.L eb is very- similar to the concept ma. In a cO~Rt webJ the most gen~raLand in- ~l~sive ideaj~plaj:~d in the center (Figure 5.1). S~Q!lcept~rranged around iggd co~<:Lt.o_i.t with a ine. hen another layer of sub-subconcepts of each subconcept is arranged around t e outside of each subconcept and cOIlllected to it with a line. Software is available to make concept webs easy to draw. One example of such software is Inspiration (Inspiration Software). Most major concepts, such as government and map, include several subconcepts. To accurately construct the concept being taught, students need to understand its subconcepts. The facts summarized to form a key concept must be meaningful to the students. For example, when constructing the concept of map perspective, students must experience how all the sights they see differ depending Manufactured goods Natural products Supply and Demand FIGURE 5.1 .-_._-_._- Simple Concept Web on how far away they are or the direction from which they are seen. Students should experience seeing a tree on the playground from 1 foot away, 10 feet away, and 100j€et away. They should look at it from different directions and even over their shoulder. These experiences enable students to acquire important facts that are necessary to understanding the subconcept of perspective. It is important to incorporate many opportunities for students to experience and interact with all important subconcepts. Teachers provide opportunities for students to compare and contrast the sets of attributes that describe these concepts and the relationships among them. Teachers must understand the hierarchy among concepts if they are to teach concepts successfully and diagnose difficulties students are having in constructing these concepts. Teachers perform a concept analysis to assist them in considering how concepts are related to each other. The analysis requires the teacher to make decisions about each part of the analysis. Each teacher may make different decisions based on the age and experiences of the students. The following is a concept analysis of the concept of parent (Eggen & Kauchak, 2001): 1. Concept: parent 2. Definition: A parent is a person who has responsibility for raising a child because of genetics or adoption. 3. Attributes or characteristics: A parent assumes financial responsibility for a child, takes care of child's basic needs, provides emotional support for a child, and oversees a child's education. 4. Examples: mother, father, stepmother, stepfather, foster mother, foster father 5. Superordinate concept: family 6. Subconcepts: mother, father, stepmother, stepfather, foster mother, foster father, relatives 7. Coordinate concept: caregiver A superordinate concept is a "bigger" or more inclusive concept into which a concept fits. Family is a superordinate concept for parent. A coordinate concept is one that is equivalent in some way to the concept under consideration. The two concepts may be related in terms of just one characteristic. Stream and brook are coordinate concepts. Mother and stepmother are coordinate concepts. Capitalism and communism are coordinate concepts for socialism. Coordinate concepts are related to each other but are not subconcepts nor superordinate concepts for each other. Concepts are a major portion of the social studies content that students need to construct. To do this, students take a large number.:Of facts and process them into manageable pieces. Individuals must learn each concept and process the information it represents on their own. As a result, each of us and every student within a class has a somewhat different understanding of a concept. The strength· of well-defined concepts is such that even though we each form our own mental construction of a concept, its essential attributes are recognized by all of us. 9.9nc~p'~iff~! ..IDdely-i!! th~co~lexit and level of abstractness Klausmeier, Ghatala, & Frayer, 1974; Martorella, 1994). Because ofthis Ifference, the level of abstractness of concepts must match st:ud..ents' d~ elopmental level of thinking. '--"~.~-.•. --_._-_ ..... - _. 1. Identify a concept that includes supply and demand as subconcepts. 2. Identify one or more subconcepts of supply. 3. Identify a concept that includes socialism as a subconcept. 4. Identify one or more subconcepts of socialism. A concept that includes supply and demand as subconcepts is price. Possible subconcepts of supply include manufactured goods and producer. Refer to the sample concept map for a sixth-grade unit on supply and demand, as shown in Figure 5.1 on page 149. Possible concepts that include socialism as a subconcept are political system and economic theory. Each of these includes socialism as one system or theory along with others. Possible subconcepts of socialism include governmental ownership and state control of production. Consider the following concepts: wants, puddle, map, money, decade, highway, election, individual, and interdependence. Ofthe concepts listed, wants and puddle can be understood by very young children. Both are closely tied to everyday experiences in a child's world. A label and an operational definition can easily be associated with w~nts. A puddle is a concrete object a child can play in. Whereas both wants and puddle can be complex concepts, each is also tied to a number of concrete experiences the child can have. As a result, children having these experiences typically form an appropriate partial concept before or during the early grades. Experiences later in life contribute to a more complete understanding of each concept. The concepts of map, money, decade, highway, election, and individual are appropriately introduced to, and understood at least partially by, elementary students. The more directly observable aspect or subconcepts of each key concept are the starting points. First- and secon<!:grade students can experience properties of map" subcon.c:epj;.§th..rough • Playing in a sandbox where they try to reproduce the schoolyard • Playing with trucks and cars on the floor • Drawing an object, such as a drinking cup, from different perspectives-from above, below, the side • Sitting in different parts of schoolyard playground equipment, examining the same view from different locations L Arranging models of furniture in a doll house or on a tabletop ---...-... Fourth- and fifth-grade students should investigate subconcepts such as scale, symbglsJ_cl.ndgria systems. nvesfigating grief systems begins with arranging items in straight rows and co umns, and playing bingo. These and later experiences build an increasingly deeper understanding of the key concept of grid systems. These understandiF) gs, in turn, become part of the more inclusive concept of map. Among the most complex and abstract of the concepts listed is interdependence, which refers to a relationship in which two or more people, objects, or events depend in some ways on each other. It is a relationship that can be personally experienced in complex as well as simple ways. You can be interdependent with your dog, for example. You feed the dog and it gives you affection in exchange. Both of you benefit from the relationship. Our states and nation are interdependent with many other states and nations because each trades its natural resources and manufactured products for those others produce. Interdependence has some concrete, or directly observable, characteristics that can be appropriately experienced by elementary and middle school students. But often it is not directly observable or is on such a large scale, as in the case of interdependence among nations, that it is difficult for students to have relevant experiences. The ease with which a concept can be learned depends on several factors: • The number of critical attributes or characteristics it has • How concrete these attributes are • The reasoning skill level required to provide meaningful learning of all aspects of the concept (Tennyson & Cocchiarella, 1986) A teaching technique that focuses on beginning with the simplest concepts or versions of a concept and moving gradually to more complex concepts was described by Robert Gagne (1965). He stressed the need to examine the entire learning sequence, then work in small steps from the simple to the complex. Jean Piaget defined and categorized levels of mental development based on thought processes typically available to students (Piaget, 1963, 1970). The developmental levels of concern here are preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Piaget found that most students enter school capable of performing preoperational thinking, develop concrete operational thinking during the early elementary grades, and begin to use formal thought processes in middle school. A description of the thought processes typically associated with preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational developmental levels can be found on the Companion Website for this book. Three types of concepts were described by Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin (1962): conjunctive, disjunctive, and relational. A conjunctive concept has a single, fixed set of characteristics that define the concept. An example of a conjunctive concept in social studies is a globe. It is a spherical obje,et with a map of the earth drawn on it. This is the least complex type of concept t<Ylearn. A disjunctive concept has two or more sets of alternative critical attributes that define it. A parent, for example, can be the father or mother of a child, by genetics or by adoption. A relational concept is the most complex type of concept. It lacks clearly defined attributes. Instead, its attributes are defined by comparisons and relationships with other objects or events. An example of this concept is rich or wealthy. A million dollars may make you rich in a town where the average household income is $40,000 per year. But if you live in a town where several people have incomes of millions of dollars every year, you are not considered rich. Other social studies concepts that are relational are far away, justice, fairness, busy, democratic, and hardworking. Much social studies content requires the use of diverse and higher-order reasoning. Yet most students' ability to do abstract thinking is limited. It is important to plan the learning of social studies concepts according to the reasoning patterns needed to understand the content communicated in the lesson. Although not limited to these specific stages, concepts may be called sensory or preoperational, concrete, or formal, depending on the type of thought processes required to begin constructing meaning about the concept. Thyse labels indicate differences in the thinking required to understand a concept ev~n at a basic level. Effective teachers begin with sensory or concrete concepts and gradually progress to higher-level concepts. Sensory concepts develop from students' use of early inquiry skills (see Chapter 4). In learning the concept boundary, for example, very young children use all their senses with each boundary encountered. They see, touch, smell, and perhaps bite each item, forming a physical boundary. They lie down on it, kick it, try to throw it, put it under things, and so on. These investigations are repeated with each boundary they encounter until they are able to group all of these attributes into the concept of boundary. Then, when a boundary is encountered, not only do young students name it as a boundary, but they understand it as a meaningful concept. Concrete concepts develop as students begin to use a full range of inquiry skills (see Chapter 4) to investigate real people, objects, and experiences. Some concrete concepts, such as prejudice and map, are examples of concrete concepts for which higher-level inquiry skills are needed. Drawings, maps, globes, and models establish many concepts as concrete. However, learners need direct experience with a concept to develop a meaningful understanding of it. If the materials represent an abstract model with which students have had no experience, then the concept is not concrete for the learner. For example, if a learner has never seen or worked with a globe, a drawing of a globe is not enough to make this a concrete concept. Formal concepts are not based on information we get through our senses. We must use our imagination or we have to develop logical relationships among the subconcepts and attributes that are part ofthe formal concept. Examples offormal concepts are ethnic group, third-world nation, and-revolution. If a student uses only concrete reasoning patterns, then this student will find it difficult to use information from a lecture or a textbook to meaningfully understand formal concepts such as freedom or political system. Instead, instruction must begin with exploration experiences and with helping students meaningfully understand concrete concepts that contribute to the understanding of the formal concept. Beginning with a concrete concept makes a more secure connection to students' prior knowledge. MPI~lhl!:. PI L/'reY'Plft1Y'eConnecfton --~--~-- The discussion in this chapter describes some concepts as sensory, some as concrete, and some as formal. All concepts require real social and physical experiences the student uses to investigate the concept. Sometimes, literature selections seem to be able to replace real experiences. A few teachers, for example, will read a book during the exploration phase of a lesson in order to give all the students the same experience. Yet students' prior knowledge and experiences result in different understandings and interpretations of the book, and students do not have the same experiences nor the same information after the book is read. So replacing a concrete and sensory experience with reading a book is not acceptable if a social or physical experience is available. As an example, reading about a baseball game is not the same as attending a game or as playing in one. A book might well describe a student's pleasure at being selected to represent the class at a special event in the school system; however, that description is not equal to feeling the pleasure and pride that come when you find your classmates have voted for you to be thei r representative. In a concept lesson, a literature selection may serve as a good choice to use late in the lesson when students have a clear personal understanding of the concept being constructed. Reading a book to review a concept or to expand its application during the expansion phase of a lesson is a much better practice than trying to initially confront an idea through the abstract words of a story during the explanatory introduction. School is a concrete concept. What attributes of this photograph of a Paraguayan school fit with the attributes you use to identify a school? , . I Powerful Concept Teaching Meaningful teaching of social studies concepts involves the following elements: ./1. Identifying all essential attributes of the concept ,.2. Identifying examples and nonexamples of the concept /3. Identifying students' everyday thinking about the concept 4. Using a learning cycle to teach the concept /5. Teaching concepts differently from teaching facts ./6. Using operational definitions in teaching concepts .~.7. Teaching concepts of varying complexity and abstractness differently / 8. Teaching interrelationships among concepts. / For effective instruction, it is important to identify all of the attributes essential to the social studies concept, as in the earlier example of the concept analysis of the concept parent. The essential attributes begin to distinguish the concept from similar concepts. It is important to help students distinguish the range in essential attributes: There are parents who are more or less strict, more or less able to help with homework, and more or less willing to provide extras such as an expensive video game or pair of shoes. Although these ranges exist, these people all are parents. As concepts are formed, a number of examples and nonexamples of the concept must be examined and compared with others to force the concept to be reorganized and refined several times (Baker & Piburn, 1997). These examples should cover the range of essential attributes. Which examples and nonexamples are used is a decision teachers carefully make. They must be relevant to the students and should build on their experiences. Teachers also can take advantage of their own experiences and abilities, drawing examples from their background that students will find interesting and useful. Student descriptions of social studies concepts often differ from those descriptions accepted in the professional literature. These alternative conceptions have been called critical barriers to learning, and misconceptions. Students have developed their alternative ideas through their experiences, family members' ideas, and sound bites from the media. The students generalize this everyday knowledge into their alternative conceptions. For example, a child may have noted that everyone waiting in line to vote at a polling place was talking about how angry he was with a recent raise state legislators had voted for themselves. The child may decide that you cannot vote unless you are angry about an issue. Although the concept is inaccurate, it represents an effort by the child to abstract similarities. Teac1}ers must assess prior knowledge and then work to help students reconstruct alternative conceptions so that they better represent the concept (Sanger & Greenbowe, 1997). If teachers do not do so, students consider the concept "school knowledge" that has to be memorized, especially if it is tested, but do not use it in their everyday lives. Teachers have an important role. They provide opportunities for students to have experiences that will add to their inventory of facts that form the concept. Teachers also must provide opportunities for students to discuss the facts they have acquired and to relate them to the concepts formed. However, teachers must be aware that students have alternative conceptions about each concept area in social studies. Using a Learning Cycle to Teach a Concept How can teachers influence students' understanding of social studies concepts? In order to learn a new concept, students must be mentally involved in conceptual change, a process of reshaping and restructuring their prior knowledge. This type ofteaching has been labeled conceptual change teaching. The starting point in the process of conceptual change is students' prior knowledge. Their prior knowledge is common everyday knowledge. This knowledge has proven successful for the student in the past. However, it is different from the intended knowledge to be gained as an outcome of the social studies lesson. During the early part of every social studies concept lesson, the exploration, each student identifies his or her own existing concept. A social studies experience that involves students in working with a problem related to the concept followed by discussion encourages students to think about their views. If they hold an alternative conception, thinking about their views leads to a confrontation between the alternative conception and the conception intended by the social studies lesson. Dissatisfaction with existing conceptions is critical to the process of conceptual change. Only when they are dissatisfied do students realize they must reorganize or replace their prior knowledge because their existing concepts are inadequate to understand the new experiences. To be useful, retained, and transferred to a new setting, the new conception must be clear, understandable, plausible, and successful for the student (Berliner & Casanova, 1987). This process of awareness, reconstruction, and application makes up the sequence of events in the learning cycle. Using learning cycles to teach concepts is an effective strategy that results in meaningful learning: It is teaching for understanding. For meaningful learning, activities are planned to help students identify the essential attributes of a social studies concept. Table 5.1 summarizes the planning for each phase of a learning cycle focused on teaching a social studies concept. • Exploratory Introduction. Help students become aware of the ideas they bring to the lesson (their prior knowledge). This part ofthe lesson focuses attention on~encouraging students to describe, write, draw, and act out their understanding or meaning of the data related to the concept the lesson is teaching. Questions are asked to find out what students think about the object or event. What words do they use to describe or explain it? What evidence are they using to describe or explain it? Helpful activities include sorting activities, student-only group discussion, small and large group discussions with the teacher, and one-to-one informal discussions with the teacher. during class activities, with students' ideas often presented on paper or electronically. Annotated drawings and diagrams, sequenced drawings, structured writing, and personal logs are encouraged. For example, ask students in small groups to draw and discuss their prior ideas on aggression and make observations of scenes of various kinds of aggression drawn on cards in order to identify essential attributes of aggression. • Lesson Development. Involve students in discussing the results of the observations. As the discussion progresses, provide them with clear explanations of all essential attributes, showing a range in attributes and practicing identification of examples and nonexamples. The examples should make obvious the essential and nonessential attributes of the concept, as well as variable ranges in the essential attributes. Communication is important, particularly during the development phase of a learning cycle when students are guided to construct a new concept or reconstruct an existing one. Students present their ideas to others and learn Help students tryout and confront their prior knowledge of the social studies concept. Ask probing questions to diagnose students' prior knowledge of the social studies concept. Focusstudents' attention on social studies experiences. Encourage students to work cooperatively in groups to relate prior knowledge to the concept. Make public students' prior knowledge of the concept. Provide concise, brief closure for the new social stugies concept. Ask students to reflect on and explain exploratory experiences, concepts, and terminology in their own words to provide connections to the concept focused on in the lesson. Provide definitions, terminology, clear explanations, all characteristics, and elements of the new social studies concept as concretely as possible. Involve students in clear examples and nonexamples of the new social studies concept. Ask students to clarify the new idea and justify statements with evidence. Provide for student practice using the new social studies concept. Provide additional practice to help students use terms, definitions, and expla- .:;- nations of the concept experienced in the lesson. Provide application activities for the social studies concept in new, relevant contexts while at the same time helping students recall their original alternative explanations. Provide activities to help students transfer the new social studies concept to increasingly real world events. Provide a summary of the important events in the social studies lesson leading to the new social studies concept. to appreciate the ideas of other students and the teacher. Often, small group discussion challenges students to find evidence for their ideas. Large group discussions bring a number of ideas together for consideration. Don't present ready-made concepts and expect students to understand them without providing time for them to construct their own meaning for the concepts. • Expansion. Involve students in making further applications and in transferring the concept to situations outside the classroom context. Students need to use the new concept to make sense of a variety of new experiences. Through reflection, the consideration of observations, and communication, students realize the usefulness of the new concepts in interpreting the world around them. For example, ask them to describe and then to observe settings concerning everyday exposure to aggression in school hallways, the cafeteria, at the mall, and in local sports events. Ask students, "Where is aggression most likely to be found more frequently or more severely?" "What conditions are needed for aggression to thrive?" "What are the conditions where aggression. is not commonly found?" ''Where are these conditions found in school? Elsewhere?" Concepts go beyond our initial contact with an object or event through our sensing of it, involve more than simple observation, and cannot be learned meaningfully when taught as facts. Concepts summarize and group observations into categories in which similarities are identified and generalized. Facts!_however, are those simple, isolated observations made by our senses or acquired indirectly from secondary sources such as books, charts, or databases. For example, "The president gave a speech yesterday" is a fact, an isolated observation. A concept can only be built from several such observations of presidential speeches; for example, "Presidential speeches give the president's viewpoint on an issue in an effort to convince citizens to .agree with that viewpoint." Active experiences, discussion, and time to reflect on the commonalities and differences are needed for a concept to be learned. Powerful social studies teaching focuses on helping students construct an operational definition for the concept rather than focusing on presenting an abstract formal definition or just getting students to use the accepted name or label for the concept. Only an operational definition conveys the meaning the student has constructed for the concept. The variations in complexity and abstractness among concepts have been described by Gagne (1965), Piaget (1963, 1970) and by Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin (1962). Teachers determine how concrete or abstract a concept is and its level of complexity. Then, activities are designed to give students sensory and concrete experiences with which to build meaning for the concept. With a complex and abstract concept such as government, teachers plan a unit with several learning cycles. Each of several learning cycles might address a different essential attribute of the concept of government. One or two learning cycles later in the unit help students put the individual essential attributes together into the major concept of government. Teachers diagnose students' understanding of a concept during the exploratory introduction. At this time, they investigate students' knowledge of concepts that are prerequisites, without which students will not meaningfully understand the concept under study. As the lesson progresses, during the development and expansion of the concept, teachers help students understand how it is related to other concepts. Concept learning requires students to relate new knowledge to prior knowledge, to apply the new knowledge, to become aware of all its important characteristics through many examples and nonexamples, and to have enough application practice so that it is used appropriately and automatically. The Learning Cycle on Productive Resources motivates students and presents a concept and subconcepts in ways that help students construct a new understanding of the concept. Cultural Factors and Concepts Lynch (1998, p. 24) described culture as a "second skin" that becomes visible only when we brush up against one that's different. Sometimes well-prepared lessons fail to help students operationally define a concept. When this happens, a teacher might well remember Lynch's simile.Students' culture might be involved. Because our culture is a framework for our lives, it includes our food, clothing, furniture, art, games, and habits, as well as our deep beliefs and values. The way we look at the world, the way we relate to one another, and the way we bring up our children are culturally defined (Ayers, 1993). It is important for teachers also to recognize that there are many variations within each culture, including educational level, socioeconomic status, occupation, temperament, and personal experience, all of which are factors that influence our values and beliefs. Finally, children might not reconstruct the concepts we are trying to help them build because of other factors in their lives stemming from the culture they bring to school, including race, language, ethnicity, religion, gender, family, age, lifestyle, a'nd political orientation, In such a case, students do not all achieve the lesson's objectives, What does the teacher do? Reteaching the lesson using different strategies might help. Some students, for example those from Middle Eastern cultures, consider their role in a group to be important. These students might benefit from a cooperative group approach to activities through which the concept is constructed. To teach concepts well, teachers need to know some basic information about the cultures and languages of their students. A good resource describing the learning styles and appropriate teaching styles found among students from various cultures is Understanding Your International Students: A Cultural, Educational, and Linguistic Guide, edited by Jeffra Flaitz (2003). Another resource is Passport to Learning: Teaching Social Studies to ESLStudents, Bulletin 101, by Barbara Cruz, Joyce Nutta, Jason O'Brien, Carine Feyten, and Jane Govoni (2003), Grade level: Primary and Intermediate NCSS Standards: Production, Distribution, and Consumption 1. Students review previous knowledge by identifying examples of natural, human, and capital resources. 1. Ask: "Do you like brownies?" The teacher says: ''Let's make some. What do we need to make brownies?" List items on the board. Affirm all items are necessaryto make brownies. 1. Record; on a checklist, students who offer appropriate suggestions. 1. Students define productive resourcesas the natural, human, and capital resources used to make a product or perform a service. 1. The teacher divides students into groups. Each group is given a set of pictures of natural resources. The teacher asks students to discuss the set in their groups. 2. Write Productive Resources on the board and identify so.meof the pictures in the set as natural resources. Then, write natural resources on the board under the heading Productive Resources.Ask students to identify other pictures in the set as natural resources and explain which characteristics in the picture they used to make the identification. 3. Repeat the processwith the other two sets of pictures. Have students consider the following questions: What (natural) resources do you see in this picture? Are these people examples of human resources? Why?Why not? 4. Return to the list for brownies. Have students classifyeach item on the list. Ask: "What can we say a productive resource is?" 5. Closure: Write the class definition of a productive resource on the board. Have students decide whether it needs revision. Have students write the final definition they develop in notebooks. 1. Correct classification of items on the list is recorded on a checklist. 2. Classstates an appropriate definition. 1. In groups, have students develop a list of items from the pictures that are productive resources used in livestock production and a second list of items that are not used. Then, have students identify at least two examples of human, natural, and capital, resources on their lists. The group record.erwrites on the board. The class and the teacher compare checklists. 2. Assign Homework: Talk with a parent or neighbor about his or her job, and identify the productive resources required in it. Then put an N by those that are natural resources and a C by those that are capital resources. Be prepared to share this information the next day. 3. Have students share findings from homework interviews and create a list of productive resources used by the people they interviewed. Ask: "Why did some
 * ore differences. or example, we construct the concept of parent from the parents'
 * - of the people you interviewed only use capital re-

- sources?How can we describe the jobs that used both natural resources and capital resources?" Lesson Summary: Students briefly identify their lesson activities and conclude that those who produce goods are more likely to encounter natural resources as they work than are those people who perform services. S.udents conclude that natural resourceswere used to make the capital goods all workers use. - Given a set of pictures of lives'ock production, student grou ps identify which of he items pictured are or are not productive resources in this business. 1. Check group lists for at least 80 percent accuracy. Summative Evaluation: Ask each student to complete the following tasks: (1) Identify a job someone else described in class. (2) Identify productive resources used in the job. (3) Identify each productive resource with 3n N for natural resource or a Cfor capital resource. Determine accuracy and appropriateness of parts 2 and 3 using the following rubrics. [' co~tinued Expansion: Assessment of Concept Learning Concept learning can be assessed using a variety of the forms of assessment discussed in Chapter 3. Planning for assessment begins when the teacher constructs a concept web, map, or analysis. The teacher must decide how to operationally define the concept and determine the essential attributes that will be taught. These decisions are made by considering the developmental level of the students, the J!_~_~J~X.-,~:~n~S_~!_~!:lJ~1~:'?!t!_Puser:aarth521t _ Readthe concept lesson on Productive Resourcesand answer the following questions. 1. What concept and subconcepts are the primary focus of this lesson? 2. What makes the presentation of the concept and its subconcepts appropriate for elementary students? 3. What examples and nonexamples are provided in the lesson? 4. List at least two critical attributes, presented for the concept and each of its subconcepts in the lesson. 5. How is the concept applied in the expansion phase, and how is its use expanded to contexts beyond that in which it was learned during the development phase? 6. What purpose does the homework assignment serve in this lesson? Time for Reflection Wh~t-Do ~t1 (hrh!:.? -_.---_.-._-_.-.-. Return to the Time for Reflection activity on rivers in the Exploratory Introduction at the beginning of the chapter. React, in light of your participation in reading and reflecting on this chapter, to the sample elementary textbook passagetreatment of rivers. Rereadthe sample textbook passageand do the tasks below. 1. Identify which statements address concepts. 2. Identify statements that are procedures or other information about the social studies content. 3. Identify the statements you consider part of social studies content every student should understand and for which lessons need to be planned for meaningful learning of the content to occur. Item 1: Statements 1-4, 6-16, 18-26, and 29-32 are concepts or descriptions of attributes of a concept. Twelve concepts are introduced in the -J)assage:source (1), stream (4), riverbed (7), river (14), branches (15), tri buta ries (16), drains (17), river basin (18), silt (20), sandbar (22), and mouth (31). Item 2: Statements 5,17,28, and 33 are procedures or other information about tile social studies content. Item 3: Students should understand the concept river and the attributes of the concept that distinguish it from others. All the statements except 5,17,28, and 33 present the concept, related concepts (subconcepts), and attributes of a river. This concept is important for students to understand. However, with twelve concepts presented in the passage, students may have difficulty constructing an appropriate understanding of the key concept: river. kinds of experiences they bring to class, the prerequisite concepts they have, and how the concept fits into the local, state, and national social studies standards. Constructing a concept web, map, or analysis involves the teacher in making these decisions. Concepts have little use if they cannot be applied when needed. Therefore, assessment must involve the student in applying the concept. True/false, matching, and fill-in-the-blank items typically do not involve students in such application. A better paper-and-pencil assessment would be to have students complete a concept web. Or, a web might be constructed by a student at the beginning of the lesson and then revised after the lesson so the teacher can examine the changes made. Students can be given a task that is a version of a task they did during the lesson's expansion phase, as in the learning cycle on productive resources. The criteria used in assessing the students must include whether they recognize the essential attributes of the concept that have been explained and the examples of these attributes with which they have worked and whether they can display their understanding of an operational definition of it. So, an assessment that asks students to give a definition of a concept can examine whether students Technology offers a wide range of resources that can be used to expand students' experiences as they construct new concepts and reconstruct existing concepts. Recordings represent an older but still very useful technology that engages students' sense of hearing, while a picture engages their sense of sight. When the two are combined, an opportunity to processmany more observations is created. For example, students may understand a historical scene very differently when hearing it described by a bystander during an audiotaped interview than they might when looking at photographs of the same event. The teacher must preview each resource before using it with students. Some videos, audiotapes, and similar resources are outdated, are biased, have little useful information, or are of poor quality. Before using a technological resource, teachers decide on its purpose: Will it stimulate students' exploration of a concept? Will it help students construct the concept? Will it expand a concept into new contexts? Tea~hers introduce students to the focus of the resodrce before it is used. Students know whether they will be presented with information that cannot be personally experienced except by audiovisual means. Next, teachers outline key observations students should try to make and discuss how these observations are recorded. After examining the resource, students share and discuss their observations. Teachers then ask prepared questions to help students extend their observations. Subsequent activities build on these experiences. Video has the advantage of being easily made. Video can be of a field trip, a guest speaker's visit, student presentations, local sites of interest to the social studies program, or of any number of other events and activities. Video can be edited and used on websites or in I?OwerPoi nt presentations. A script is prepared for a video by the students, teacher, or students and teacher working together. The script may layout the exact words to be spoken, as in the case of a class play on a concept such as human resources or voting. More often, a script indicates a sequence of activities and who is involved in each. Plans for activities and scripts are often general with specific details ad-libbed. Scripted videos allow for retakes if a major blunder occurs during videotaping. Digitizing video allows it to be watched when needed. The video title, credits, and other components can be added by using programs on the computer. memorized a dictionary or other definition. If students have to draw their understanding of the concept, describe it in a scenario, determine which of several statements show a person is using it, or apply it in some other way, it is possible to assess their meaningful understanding of the concept. Concepts are a basic component of powerful social studies content. Although factual information is necessary for forming concepts, social studies content is not acquired by memorizing facts. Teachers planning lessons identify and distinguish among the concepts they teach. Different instructional methods are used to teach different concepts to students. Most concepts have more than one level of meaning and may be sensory, concrete, or formal, depending on the instructional methods used. Before being classified, a concept is clearly defined. All concepts are abstract because they are abstracted from many specific instances and examples. Teachers use what they know about their students' ideas. They encourage students to talk about their ideas so they are better able to help students learn. When students have expressed their own ideas, learning activities help them test them out. By design, the learning cycle helps teachers prepare lessons that provide the four conditions needed for conceptual change. The learning cycle fosters cooperative learning and a safe, positive learning environment; compares new alternatives to prior knowledge; connects new ideas to what students already know; and helps students construct their own "new" knowledge and apply it in ways that differ from the situation in which it was learned. When a teacher uses learning cycles in a classroom with a positive environment in which it is safe to take risks whe~ learning and sharing ideas, students are more likely to have success in constructing powerful social studies concepts. • Develop a concept analysis for one of the following concepts: computer, scarcity, city, election, or friendship. Include the following in the concept analysis: a. Concept ll!pel b. Definitiofr c. Attributes d. Examples e. Superordinate concepts f. Subconcepts g. Coordinate concepts (if any). During which phase of a lesson should a concept be defined? Explain your rationale for identifying this phase of the lesson. Using the national social studies standards, identify a major concept appropriate for study by a group of students whom you are observing or with whom you are working. Construct a concept analysis for the identified concept. Then prepare a set of three to five interview questions to investigate how these students are constructing their idea of the concept. Reflect on important attributes that are and are not included in the concept by the students and experiences that could be implemented to help them understand those attributes as being important to the concept.