Constructing concepts and generalization (2)

Concepts and Generalizations

1. Developing Concepts
and Generalizations

2. Concepts: the fundamental
building blocks of social studies.

3. Concepts can deal with:
•places
•persons
•objects
•institutions
•events
•ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving

4. Ten National Standards
•Each of the ten curriculum standards
developed by the National Council for the
Social Studies is a concept or a group of
two or three concepts.
•Each of the national standards for
Geography, Economics, History, and
Political Science deal with various
concepts.
•So concepts must be important. Why?

5. Concepts...
•reflect who we are as a culture.
•are the foundation of our social
studies curriculum.
•are used to form
generalizations (more on that
latter).

6. Concepts
•The term, concept, is used to
mean idea.
–concepts are abstract categories of
meaning
–concepts are removed from concrete
examples
–concepts deal with attributes
–individually, concepts can have different
meanings depending on past
experiences of the individual

7. Concept
•The concept (idea) refers to the critical
attributes shared by all examples.
•Individuals learn each concept and
process the information it represents
on their own. Each of us has a
somewhat different understanding of a
concept. The strength of well-defined
concepts is that even though we form
our own mental construction of a
concept, its essential attributes are
recognized by all of us.

8. Concepts
•Concepts summarize factual statements that
have a common characteristic and distinguish
all examples of the concept from nonexamples.
–facts are supported by observations
–concepts are supported by facts
•Think about the word grandfather. We each in
our minds define what it means “to be a
grandfather” (based on our own observations),
which may or may not align. But there are
certain facts we all would agree upon such as a
grandfather being a parent’s parent.

9. Important
•Without an adequate background of facts based on
concrete experiences, a student’s understanding of
concepts will be weak.
•Facts in any social studies curriculum must be
related to specific concepts that are part of the key
ideas of social studies standards.
•Factual information by itself is useless to
students. (Unless they are on Jeopardy.)

10. When Teaching Concepts:
•it is important to
–help students experience multiple
examples of the concept to be
learned
–guide the students to grasp the
critical attributes that all the
examples have in common

11. The Key
•Allow students to explore three or four examples
of the concept to be learned and then guide them
to find the similarities across the examples.
•It is more about exposure, exposure, exposure instead of
I do, you do, we do.

12. Operational Definitions
•Operational definitions usually contain two parts
–First, it describes the conditions (what is done in an event or to
an object being defined)
–Secondly, it describes the effect of what is observed or what
happens as a result of what is done)
•My two parts are a little easier to understand. When I
use an operational definition it includes
–First, a student friendly definition (the teacher and students
make it together)
–Second, include at lease one example (if possible)
•Powerful social studies focuses on using operational
definitions to communicate meaning of concepts.
•Guide the students in forming the operational definition.

13. Concepts are Interrelated
•Two concepts often share some of
the same facts and most concepts
include other concepts as
subconcepts. Concept maps help
students see relationships among
concepts. (They also are a tool
teachers can use to diagnose student
understanding.)

14. Concept Maps (Concept Webs)
•Identifies concepts of major focus and
organizes those concepts into a hierarchy
ranging from the most general to the most
specific concept.
•By understanding the hierarchy of these
concepts the teacher can better teach and
diagnose difficulties students have in
constructing concepts.

15. Key Terms
•Superordinate concept is a larger, more
inclusive concept into which a concept fits.
(Example: family is a superordinate
concept for parent)
•Subconcepts fall under the concept.
(Example: mother, father, foster mother
are all subconcepts of parent)
•Coordinate concept is one that is
equivalent in some way to the concept.
(Example: caregiver and parent)

16. Effective Teaching
•Begin with sensory or concrete concepts and gradually
progress to higher-level concepts.
•Plan the learning of social studies concepts according to
the reasoning patterns needed to understand the
content. (Developmentally appropriate.)
•Provide learners direct experience with a concept in
order to develop a meaningful understanding of it. Use
visuals and primary sources, when possible.
•Don’t assume they already know the concept.
•Provide plenty of exposure to the concept.

17. Effective Teaching
•Identify all essential attributes of the
concept (form a concept map)
•Identify examples and nonexamples
•Identify students’ prior knowledge of the
concept
•Use learning cycle format for the lesson
•Use operational definitions
•Teach interrelationships among concepts
•Assess students’ application of the
concept

18. Moving on to
Generalizations

19. Generalizations are the most
useful and powerful ideas in
social studies.

20. Generalizations...
•enable us to explain processes and events
we experience.
•are often cause and effect.
•develop from inferences we make through
observations.
•provide more information than a concept.
•describe two or more concepts and
relationships among them.
•are big ideasbig ideas.

21. •Generalizations differ from facts and concepts
because they:
–identify relationships between two or more
concepts
–construct explanations of cause and effect
–enable predictions of a future occurrence of the
relationship stated in the generalization. (Hence
the quote, “Those who do not learn from history
are doomed to repeat it.”)

22. •Generalizations
–link facts and concepts
–summarizes experiences
–can be used to make predictions
•Just because we form
generalizations does not mean
they are correct.

23. •Students have already formed some generalizations
by the time they come to school.
–“All people must eat to survive.”
–“All parents want to make life difficult for their kids.”
•Some may be inaccurate due to limited experiences.
–“All grown up women are mothers.”
–“Riding in a limousine means you have a lot of money.”

24. Generalizations: Learning Cycle Plan
•Exploration: Question, or problem, is posedExploration: Question, or problem, is posed
–Students form a generalization (hypothesis).
•Lesson Development: Students gather information Lesson Development: Students gather information
and form a and form a supportedsupported generalization generalization
–Students find evidence that supports their generalization or
causes them to form a new one.
•Expansion: Students determine how widely the Expansion: Students determine how widely the
generalization can be appliedgeneralization can be applied
–Students determine if this generalization is applicable to a
similar event or situation.

25. Inquiry Learning
•Instruction designed to help students
construct meaning and learn
generalizations is typically called inquiry
learning.
•Remember those inquiry skills (processing
skills, thinking skills, etc.) we talked about in
the previous PPT? Inquiry learning is
dependent upon students being able to use
those skills.

26. The inquiry’s findings:
•Generalizations range in the amount of
support they have. If the data students
collect does not support the generalization
then it needs to be changed.
•Always demand your students support their
thoughts with evidence.
–Hypothesis-Test-Revisit the hypothesis

27. Generalizations
•Range from simple relationships
–Peer pressure can affect a person’s decisions.
•to complex.
–Emerging technologies are transforming
relationships and heightening tensions through
a lack of uncertainty of reliable information
about current events.
•Mostly, you will be dealing with ACOS
generated generalizations such as:
–6:10 Explain the effects of immigration on
Alabama and national economies since WWII.

28. •Your job is to:
–provide guidance
–give students time and resources
to investigate their hypothesis or
generalization
–model seriousness of purpose
–show interest and respect for
students’ thinking but demand
reasoning in their thinking

29. Sunal, C. S. & Haas, M. E. (2016). Social studies for
the elementary and middle school grades: A
constructivist approach. Boston, MA:
Pearson Education.