Concept attainment lessons require that positive and negative exemplars be presented to the students. It should be stressed that the students’ job in concept attainment is not to invent new concepts, but to attain the ones that have previ-ously been selected by the teacher. When students are presented with an example, they describe its characteristics (attributes), looking for shared attri-butes in the positive ones that are not presented in the negative ones.
| A pplICATIon
The applications in all content areas may emphasize content or process. If the emphasis is on the analysis of thinking, a short sample concept attainment exercise might be developed so that more time can be spent on the analysis of thinking.
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The concept attainment model may be used with children of all ages and grade levels. We have seen teachers use the model very successfully with kin-dergarten children, who love the challenge of the inductive activity. For young children the concept and examples must be relatively simple, and the lesson itself must be short and heavily teacher directed. The typical curriculum for young children is filled with concrete concepts that readily lend themselves to concept attainment methodology. The analysis-of-thinking phase of the strat-egy (phase 3) should be conducted gently with very young children, but by first grade most can manage it.
When the model is used in early childhood education, concrete materials for examples are often available. Classroom objects, Cuisinaire rods, pictures, and shapes can be found in almost any early childhood classroom. Although helping children work inductively can be an important goal in itself, the teacher should also have more specific goals in mind in using this model.
The concept attainment model is an excellent evaluation tool when teach-ers want to determine whether important ideas introduced earlier have been mastered. It quickly reveals the depth of students’ understanding and rein-forces their previous knowledge.
Concept attainment lessons providing important concepts in social studies units— concepts such as democracy, socialism, capitalism, and due process—
can be incorporated periodically into units that otherwise depend on student reading and reporting. Let’s look at one more scenario that Lori Kindrachuk created, this time to help her students develop information about settings when they are reading fiction and also to think about how they can generate information about setting when they are writing.
S
c e n a r I o Lori’S third LeSSonThis time we will ask you to look at lists of positive and negative exemplars and draw your own conclusions about the concept.
Here are her notes about the concept.
Definition: A setting is the environment in which the action of a fictional work takes place. It includes information about time and/ or place.
Orienting Statement: In this lesson all of the positive exemplars (yeses) have a common attribute. As you read each sentence, focus on its content and the information it provides.
Positive exemplars
1. It was October 31, 1997, and Danny knew he had the best Halloween costume ever.
2. In 2001, Valentine’s Day fell on a Friday and Joanne had her cards ready to deliver the night before.
3. Easter Sunday, 1952, fell on April 14, giving Sam five more days to finish decorating the eggs.
4. Mark had just celebrated his twelfth birthday on January 29, 1999, the same day as the Super Bowl game.
5. The spring of 1981 was hot and dry; June 7, graduation day, was no exception.
6. On a Saturday morning, in August of 1862, he left on his first trip.
7. Cold, damp and wet— that was March of 1965.
8. The day after Pearl Harbor had been hit, the air was still filled with smoke from the fires.
9. As he read the headline, he realized the Titanic had gone down the day before yesterday.
10. The church service this morning marked one year since the events of 9/ 11.
11. This devastating time in America became known as the Civil War.
12. As Hitler’s forces pressed forward, Cal listened to the reports each day, wishing he were old enough to join the fight.
13. After the crash of the stock market, times were tough; they were surviving the years that would become known as the Dirty Thirties.
14. Tom had always wanted to be a pilot— last summer a man had walked on the moon for the first time; who knew what the future would hold?
15. Jake sat down in front of the computer and scanned his email.
16. The crowd roared as the gladiator entered the arena on a chariot trimmed with gold.
17. Mark’s new iPod had been stolen out of his locker last week.
18. The covered wagon would be their home during the long trip to the new settlement.
19. With cell phone in one hand and snowboard in the other, Tanis made her way toward the hill.
20. Interplanetary travel was still quite new and they hadn’t worked out all of the kinks in the booking system.
21. They had arrived by horse and carriage the night before, as it was the fastest and most comfortable way he could think of to get the entire family home.
The first seven sentences name specific dates and times, moving from day/ month/ year to combinations of day, month, or year. The first three sentences name specific holidays.
(halloween and Valentine’s day always fall on the same date.)
The next seven sentences begin by naming famous events in history and move towards referring to famous periods in history.
The final set of sentences name either modes of transportation or inventions from a certain period, developing the time setting strictly through inference.
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negative exemplars
1. Sarah was taller than her sister, but they shared the same red hair and freckles.
2. The child in the picture wore a bright blue dress and had ribbons in her hair.
3. June’s favorite band was going to play for the dance.
4. He knew that he should help put out the fire, but he couldn’t seem to move.
5. She was his second cousin and they had always been good friends.
6. Mrs. Thompson worked in the store and taught piano lessons in her spare time.
7. If they won the game, they would advance to the semifinal.
8. Last month they saw each other three times.
9. She had talked to him yesterday.
10. Two more weeks until the big day!
11. She had only heard the news three days before.
12. In two more hours the celebration would begin.
13. They were still 15 minutes away from the nearest help.
14. During halftime the players would discuss a new strategy.
15. The sale will be three weeks from Saturday.
16. The deal was final at midnight on the 25th.
17. They would attend the lessons the next three Wednesdays in a row.
18. March, April, and May were her favorite months.
19. They always had fish for supper on Friday.
20. Autumn always brought the smells of pumpkin pie and decaying leaves.
21. Next spring they planned to start building their new home.
| I nsTruCTIonAl And nurTurAnT eFFeCTs
The concept attainment strategies can accomplish several instructional goals depending on the emphasis of the particular lesson. They are designed for instruction on specific concepts and on the nature of concepts. They also pro-vide practice in inductive reasoning and opportunities for altering and improv-ing students’ concept- buildimprov-ing strategies. Finally, especially with abstract concepts, the strategies nurture an awareness of alternative perspectives, a sensitivity to logical reasoning in communication, and a tolerance of ambigu-ity (see Figure 6.1).
The first seven negative exemplars do not mention time in any way. They are related to character/ plot
development.
The next seven sentences use time- related vocabulary, without
specifically naming times or inferring eras.
The final seven sentences refer to specific times (e.g., three weeks from saturday) without revealing a definite period.
Robert Gagné’s 1965 article thoroughly discusses a similar approach to concept attainment. Merrill and Tennyson (1977) describe a similar approach—
without, however, an extensive analysis of the thinking processes. McKinney, Warren, Larkins, Ford, and Davis (1983) have reported a series of interesting studies comparing the Merrill and Tennyson approach with Gagné’s and a reci-tation procedure. Their work illustrates the complexity of designing studies to meaningfully compare sets of models built on the same premises but differing in details of execution. However, the differences in approach and the research to build better models are probably of less importance to teachers than the fact that there are models that do a good job of teaching concepts— ones more powerful than the way concepts have traditionally been taught, and therefore represent useful additions to the teaching/ learning repertoire. The model we have been discussing is one of them.
Nature of concepts Concepts, conceptual systems, and their
application
Concept-learning strategies
Conceptual flexibility
Inductive reasoning
Tolerance of ambiguity Concept
Attainment Model
I N S T R U C T I O N A L
N U R T U R A N T
Instructional and nurturant effects of the concept attainment model
Figure 6.1
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