Vera Teschow.ca
  • Home
  • About
    • Overview
    • Education & Diplomas
    • Consulting & PR
    • Teaching Experience
    • Workshop Facilitation
    • Volunteer Experience
    • Extra-Curricular Leadership
    • Writing
  • Learn
  • BLOG
  • Contact

The Tricky Thing About Concept Attainment

10/22/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
I used concept attainment -- one of my favourite instructional strategies -- to teach sentences today.

I had noticed that many of my students' writing included "sentences" that were either lacking a capital or punctuation at the beginning and end, or that simply did not make sense because they did not encapsulate complete thoughts.  So, using my fabulous new IWB, I put together a wee little concept attainment lesson, hid each example and tester until I touched it, and away we went (see screen shot to the left).

Ahhh, but there is never just a “wee little” lesson when it comes to concept attainment; that is why it is such a powerful strategy!!!

Just as we had compiled a list of probable criteria based on the examples, and were beginning the testers, one of my students raised a pertinent point...    You see, the students had noticed that all the examples on the left began with a capital letter, ended with a period, and “made sense”.  These were indeed the critical aspects of the concept of a “sentence” I had hoped they would notice, and we listed them as necessary criteria for being in the left column. (See handwritten list on the bottom left of the screenshot).

But then, then came the tester, “I like pizza”, and my little friend, who is usually quite unfocussed, but who was extremely engaged with our little “guess my rule game” (another advantage of concept attainment is that even the most challenging students are drawn in by the game-like characteristic of this strategy) noted that it goes on the right (correct!) because it is “not about school, and all the ones on the left are about school”  (OOPS!!!)

Yes, Ms. Teschow, that is what comes of not carefully constructing the data set and looking it over in advance to ensure it is demonstrative of the concepts you want to teach, and ONLY the concepts you want to teach!!!

Soooo.... I congratulated my little friend on her keen eye, and then quickly added another "yes" example (see black box on the left of the screenshot).  I noted that although the previously listed examples indeed all had something to do with school, this new one certainly belonged on the left as well, therefore, we need not add “school stuff” to the criteria list.  I then challenged her to explain why the pizza (black box on the right of the screen shot) did indeed NOT fit into the left column.

Happily, the student soon saw that in addition to not having anything to do with school, the pizza phrase was not a complete sentence, as it lacked a period.

The essence of “What makes a sentence?” was soon established, and students went off to write some sentences of their own, ensuring that each one began with a capital letter, ended with a period, and expressed a complete thought.

For those readers lucky enough to have a Smart Board in their classroom, please feel free to use the lesson below.  (It is in Smart Notebook 11 format.)

sentence_concept_attainment.notebook
File Size: 67 kb
File Type: notebook
Download File

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    About Vera...

    Vera & her Sons, April 2021
    After writing for several teacher and multiple birth publications, including ETFO's Voice Magazine, Multiple Moments, and the Bulletwin, Vera turned her written attention to prolific blogging for some years, including BiB,  "Learn to Fly with Vera!"  and SMARTbansho .  Homeschooling 4 was her travel blog in Argentina.  She now spends more time on her Instagram (@schalgzeug_usw)  than her blog (pictures are worth a thousand words?!) 
    DISCLAIMER
    The views expressed on this blog are the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the perspectives of her family members or the position of her employer on the the issues she blogs about.  These posts are intended to share resources, document family life, and encourage critical thought on a variety of subjects.  They are not intended to cause harm to any individual or member of any group. By reading this blog and viewing this site, you agree to not hold Vera liable for any harm done by views expressed in this blog.
    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Argentina 2013
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    Cycling
    Family
    Flying
    Geocaching
    Honduras 2011
    Lakeshore
    Lgbtq
    Math Eyes
    Music
    Other Stuff
    Prince Edward Island
    Teaching And Learning
    Teaching-and-learning
    Travel

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2022
    January 2021
    September 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010

Vera C. Teschow, OCT, M.Ed., MOT
Toronto, ON & St Peter's Harbour, PE
www.verateschow.ca 2021
Photos used under Creative Commons from Sean MacEntee, Studio Paars, Bengt Nyman, zeevveez, GoodNCrazy, CJS*64, Accretion Disc, CharlesLam, Courtney Dirks, CJS*64 "Man with a camera", Accretion Disc, Bobolink, Ian Muttoo, BioDivLibrary, Alaskan Dude, IsabelleAcatauassu, runran, Transformer18, jglsongs, Create For Animal Rights, david_shankbone, Paul J Coles, foilman, Newport Geographic, Photo Everywhere, kevin dooley, Claudio , Alex Guibord, Tscherno, f_mafra, Terry Madeley, musee de l'horlogerie, BobMacInnes, wwarby, jonathangarcia, amboo who?, chimothy27, Elin B, cliff1066™, Grzegorz Łobiński, Rennett Stowe, Farhill, Phil Manker, Guitarfool5931, airguy1988, dierk schaefer, Rob Stemple, katerha, StockMonkeys.com, Ramotionblog, andrewk3715, charlywkarl, AJC1, rachel_titiriga