Leveraging Deep Learning: Strategies and Tools for Assessment of Conceptual Understanding

CHAPTER 1

WHY CONCEPTUAL LEARNING?

In a complicated, fast-changing world, the intelligent path is to let go of being a Knower and embrace being a Learner.

GUY CLAXTON, WHAT’S THE POINT OF SCHOOL?

In the world of education, a concept acts as an umbrella, linking the details and characteristics that form the main parts of an idea. A concept can be expressed in a single word or a phrase, such as power or points of view . In A Study of Thinking , educational researchers Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin defined concepts as the mental categories we use to classify information according to its common features; they help us make sense of the world.

This act of linking differentiates conceptual learning from the practice of using topics or themes to organise learning for students. Topic-based learning narrows the curriculum focus on facts. In contrast, conceptual learning links learners’ understanding of topics, allowing them to develop a broader understanding of the world.

Consider the characteristics of concepts versus the characteristics of facts or topics:

If you currently use topics or themes to plan your units of study, you’ll be happy to know that transitioning to a conceptual curriculum does not require you to discard your current units. You simply expand existing topic-based units by reframing them, using a conceptual lens. The list below offers an example of how unit topics can be adapted and broadened when viewed through this lens.

Please note that in this book, the shift to conceptual learning is explored through the lens of continuous assessment. This shift will be further examined and explained in greater detail in the book Designing for Wonder: Strategies and Tools for Framing the Inquiry for Conceptual Learning. In this book, we’ll focus on the fundamentals of conceptual teaching and learning that explain the why behind this teaching practice as well as what makes it effective.

Six Fundamentals of Conceptual Teaching and Learning

Fundamental 1: Developing a Conceptual Schema

"Concept framework(s) . . . includes knowledge, ideas, and concepts that are all linked to each other as a learning package within our brain. Most of our thinking involves concept frameworks. In our brain sits an unfathomable number of the most extraordinary complex and re-usable knowledge, ideas, concepts, and concept frameworks that we combine in numerous different ways allowing us to predict and create new possibilities for additional contexts we may have never experienced before."

MARK TREADWELL, THE FUTURE OF LEARNING

Schemas are neural networks, and the way those networks get created and connected ends up defining your concept, or understanding of the topic, explains Eric Sbar in his article, Schemas Are Key to Deep Conceptual Understanding. These mental constructs are a lens through which new information is interpreted and integrated with existing knowledge. They provide a framework that helps people make sense of their world.

The shift from content-based curriculum to conceptual teaching and learning helps to ensure that developing schemas becomes an intentional aspect of instructional practice. As learners explore concepts, they use the conceptual schema to connect new learning to previous knowledge. Our approach is built on the connections that link facts in the form of concepts. This method differs from content-driven instruction in that it leverages the full potential of conceptual schemas for improved learning.

Fundamental 2: Focuses on Big Ideas

Educators should move away from trying to cover excessive factual material, and instead orient their curriculum around a smaller number of conceptually larger, transferable ideas. Focusing on fewer, bigger ideas is critical to avoiding superficial coverage, and it allows more time to engage learners in the kinds of active meaning-making processes that are necessary for understanding the relevant content.

MCTIGHE AND SILVER, "INSTRUCTIONAL SHIFTS TO SUPPORT DEEP LEARNING"

In The Process of Education, Jerome Bruner stated, A curriculum ought to be built around the great issues, principles, and values that society deems worthy of the continual concern of its members. Jo Boaler reiterated this idea in her article, Big Ideas: I always recommend that teachers focus on ‘big ideas’ instead of isolated standards. Conceptual understanding focuses on those big ideas.

Organising and reframing content under conceptually driven big ideas shifts the attention from simply acquiring content knowledge to building understanding. Learners use knowledge to explain and verify their current understandings building and developing their conceptual schema. Using the school’s prescribed standards and objectives as the starting point for conceptual learning, we can set our aim at developing meaningful, purposeful, and engaging units in which the content supports a deeper understanding of big ideas. We refer to this as conceptual understanding.

Conceptual understanding occurs when concepts are embedded in big ideas. Big ideas are broadly written and provide scope for learners to build understanding over time. Big ideas (conceptual understandings) will be explored more in Designing for Wonder: Strategies and Tools for Framing the Inquiry for Conceptual Learning, the next book in the Concepts in Action series.

Examples of Conceptual Understandings

Each of the statements below represents a conceptual understanding. By embedding and explicitly articulating the concepts (highlighted by the bold type), conceptual understandings take shape. To make meaning, it’s necessary to understand the concepts within the statement.

Through interpreting and representing numerical expressions, mathematicians see and explain patterns.

Through experimentation, people develop and test theories.

Improving performance in individual pursuits involves refinement and reflection.

Systems have interdependent parts and impact the world in which we live.

Fundamental 3: Promotes Meaningful and Relevant Learning

Establishing relevance was the most prominent and often cited learner response. Relevance is a key component to intrinsically motivating learner learning. By establishing both personal and real-world relevance, learners are provided with an important opportunity to relate the course subject matter to the world around them, and to assimilate it in accordance with their previously held assumptions and beliefs. Relevance is a key factor in providing a learning context in which learners construct their own understanding of the course material.

HOW TO MAKE LEARNING RELEVANT TO YOUR LEARNERS, OPENCOLLEGE.EDU.AU

Conceptual learning puts an end to teaching content out of context. We are not implying that content is unimportant; we are saying that context and connections are essential for deeper learning. Teaching content out of context leaves learners with isolated facts. They know about the material but may not have an understanding of it that allows them to apply and use what they have learned. Concepts provide relevance and significance to the learning.

David Perkins (cited by Nigel Coutts) notes that with factual learning, "we might finish the unit with a detailed understanding of the (topic), but we have learned little else." He suggests a shift toward understanding with, "where we finish the topic with an understanding of the essential information about the (topic) and we also exit with a broader perspective on the world and a new way of understanding many interrelated topics. We have developed understandings with our study . . . rather than merely developing an understanding of the