Topic 1:

Assignment: Art of Living

Submitted by:Tanvir Mahmud

Submitted to: Mr.Shalauddin

Conceptual Learning involves students engaged in quality learning experiences based around key concepts and
central ideas rather than using the more traditional method of focusing on learning on topics. It provides
aholistic and conceptual framework for designing integrated units of work, connecting learning with syllabus
content, knowledge and skills and it also embeds the use of explicit teaching strategies reflective of the NSW
Quality Teaching Framework.

Conceptual Learning integrates assessment of, for and through learning through the use of backward mapping
and facilitates the integration of learning and effective assessment across a range of key learning areas. It
promotes the intellectual quality of all students through providing deep and connected learning experiences.
This model of programming engages students in higher-order thinking and facilitates the development of
problematic knowledge.  Through this, students are supported in making meaningful connections and it
facilitates the creation of rich and deep understandings of the world around us.
 How is does it work across the Univarsity

The implementation of Conceptual Learning has continued to be a whole school focus since its implementation
in 2009 and is monitored closely by the Conceptual Learning committee. This has involved the development of a
whole school scope and sequence, with learning programs across the school being based on the concepts
of; Heritage and Tradition, Freedom and Responsibility; Culture and Identity, Interrelationships and Adaptation, Energy
and Movement, Change and Functionality, Product and Design and Transformation and Independence.
This scope and sequence has been designed to reflect the spiral nature of the curriculum and allows students to
re-visit concepts and continue to build on and further develop their conceptual understanding through their K-6
journey. This spiral can be best explained through looking at learning through the stages.

EARLY STAGE ONE - students develop a PERSONAL perspective, thinking about me and my relationship with the
immediate world around me.

STAGE ONE- students develop a LOCAL perspective, thinking about their families and communities and their
relationships with each other.

STAGE TWO- students develop a NATIONAL perspective, thinking about their relationship with Australia and the
country and culture they live in.

STAGE THREE- students develop a GLOBAL perspective, thinking about global relationships, connections and
issues from an Australian viewpoint.
The Conceptual Learning committee continue to monitor this scope and sequence and it is currently under
review in anticipation of the implementation of the new curriculum content. This term, the committee will also
be conducting a small research project with our Year 5 students, to investigate how effective this scope and
sequence has been in allowing students to make connections across the learning stages, through the use of
concept maps.  It is anticipated that the results of this project will guide us in further refining teaching and
learning programs.
 
For further information on the current Conceptual Learning unit of work that your child is engaged in this term, please
read the term overview page or refer to your grade newsletter.
 
 3 Ways to Boost Students’ Conceptual Thinking

We want our students’ learning to be enduring, enabling them to make sense of complexity now and in the future. For
this to occur, we need to nudge students beyond the learning of facts and skills to uncover concepts—transferable
ideas that transcend time, place, and situation.
Learning knowledge and skills is like standing in the middle of a forest, surrounded by trees: It’s easy to spot details
but hard to see patterns. For students to think conceptually, they need opportunities to head up to the mountaintop,
pause, and take in the entire forest. They need the chance to search for big ideas—to generalize, summarize, and
draw conclusions by looking at their learning in a holistic way.
By intentionally designing learning activities in which students move between the factual and conceptual levels of
thinking, we can help them construct understanding, facilitate transfer, and build their sense of agency.
 QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER DURING LESSON PLANNING

To help students go from surface to deep learning, we can ask ourselves three questions:
1.From the facts or skills being taught, which concepts are at the heart of the learning? For instance, a unit on the human body
may be driven by the concepts of system, interdependence, and health.
2.Which connections between concepts would we like students to make as a result of the learning? For example, in mathematics,
we may ask students to connect the concepts of multiplication and division. In science, we may wish to see how they draw links
between photosynthesis and energy transformation.
3.What opportunities for application and transfer can we design to help students take their learning further? For instance, we may
ask students who have learned about principles of art and design to create posters for a social or environmental cause of their
choice.
These questions reflect different levels of conceptual thinking. If students do not have a strong understanding of individual
concepts, they’ll struggle to see patterns and make connections between them. Likewise, if we don’t give students time to
construct understanding, it will be challenging for them to apply their ideas to projects, current events, or other new contexts.
 3 WAYS TO PROMOTE CONCEPTUAL THINKING

1. Using categorizing, naming, and sorting activities: In order to understand individual concepts, students need to grapple with
examples, non-examples, and attributes of a concept. We can ask students, “What is it like?” and invite them to describe the key
features.
For instance, young children learning about habitats may be shown images of a beehive, pond, log, fish tank, rabbit hutch, and
zoo enclosure and prompted to describe how these homes are similar or different. By comparing these examples and non-
examples of the concept habitat, students come to understand that a habitat is the natural environment in which an animal’s needs
are met.
By asking students to engage in categorizing, naming, and sorting activities, we prepare them for more-complex thinking to come
later in a unit and reduce misconceptions.
Concept formation activities:
•Create a T-chart labeled Yes and No and ask students to sort examples and non-examples of a concept, such as a polygon.
•Provide students with examples of a concept and invite them to find common attributes and write their own definitions using a
stem, such as, “Migration is when _____.”
•Share a concept and ask students to generate their own examples or non-examples. These can be represented in words or
pictures. In the image below, Grade 1 student illustrations show the concept of a performer; the students collaboratively analyzed
the images to come up with attributes like being in front of an audience.
2. Asking students to make connections: As students engage with a unit, they explore a variety of contexts that illustrate concepts
in action. In a unit on the civil rights movement, for example, students may learn about the Montgomery bus boycott and the
Greensboro sit-ins. By drawing out connections between concepts such as protest and rights, students can zoom out to see the big
picture of their learning.
To support generalizing, we can design activities that require students to link concepts. For instance, students in my Grade 7 social
studies class engaged in concept mapping at the end of a unit on sustainability. They mapped out concepts hierarchically, then
created connections using linking words to describe relationships between them. I asked them to chart out their main
understandings as statements next to their concept map. It’s important when facilitating such activities to ensure that students
support their thinking using evidence from prior learning.
Concept linking activities:
•Invite students to take the role of a specific concept explored in a unit, and ask them to sit in a circle of four or five people, each
representing a different concept. They then make connections to each other, explaining how and why they connect using evidence
from prior learning.
•Use graphic organizers that ask students to collaboratively synthesize multiple case studies. For instance, have students read
about Malala Yousafzai, Martin Luther King Jr., and Greta Thunberg and take notes using a triple Venn diagram that will help
them answer the question, “How do change makers overcome challenges?”
3. Planning for transfer: Activities that invite students to form concepts and make connections between them prime the brain for
transfer—in each of these stages of conceptual thinking, we help students to reason abstractly and identify the “So what?” of their
learning. Once students have formed connections between concepts and articulated these as understandings, we can provide them
with opportunities to apply them to new situations. This allows students to see the relevance of their learning to both near and far
contexts.
Transfer activities:
•Give students a novel case study to grapple with and invite them to apply their understandings. Ask them to revise their thinking:
How might we need to change our original idea to include the new case study?
•Invite students to take a stance on a provocative statement and debate using their prior knowledge and understanding. For
instance, “Plants are the most important organisms within an ecosystem” could be discussed at the end of an ecosystems unit.
 CONCLUSION
We have taken the general view, initially developed by Wittgenstein (1953/2001), that concepts are resources of social practice,
and meanings are the ways that concepts function in activities of communities. We have considered three principles of
conceptual learning that we understand as implications of this general view and discussed research studies in which these
principles are exemplified. First, concepts are learned by individuals through their participation in the practices of a community,
and conceptual learning is an integral part of learning in which individuals progress from peripheral to more full participation.
Second, conceptual learning occurs in communities; concepts change as communities progress in their understanding and in
developing practices and technologies that are increasingly effective. Third, conceptual learning occurs as concepts migrate
across boundaries between communities, with adaptation of the concepts’ meanings to make them functional in the
community that receives them. This view of concepts as resources for communication, understanding, and reasoning in social
practice contrasts with the understanding of concepts that has shaped most educational practice. In the prevailing view,
learning concepts is assumed to be acquisition of knowledge structures, represented as schemata that contain (a) patterns of
features that define and characterize examples of the concept and (b) procedures in which values of variables in the concept’s
definition can be inferred or used to infer values of other variables that are related to the concept. Use of the concept involves
recognizing the pattern of features that characterizes the concept, instantiating the variables in the schema with features of the
situation, and carrying out procedures to infer values of other variables.