Teaching Concepts for Learning
An important motivation for conceptually focused teaching in IB programmes is to help students build the ability to engage with significant ideas about human beings and the world. Equally valuably, discussion of the “big ideas” behind a topic can help students get to the heart of why they are learning what they are learning
To appreciate the role of concepts in building lasting and significant understandings, it is helpful to think of concepts as the building blocks of students’ cognitive frameworks. When they are learning at a conceptual level, students are integrating new knowledge into their existing understandings. They see how seemingly discrete topics are connected and are ready to transfer their learning to new contexts. A subject emerges for them in a holistic light. In a classroom where conceptually focused teaching is happening, there is continuous movement between facts and what they mean, with students being used to ask why the facts matter as a natural part of their learning process.
Examples
Examples of conceptually focused teaching approaches and activities include:
- thematic, regional or case study-based pathways through the course, integrating relevant key concepts at appropriate points
- explicit discussion of different, conflicting and complementary understandings of the key concepts as a natural part of the study of examples, case studies and students’ own experience
- activities designed to engage students on the key concepts in implicit ways, such as activating pre-existing knowledge of the concepts, illustrating them with examples and bringing them to life with the help of experiment
- role plays in which students act as political decision-makers, advisors or commentators, perhaps over a period of time, treating different yet interdependent political issue
- TOK-style thinking with students in order to develop their collective curiosit
- readings and videos that emphasize the contested nature of knowledge and hence encourage questionin
- engagement with political actors through guest speakers and visits