Lynn Erickson and Lois Lanning are the authors of an important new book for educators who are rethinking curriculum and instruction to meet higher standards and go deeper with students into knowledge, understanding and doing.
After reading Transitioning to Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction: How to Bring Content and Process Together, I was eager to have Lynn and Lois talk about their book and how it might help Alabama schools as we transition to more powerful teaching and learning practices.
They readily agreed – and I think many school and teacher leaders will grasp the potential of their ideas after reading this interview. If so, you can learn more about it at the Corwin website.
Cathy Gassenheimer: Alabama teachers have been working for the past two years on implementing our new College and Career Ready Standards, which are based on the Common Core. What insights can you share with them about more effectively engaging students with these new standards?
Lynn Erickson (right) & Lois Lanning (below): The new Alabama College and Career Readiness Standards move teaching and learning to deeper levels as students are expected to transfer knowledge and perform with understanding. In our decades of work with concept-based curriculum and instruction we have gained significant insights into teaching and learning that support the directions of the Common Core and the Alabama CCRS standards. Let’s address this question in three parts:
What is Concept-based Curriculum and Instruction?
Concept-based curriculum is a three-dimensional curriculum design model that frames the factual and skill content of subject areas with disciplinary concepts and generalizations. Concept-based curriculum is contrasted with the traditional two-dimensional coverage model of topic and skill-based curriculum design.
What key insights have emerged related to teaching and learning?
► We cannot “assume” that students understand concepts and their critical relationship. We must teach beyond the facts and skills to deeper conceptual understanding.
► We must understand how Knowledge and Process are structured to ensure that we guide students from the traditional coverage of facts and skills, to inquiry that results in deeper conceptual understanding and the transfer of knowledge.
► “Synergistic thinking” is key to intellectual development and deeper understanding. Synergistic thinking is the interplay between the factual and conceptual levels of thinking. When we invite students to inquire into a unit on “Shapes in Nature: Geometry at Play” through the concept of “Patterns” or “Form and Function”, we are inviting synergistic thinking. We are engaging the personal intellect of students as they consider the facts through a conceptual “lens.”
How can teachers more effectively engage students with the new Alabama College and Career Readiness Standards?
Remember that the standards are a framework for designing local curricula. The standards provide clear and rigorous expectations that have been mapped vertically to ensure a logically developed sequence for learning and meaning-making. Local curriculum committees and teachers must take an extra step however.
► Standards are written as traditional objectives and do not clearly differentiate between what students must KNOW (factually/skill-wise), or UNDERSTAND (conceptually). We want teachers to be clear on when they are working at the knowledge level and when they are working at the conceptual level—and how to work these levels together to effect synergistic thinking.
► Therefore, if local curricula addresses what students must KNOW, UNDERSTAND and be able to DO (processes, strategies and skills) then teachers would have support for developing quality concept-based lesson plans. If teachers only tick off objectives in the Alabama Standards then they will miss the deeper intent for teaching and learning.
► As an example, a grade 2 mathematics standard states, “Understand place value.” That is an objective but it fails to specify exactly “what” we should understand. At the local level, for significant conceptual relationships, teachers could write the Essential Understandings (Generalizations) using the lead-in: “Students understand that…” What is a grade 2 conceptual understanding about place value that could end the statement?
► Important point: When writing conceptual understandings, which are statements of relationship between two or more concepts, it is important to keep the word “that” in front of the statement. Otherwise the statement will likely be an objective, rather than a robust understanding.
Cathy: Can you elaborate on the difference between two-dimensional and three-dimensional curriculum models? We’re particularly interested in learning more about the connection to the new Standards for Mathematical Practice and how this type of model can help students not only understand the procedure for “doing math,” but also understand the “what” and “why” of particular math practices.
Lynn and Lois: Two-dimensional curriculum models reflect a coverage of facts and skills and generally “assume” that students are achieving deeper conceptual understanding. Two-dimensional models are often referred to as the “inch-deep, mile-wide” curriculum models.
The three-dimensional model shows the foundation of critical facts and skills, but requires that they be related to the Concepts, Principles, and Generalizations that form the third dimension of curriculum, teaching and learning. It is this conceptual level – the third dimension – where deep understanding and transfer of learning occur.
Sometimes educators think that one can teach only at the conceptual level. This is a misunderstanding. All three dimensions—facts, skills, and concepts—must work together. One cannot understand a concept or a conceptual idea without factual/skill support.
The new Standards for Mathematical Practice call for students to “reason abstractly and quantitatively, construct arguments and critique the reasoning of others, look for and make use of structure, and look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.” These attributes are well-developed in a concept-based teaching and learning model because the student must draw and state their conceptual understandings as they work to solve problems.
If a teacher is to help students develop conceptual understanding, then the teacher must be able to articulate those understandings themselves. Their job is to guide students, and provide the learning environment for students to arrive at, and articulate conceptual understandings.
Cathy: In chapter 5, you stress the importance of collaboration among teachers to “improve their craft.” In what ways does productive collaboration help develop the “Concept-Based Teacher,” and why is this important?
Lynn and Lois: To become a concept-based teacher one must first understand the basic tenets of concept-based curriculum design and instruction. This three-dimensional model is definitely a shift in how the majority of teachers were trained.
There is new learning for teachers and the best way to internalize that new learning is to work closely with colleagues in relevant book studies, and in pedagogical discussions of what it means to be a concept-based teacher. It is unfair to give teachers a concept-based curricula with no background training on how it differs from a traditional two-dimensional curriculum model. It is also unfair to expect teachers to teach conceptually without mental models and understanding of what concept-based instruction means and what it looks like in practice.
We need quality instructional coaches who can support teachers as they develop from novice to master along the concept-based continuum. We need a shift in attitudes so that teachers feel safe and welcome the feedback of “critical friends” as they learn and practice new pedagogical skills.
One of the most effective ways to internalize new learning is to teach another person. We want to maximize the school ethos of “teachers teaching teachers.” In our book, the Developing Teacher rubric can provide benchmarks for teachers, individually and as a group, as they measure their progress against specific criteria related to “Understanding Concept-based,” “Designing Concept-based Lesson Plans,” and “Concept-based Instruction.”
Cathy: One of our favorite chapters in the book discusses strategies for developing concept-based students—students who can think about, adapt, and apply what they are learning. Can you highlight some of the important strategies for developing concept-based students?
Lynn and Lois: The most critical strategy for developing concept-based students is first investing in concept-based professional development for teachers (discussed above). A teacher who understands the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of concept-based curriculum will be on the road to understanding ‘how’ to design effective concept-based lessons!
Concept-based teachers help students develop a conceptual vocabulary by modeling their own thinking and by using conceptual language to rephrase some of students’ early attempts at verbalizing their understandings. Additionally, it is important to create activities and authentic, relevant tasks that exemplify the concepts under study, and are also rich enough to require grappling and reflection.
Do you see how synergistic thinking (the interplay between the factual and conceptual) is supported with such tasks? Learning experiences structured around inquiry help lead students to discover the deeper conceptual understandings from content and skills. With age appropriate examples, even very young students come to see patterns and connections.
As students are working, they need opportunities to verbalize their understanding and thinking about the relationship(s) between the examples at hand and the concept (ideas) the examples represent. Meaningful discussions and teachers’ skillful use of guiding questions (pages 101-103 in our book), enable students to extend their thinking beyond the association of examples and concepts, to the target generalization (understanding). As teachers hear students state generalizations in their own words, they can be assured students have achieved deep understanding.
Our book includes rubrics to help monitor the development of a concept-based student. The rubrics represent three distinct and essential attributes of a concept-based learner. Additionally, each attribute reflects the expectations of the dispositions critical to preparing students for productive lives in school and beyond.
It takes thinking teachers to help students make progress in each area. Teacher collaboration around the types of lessons that will ensure students meet academic standards, but also, will move students across the descriptions within these rubrics, will make the difference.
Cathy: As teachers shift to more project-based/problem-based learning, there will be a greater need for different types of assessments. What insights can you offer about the types of assessments that work best for that type of learning?
Lynn and Lois: Most everyone agrees that in order for students to be successful in today’s world, they not only need basic knowledge and skills, but must also be intellectual thinkers. The complexity and rapid changes of the issues and problems of the 21st Century do not lend themselves to simple, rote answers.
Yet, education still finds many high stakes assessments rely on memorized knowledge in a multiple choice or short answer format. As a result, teachers are faced with a contradiction between what they believe represents best instructional practice (teaching for understanding through authentic, intellectually engaging work), versus the types of assessments for which they are preparing students.
Fortunately, even high stakes assessments are slowly being revised to catch up with more multifaceted and valid indicators of student learning – but in the meantime, what are teachers to do?
Our work encourages the collection of data across the same components of a three-dimensional, concept-based curriculum discussed in question 2: What students KNOW, UNDERSTAND and can DO (KUD’s). Knowledge (students’ factual knowledge), Understanding (students’ understanding of conceptual, transferable ideas essential to the discipline), and Do (students’ proficiency with skills) are assessed continuously in concept-based instruction, using both formative and summative assessments.
Periodic, discrete assessments of knowledge and skills are necessary, but what cannot be omitted is the ongoing assessment of understanding as that is the goal we are striving for in concept-based instruction.
To gain an accurate picture of students’ conceptual understanding, assessments need to go beyond the reproduction of factual knowledge and/or the routine use of basic skills. In earlier books, we have described in detail how to construct performance assessments that will reveal students’ levels of Knowledge, Skills and Understandings (and also not fall into the trap of becoming just fun activities). The sample units in this book include culminating performance assessments, which follow the performance assessment design we advocate.
Given the above, the types of assessments for project-based/problem-based learning need to be varied. But most important, they need to include assessments that are deliberately crafted to capture information about the development of students’ conceptual understanding. Since the generalizations, in concept-based curriculum units, indicate the conceptual understandings that instruction is aiming for, they become the backbone of the assessment task and scoring guide or rubric.
Cathy: Finally, we work with a network of principals and instructional coaches in Alabama. We were very interested in the section in Chapter 8 about building system-wide synergy. In that chapter, you suggest some important questions that principals, coaches, and teacher leaders can pose to facilitate the shift to concept-based learning. In what ways can principals, coaches, and teachers use questioning to deepen their understanding?
Lynn and Lois: Schools and districts committed to concept-based curriculum and instruction create a culture that reflects a consistent philosophy of teaching and learning. Rather than principals, coaches, and teacher leaders perceiving themselves as “answer providers,” they become “question seekers”. Teacher learning, like student learning, is best retained and more meaningful when one constructs his or her own understandings. Questions help create pathways for self-discovery and for thinking through challenges.
The voices and behaviors of principals, coaches, and teacher leaders carry a significant message to staff members every day. By reframing conversations, faculty meetings, and professional development days so they truly represent and support concept-based teaching and learning, everyone begins to think differently, use common vocabulary, and make more informed decisions.
And, very soon, a new and consistent vision emerges about the type of instruction you are striving for across every classroom in every school!
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