Inquiry in a Different Way

After reading this article I got a very clear understanding of the attributes of a concept attainment strategy for teaching. This is an inductive reasoning activity that relies on students ... See More

After reading this article I got a very clear understanding of the attributes of a concept attainment strategy for teaching. This is an inductive reasoning activity that relies on students formulating their own understandings based on pictorial information. This article provided an example from both biology lessons and chemistry lessons. Both examples used pictures to describe how some things were different from the ones that the students were learning about. As the article points out “Concept attainment lessons are one way to prompt students to carefully examine data, organize their thinking, observe relationships, and synthesize their understanding.” The author points out that not all concepts fit this format. I like this article because now I understand not only the difference between inductive and deductive lesson but how this approach can be useful to developing a student’s understanding of concepts.

interesting Inductive Method in Action

The author outlines the concept attainment lesson as a subset of inductive learning. Students are given a set of visual exemplars which demonstrate a concept along with examples which do no... See More

The author outlines the concept attainment lesson as a subset of inductive learning. Students are given a set of visual exemplars which demonstrate a concept along with examples which do not fall within the context of the concept. Students examine these and create their own understanding of the underlying concept. Through leading questions and class discussion the concept is fleshed out. Examples of the process used in a biology and chemistry lesson are given. This process would work well with collaborative groups as well. I think this method would work well where more open forms of inquiry are impractical or not possible.