Concept-based Teaching and Learning

Carla Marschall, Director of Teaching and Learning at UWCSEA East, along with leaders and subject specialists from both campuses, has been developing the UWCSEA  version of a concept-based curriculum for a number of years. She defines the curriculum as one “that is organised around concepts and conceptual understandings."

In a concept-based curriculum, students are introduced to concepts and conceptual understandings as they engage in knowledge and skill learning. This creates a three-dimensional curriculum with intellectual depth that asks students to consider the “So what?” of their learning.

A concept is a mental construct drawn from a topic or a process that transfers across time, place and situation (Erickson, Lanning & French, 2017). A concept has the following features: it is timeless, universal, abstract, can be represented by one or two words, and its examples share common attributes. Transferability is also an important aspect of a concept and we’ll return to that idea shortly.

Marschall explains, "Concepts are all around us. They help us to categorise, reduce complexity and make sense of our world. Think about the idea of a family. There are many individual families, and each may look very different to another. Some may have one parent, some may have two parents, some may include extended family. But they all have aspects in common, such as working together for a common purpose. When we teach students concepts, we give them a powerful sense-making tool that allows them to understand new contexts they encounter."

Let’s look at an example.

In Humanities, our students may study inequality, the uneven distribution of resources, rights or cultural access. Building students’ understanding of this concept as they encounter a case study, for example, indigenous rights in Brazil, sets the stage for deep learning and allows students to transfer their understanding. When students look at a new case study, for instance water access in sub-Saharan Africa, they are able to identify how inequality in this new situation looks similar or different. They are able to use factual knowledge to access the conceptual level of thinking.

By looking for connections across knowledge or skill learning, students form conceptual understandings, which are statements of relationship that link two or more concepts.

The power of a concept-based curriculum is that it allows students to transfer their understanding to new contexts and situations. Each time students encounter a new context, they build on and deepen their understandings around each concept.

Teaching to the conceptual level also enables UWCSEA to work flexibly with the curriculum. Because concepts transfer across situations, our teachers can invite students to explore a conceptual understanding by introducing examples that resonate best with the individual student. This ensures that each student can make sense of new circumstances now and in the future by building from their prior knowledge.

"The power of a concept-based curriculum is that it allows students to transfer their understanding to new contexts and situations. When students have a deep understanding of concepts, they are able to see beyond the facts of individual case studies and form generalisations about them."
Carla Marschall, Director of Teaching and Learning, UWCSEA East

Stuart McAlpine, former Director of Teaching and Learning at UWCSEA East explained in 2018, "Our goal is for all our students to be able to transfer their learning to new situations and contexts. Given the UWC mission, it is vital that students are able to recognise patterns and make sense of complexity. Ensuring that our students have developed conceptual understandings, in addition to their knowledge and skill learning, enables this."

Engaging in concept mapping, students reflect on significant concepts from the unit, such as systems, intended and unintended consequences, economic growth and waste. Using their unit learning to find relationships among concepts, students create a visual representation of their thinking. Using this teaching strategy, students connect concepts to form their own conceptual understandings. Students take an active role in this strategy, making decisions about the placement of concepts and the relationships that exist between them.

In this video, you can see and hear concept mapping in action as Grade 7 students on Dover Campus make sense of ideas at the end of a Humanities unit on Sustainable Development and Systems Thinking: