1. Concept-based Learning for Today's Students
HAT'S THE BIG IDEA? CONCEPT-
Wdriven, inquiry-based learning
Everyone talks about concept-driven,
inquiry-based learning, but what does it
look like in practice? What curriculum
architecture and programme requirements
can we image that might lead to the desired
outcomes? How do we overcome the
tyranny of content-driven classrooms and
examinations? Contemporary curriculum
experts agree that conceptual understand-
ing is key for student success in school, jobs,
and life.
A concept-driven, inquiry-based
education, like the IB programmes, centre
on learners, (WHO).The IB programmes
promotes open communication based on
understanding and respect and encourages
students to become active, compassionate,
lifelong learners.This type of education is
holistic in nature, with the whole person in
mind, concerned with cognitive develop-
ment, along with concern for social,
emotional and physical well-being.
A concept-driven education develops
effective approaches to teaching and
learning (HOW). Empowering young
people for a lifetime of learning, independ-
ently and in collaboration with others.
Preparing a community of learners that
engage with global challenges through
inquiry, action and reflection.An IB education
for example aims to develop a range of
competencies and dispositions that include
skills for; thinking, working with others,
communicating, managing self and research.
At its heart this type of education should
work within global contexts (WHY).
Students increase their understanding of
language and culture (multilingualism and
inter-cultural understanding) and encourages
global and local engagement, including
developmentally appropriate aspects of
challenges in; the environment, development,
conflict, rights, cooperation and governance.
This type of education also explores
significant content (WHAT) and
provides opportunities to develop both
disciplinary and interdisciplinary under-
standing. It offers curriculum frameworks
and courses that are broad and balanced,
conceptual and connected and finally
rigorously assessed.
Concept-Driven Curriculum
KNOW AND DO vs. KNOW AND DO AND
UNDERSTAND….we too often assumed that
if students knew and did, they would
understand. Unfortunately, this is not the
case. Conceptual understanding adds a
depth-dimension to students’ educational
experience.
In practical terms, educational frame-
works like the IB's MiddleYears Programme
(MYP) establishes a common core of big
ideas that matter.These KEY CONCEPTS
form the heart of a connected curriculum.
They come from and are shared across
academic disciplines.They unify students’
academic experience and provide teachers
with a common vocabulary. Concepts create
a culture of thinking that invites students to
see connections, contradictions, alternative
perspectives and different ways of thinking.
At a time when adolescents are beginning
to move into more sophisticated modes of
abstract thinking, concepts offer students
something consistent to think about over
time and across subjects.
Concepts are not single words, but
complex ideas that can shape teaching and
learning. Examples such as Identity, Logic,
Perspective, Relationship and Systems can run
through a typical student's school week.
Imagine how teachers of different disciplines
might be able to use these big ideas as
stepping stones, ladders or bridges to the
facts, concepts and debates that they want
students to uncover and explore.
In addition to these big overarching ideas,
concept-driven education structures the
curriculum with discipline-specific RELATED
concepts that provide depth and focus.They
narrow the scope of inquiry, while leaving
enough room to integrate a wide range of
content that is appropriate or required in
local or national contexts. Related concepts
invite teachers and students to go beyond
studying facts to thinking about what those
facts mean and why they are relevant.
This is an important feature of concept-
driven education.Teaching and learning
needs to reflect both how knowledge is
structured in the real world and how we
learn.These days, facts are easily and
inexpensively ‘knowable’. However they
often remain distinct and without any
connection to each other, except through
the strategy of grouping them into topics.
This is where most educational systems
stop.A concept-based education goes on to
ask, what do these facts mean? How are
they related? To which ideas do they give us
entry?
We know that students learn by taking
what they know and then building on it.We
know that the holy grail of education — the
ability to transfer understanding from one
experience or domain to another — is
facilitated by discussions around concepts.
We have cellular evidence that we build
memories by making connections and
building rich networks of associations and
multiple pathways for access. Concepts help
this happen; they are the superhighways of
learning.
Inquiry-Based Learning
Concepts change the way that teachers
teach and student learn.They inflect the
nature of classroom assignments and
assessment, (formal and informal). Concept-
driven education facilitates classroom
discussion that will focus on how things are
the same and how they are different; also,
how what we know about the past, for
example, can help us to understand the
present.
Concept-driven education helps students
develop structured inquiry into big ideas
that matter and then help them assess how
much they really understand through a rich
and varied programme of assessment —
some of it potentially highly digital – that
allows flexible choice of content that
supports conceptual learning, or that is
compatible with national curriculum.These
are 21st century requirements for teachers
engaged with future students being born
now who will probably live into the 22nd
century.
SEBASTIEN BARNARD is Regional
Communications & Marketing
Manager APAC for the International
Baccalaureate, a non-profit educa-
tional foundation offering four highly
respected programmes of interna-
tional education that develop the
intellectual, personal, emotional and
social skills needed to live, learn and
work in a rapidly globalizing world.
sebastien.barnard@ibo.org
Based on presentations by Robert
Harrison, (@Robert_ibmyp), Head
MYP Development, International
Baccalaureate
EducationWorld August 2016
EW SPOTLIGHT FEATURE
by Sebastien Barnard
SEBASTIEN BARNARD
Regional Communiations & Marketing Manager
International Baccalaureate Organization