The Steps of Concept Attainment

Andrews University Summer Institute 1997

Make sure you have at least ten positive and ten negative exemplars before you teach a lesson.

1. Focus Statement: Ask students to focus on what is underlined, circled, or highlighted. Be careful not to ask students to focus on an attribute. This will short circuit the discovery process. For example, do not ask students to focus on the shape when teaching "rectangles."
2. Present the clearest positive exemplar first.
3. Continue to present at least two more each of the clearest positive and negative exemplars.
4. After six to eight more exemplars, test the student's thinking by asking students to decide if the next exemplar is positive or negative. Have students put thumbs up for positive and thumbs down for negative.
5. Continue testing on the next three to four exemplars. If students are unsure about an exemplar, place it in the neutral category.
6. After about six positive exemplars, ask students, "What is the same about the positives? What attributes do the positive exemplars share?" List the attributes where all students can see. List all the suggestions even if they are wrong. If the students name the concept as an attribute, ask, "What makes it fit that category?"
7. Test the attributes with more exemplars and reprocess neutral exemplars. In the case of a discrepancy, either reclassify the exemplars, revise the attributes, or define an attribute range. In revising, eliminate the non-essential attributes.
8. Name the concept.
9. Connect the name of the concept to the attributes by stating a rule. For example, "A mammal is an animal that has a bony skeleton, a hairy covering, lungs, gives birth to live animals, and feeds its young milk from the mother's body."
10. Students identify additional unlabeled exemplars as yes or no.
11. Students generate examples of the concept.
12. Students analyze their own thinking (metacognition). Ask questions such as, "Did anyone have to change his/her thinking?" "What made you change your mind?" "When did you begin to see this attribute?"