Title of Lesson: What is the Concept Attainment Model of Teaching? Part Four

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. This is one of many lessons we will be sharing on teaching Judaic content, lesson planning, models of teaching, differentiated and individualized instruction and learning activities designed to transform the classroom into a Jewish community of cooperative learners. The title of this lesson is “What is the Concept Attainment Model of Teaching?” Since there are 13 elements in each lesson plan we will divide this lesson plan into four parts. Here are the first, second, and third parts of this four part lesson on the concept attainment model of teaching. The fourth part follows.

Guided Practice: (Students apply new skill/s or strengthen previously learned skills during classroom instruction.)

1. Teacher places students in dyads or quads and they create their own concepts with a list of examples (i.e. correct clues) and non-examples (i.e. incorrect clues). The handout at the top of the post is distributed to the students.

2. When the Guess My Concept Chart is completed, dyads/quads play the Guess My Concept Game with another dyad or quad.

3. The teacher monitors the interactions of the dyads or quads.

Independent Activities: (Students practice new skill/s or strengthen previously learned skills outside of the class.)

Students individually or in pairs (e.g. by phone, email or video mode such as Skype or Isight) create another concept with a list of examples and non-examples. They can play this game, Guess My Concept, with their family at home, but must come prepared to demonstrate the activity in class for part-two of this lesson.

Closure: (Activity that summarizes and ends the lesson)

The teacher reviews the steps involved in the Guess My Concept Game, and adds: "The Guess My Concept exercise is not only an intellectual game, it is a model of teaching that teachers use to help students think more deeply. This model of teaching is actually called The Concept Attainment Model and is designed to help students compare and contrast ideas, and apply deductive and inductive reasoning.

In the next post we will share a follow-up lesson on how to teach your mentees to implement the Concept Attainment Model of Teaching.