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This easy strategy, loaded with higher-order thinking, lets students get their hands on the content without further ado.
Sure, you've heard that we shouldn't just spoon-feed information to our students, but what exactly should we be doing instead?

One possibility is inductive learning.

Inductive learning takes the traditional sequence of a lesson and reverses things. Instead of saying, "Here is the knowledge; now go practice it," inductive learning says, "Here are some objects, some data, some artifacts, some experiences...what knowledge can we gain from them?"

A number of instructional approaches, including discovery learning, inquiry-based learning, and problem-based learning, could be considered inductive, and all of them are well-supported by research. If you're just getting started with inductive learning, take a look at the video below, where we break down a very simple inductive strategy, one that takes less time and requires less planning than something like a PBL unit. It's a method that can work with very simple concepts, like parts of speech, or more complex ones, like systems of government, and it would be appropriate for just about any grade level.

Dig it:

[Want to make videos like this? Learn more here.]

This strategy comes from a book I can't seem to get enough of: The Strategic Teacher , by Silver, Strong, and Perini. This is the fourth research-based teaching strategy we've studied up close.

Try it and let me know how it goes. Or if you've already used this strategy or something like it and have finer points to share with the rest of us, please do. Happy teaching y'all. ♦

Like what you've seen so far?
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How to Teach an Inductive Learning Lesson

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Instead of saying, "Here is the knowledge; now go practice it," inductive learning says, "Here are some objects, some data, some artifacts, some experiences...what knowledge can we gain from them?"

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This article was originally posted on 2-25-2017 and has been updated on 9-17-2020 to include information relevant to distance learning.

"A picture is worth a thousand words" or so we've heard. The question is, how do we encourage students to get those words out, especially if we are teaching and learning in remote or hybrid settings?

Some of you may be familiar with the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) which was first introduced by Emily Calhoun (1999). This instructional method has been successful in traditional classrooms for decades, but can we implement it in virtual settings too?

Read on to find out what PWIM is and how you can implement it to develop language.

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This article was originally posted on 2-25-2017 and has been updated on 9-17-2020 to include information relevant to distance learning. "A picture is worth a thousand words" or so we've heard. The question is, how do we encourage students to get those words out, especially if we are teaching and learning in remote or hybrid settings?

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Give me 5 minutes and you'll have a new teaching strategy under your belt.
Suppose you're an art teacher. This week, you want to introduce your students to Impressionism, the style of painting used by artists like Monet and Renoir. Now, you could just give them the name of the style and a definition, then show some examples.

OR!!!

Using a strategy called Concept Attainment, you could reverse that order. Instead of providing any terminology or any kind of definition, you could simply tell students that you're going to study a new style. To learn the style, you'll show them paintings that use that style, and paintings that don't - Yes and No examples. Their job will be to come up with a list of characteristics that they think define the style.

You begin with this first Yes example:

Then a No example:

Followed by this one, another Yes example:

Then another No:

As they study the examples, students work to develop a definition, or a list of characteristics common to all the Yes examples. Once they've done this, you give them more Yes examples to test and refine their list. Ultimately, students arrive at a thoughtfully crafted definition of Impressionism - one that will stick with them much longer than if you'd just given it to them to begin with.

For a more thorough example of how Concept Attainment works, I offer you this video demonstration:

The Research Behind the Strategy

I first learned this strategy in Silver, Strong, and Perini's 2007 book, The Strategic Teacher: Selecting the Right Research-Based Strategy for Every Lesson ( Amazon | Bookshop.org). In their chapter on Concept Attainment, the authors explain that the reason this strategy results in deep understanding is because it works with the way human beings instinctively learn. As we experience the world, we naturally organize things into categories based on common attributes. Concept Attainment is structured in the same way.

In their 2001 book, Classroom Instruction That Works , Marzano, Pickering and Pollock identified nine classroom practices that produced the most significant gains in student learning. This strategy uses two from that list: identifying similarities and differences (which was at the top of the list), and generating and testing hypotheses. (See the 2022 edition of the book on Amazon or Bookshop.org)

I like this strategy because it really involves students in their own learning. Instead of just delivering the information to them, you're helping them discover it on their own. Also, it's captivating - a mystery to solve! - which is far more likely to engage students than straightforward delivery of information. Finally, it's a pretty easy switch to make from what you're already doing: definition-then-examples becomes examples-then-definition, then maybe a little lecture just to tighten things up.

Share Your Experience

Concept Attainment could be used in just about any subject area and at any grade level. I could see it in corporate training, in coaching, even when teaching a preschooler how to wash his hands ( "We're going to come up with some rules for hand washing. Watch these five kids wash their hands. These three are doing it correctly, these two are not. What do you think the rules are?")

If you have used the strategy and have more information, variations, tips on doing it well, or even a correction to how I'm presenting it here, please tell us about it in the comments section below.

Hope this adds something new and different to your repertoire! ♦

Come back for more.
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How to Use the Concept Attainment Strategy

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Instead of just delivering information to students, this fun approach helps them discover it on their own.

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As regular readers know, I'm a huge fan of using the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) as a primary instructional strategy for Beginning English Language Learners.

I've described it in my books as an:
"inductive learning process where students first brainstorm twenty words related to a picture, then put those words into categories and add new ones that fit those categories. Next they complete a "cloze" (or fill-in-the-blank) activity with sentences about the picture which are then put into categories of their own. They convert those sentence categories into paragraphs, and, finally, arrange the paragraphs into essays."
The image illustrating this post is an example of what one might look like using the PWIM.

I've also written more extensively about it at The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons.

Even though it's a great strategy, it's also possible to have too much of a good thing. In other words, if you use the same strategy week-in-week-out, with no variation, it's eventually going to feel stale to teacher and students alike.

I think it's important, however, to follow the process I laid-out earlier in this post pretty religiously for a couple of months so that students really "get" it. After that time - in fact, just about at this time of the school year - it's time to change it up a bit while still sticking to the general outline.

I thought it would be useful to share some of the modifications I've made in the past and also invite readers to contribute their own.

Here goes (though they are numbered, these modifications are not listed in any order of preference):

1. After the first stage of labeling the image (which is always tied to a theme - home, food, etc.), ask students to find a similar thematic image online and use one of the numerous new online tools that let you mark-up images so that they look just like a PWIM photo. Students can use the same words and identify new ones, too. My favorite tool for this purpose is Szoter Online because no registration is required, but Thinglink is another viable option. Students can post and share their images on a class blog like ours.

2. Have students come up with questions they have about the image - both literal and interpretative (the teacher should provide some question "stems" like the ones on page two and four in this document). Students could share all their questions and then categorize them - perhaps into "literal" and "interpretative" - and develop more questions that would fit into them. As a follow-up speaking activity, students could take turns asking each other some of those questions and coming up with potential answers.

The teacher could also use slightly different version of this modification by creating a series of questions with sentence stem answers ( like this one) that students could complete for one image and then use as a model for future ones.

3. Instead of providing students with a series of one sentence "clozes" about the image that students have to complete and then categorize, have students use the words to create their own one sentence clozes that they share with their classmates. Then students categorize those sentences.

4. Instead of just having students add new words to categories, have them create a picture data set - either online or with images from old magazines. In Picture Data Sets, students add new words, along with words that describe them. One way to do this online is with the many virtual corkboard tools available, with Padlet being the most well-known.

5. For newcomers, I just have them string together the sentences they write about each category into a paragraph - I want them to begin to gain an understand of basic writing structures and the fact that a paragraph focuses on one main idea. As they began to gain more language fluency, instead of individual sentence clozes, students can be given teacher-created whole paragraph clozes ( Wendi Pillars has a good example on her blog. Her same post includes other good ideas for modifying PWIM lessons).

Along with that idea, teachers can make similar clozes for introductions and conclusions as models that students can eventually write entirely on their own.

6. As an "add-on" step, teachers can find a comparable photo to the main one, have students label those words, and then create Venn Diagram and ultimately a compare/contrast essay. I've given an example here. Also, read Finding Similar Images To Use For Compare/Contrast Prompts.

7. An idea that one of my student teachers tried out and seemed to work well was having students develop a conversation that people in the picture might have - using the vocabulary words they were learning from the picture.

8. A bilingual aide in my classroom came up with the idea of showing two pictures on the same topic (inside a grocery story and at a fruit and vegetable market); have students create a Venn Diagram comparing the two, and then have them categorize words and sentences based on the Venn Diagram.
Here's How We Modified The Picture Word Inductive Model Today HOW I'M MODIFYING THE PICTURE WORD INDUCTIVE MODEL ACTIVITY THIS YEAR
I'm sure there are a zillion other potential modifications, so I'm all ears!

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The Best Ways To Modify The Picture Word Inductive Model For ELLs

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As regular readers know, I'm a huge fan of using the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) as a primary instructional strategy for Beginning English Language Learners. I've described it in my books as an: "inductive learning process where students first brainstorm twenty words related to a picture, then put those words into categories and add new ones that fit those categories.

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Concept Attainment for Teaching Grammar 

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Concept Attainment for Teaching Grammar 

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Ready for a new strategy for teaching grammar as a concept? Look no further than Concept Attainment. This is a relatively straightforward activity for teachers to plan and kids really get involved in their learning. It's way less 'involved' than a PACE lesson or a structured input lesson.

If you'd prefer a video explanation, check out my YouTube video talking about this technique.

To start, it's first important to understand that this comes from a school of thinking known as Constructivism. A good way to describe Constructivism is to say that it is 'an approach to learning that holds that people actively construct or make their own knowledge and that reality is determined by the experiences of the learner' (Elliott et al., 2000, p. 256). In other words, learning becomes less about teachers giving the information and more about students socializing and working together to build their own meaning that makes sense to them.

The image above does a nice job showing how students talk to one another, they think/reflect, they go back to working together, they work with the teacher and share out and start the process all over again. This is key to understanding this technique called Concept Attainment.

Above, I created a visual to show the different steps to creating one of these lessons. It's fairly straightforward in terms of how you create and execute it.

Step 1: Create and show a presentation with words/phrases and go through them one at a time. Each time you show the word/phrase, you simply say that it is a "yes" example or a "no" example. You don't explain what "yes" and "no" mean. They simply see a word/phrase and you tell them yes or no upfront. You usually do about 3-4 of these and show more "yes" examples than "no" examples so they can fully understand the concept.

Step 2: Now it's their turn. Either one at a time or all together, you display the remaining words/phrases on the board. Students then work together to classify whether each word is a "yes" or a "no" based on the teacher's first few examples they showed. The most important part of this step is the conversation that happens between students. By them talking out the categories it helps them in their learning more than just being told information.

Step 3: As students are classifying the words/phrases, have them keep track on a chart with "yes" on one side and "no" on another side. This will become important at the end.

Step 4: After finishing the task, ask students to work together to come up with new titles for the "yes" and "no" categories based on the meaning of those words/phrases and what they have in common or how they contrast from one another. This helps to ensure that they are using their own words to explain their own understanding instead of just being told information.

For example, take a look at the chart above. Prior to showing this chart, I showed students examples of certain expressions in Spanish and classified them as yes and no based on whether or not they used subjunctive to express doubt. I showed the first few examples, they worked through the remaining examples and this was the list that was created. Students then renamed those categories based on their observations. They used words like positive/negative and agree/disagree which, to me, are their own ways of expressing what I could have taught them all along by telling them 'this is the subjunctive with doubt'.

How does this work with grammar?
From my experience, I think there are a few grammatical points that could be taught using this method. I'm sure there are more but my list includes:

Subjunctive vs indicative (easiest to show doubt vs certainty)

Articles (definite/indefinite, masculine vs feminine)

Adjective endings (masculine vs feminine, singular vs plural)

The partitive for French teachers

Preterite vs imperfect expressions / Passé composé vs imparfait expressions

Note that with these grammar points that I've chosen specific items where there are clear categories that can be made.

Try this out and let me know if you like it and if you have any other ways we can use this method!

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Ready for a new strategy for teaching grammar as a concept? Look no further than Concept Attainment. This is a relatively straightforward activity for teachers to plan and kids really get involved in their learning. It's way less 'involved' than a PACE lesson or a structured input lesson.

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PBL is a way of teaching & learning where students acquire content knowledge & skills to answer a driving question based on an authentic challenge or problem.

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Duration: 10-20 minutes

Type: Whole Group/Small Groups

What you will need for PWIM:

1 Picture of a Scene Connected to a Topic You are Learning

Or a Blank Sheet of Paper for Students to Draw Their Own Scene

Overview of PWIM:

PWIM stands for Picture Word Inductive Model and it comes backed by all the experts. You'll see it...

mentioned in books

described on websites

and shared on social media

There are few activities that receive so much praise and acceptance across the board.

Let's dive in and take a look at how you can use PWIM in your classes with your English learners.

Option 1: As a class, label various vocabulary words in a picture This is the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM). You can then color code parts of speech and turn it into wonderful speaking or writing exercises.

Option 2: Have students draw and label a scene using vocabulary they are learning. I'll call this the Picture Word Deductive Model. You can then color code parts of speech and turn it into wonderful speaking or writing exercises.

How to Organize PWIM

Option 1: How to Set Up the Picture Word Inductive Model:

1. Print off a picture for each student.

2. Project a copy of the picture on an overhead or projector. You can also just tape the picture to the whiteboard.

3. Have students call out various vocabulary words that they see represented in the picture.

4. You can color code the various parts of speech. For instance, you might write (or highlight) verbs in red, nouns in green, adjectives in purple and so on. Words that can be more than one part of speech may need to be a unique color.

5. Afterward, you can have students get with a partner to make sentences about the picture. You can choose a particular tense that you are learning in order to help them know what grammar to use. You can also make a list of conjunctions for students to use if they are at a lower-intermediate to intermediate level of proficiency.

Option 2: How to Set Up the Picture Word Deductive Model:

1. Give each student a blank sheet of paper.

2. Have students use vocabulary words that they are learning to draw and label a picture. (Alternatively, you can provide students with magazines for them to find and cut out pictures. They can then glue to the pictures they cut out to their papers to make a scene and label them.)

3. As students draw, they will likely come up with more words that they want to add. You can write those words on the board and let students add them to their pictures.

4. You can color code the various parts of speech. For instance, you might write (or highlight) verbs in red, nouns in green, adjectives in purple and so on. Words that can be more than one part of speech may need to be a unique color.

5. Afterward, you can have students get with a partner to make sentences about the picture. You can choose a particular tense that you are learning in order to help them know what grammar to use. You can also make a list of conjunctions for students to use if they are at a lower-intermediate to intermediate level of proficiency.

Benefits of PWIM

This is a fun, hands-on activity that helps students solidify the meanings of new words they are using.

There are lots of related speaking and writing activities that can lead off from this one.

You can also read more about the Picture Word Inductive Model in this article or this article by Larry Ferlazzo.

You can also see a short presentation from Valentina Gonzalez on this method here.
Have you tried this activity? How did it go? Leave your comments below!

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PWIM - The Most Highly Recommended ESL Activity

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Get your students practicing vocabulary, speaking and writing with this wonderful ESL vocabulary activity.

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How to Teach an Inductive Learning Lesson

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PBL, a term you've probably seen a few times as a teacher. But what does it actually mean? And how do you use it in your classroom? PBL, or project-based learning. That's what this post is about.

Project-based learning - Definition

PBL or project-based learning is a learning method in which students identify a real-world problem and develop its solution. Students gain knowledge and skills by working for a longer period of time to investigate and respond to an engaging or complex question, problem or challenge.

Guide your students to identify, through research, a real-world problem of which they have to develop a solution using evidence to support the claim. They have to present their project through a multimedia approach based on a set of 21st-century tools.

Students show what they learn as they go through the unit, interact with the lessons, collaborate with each other and assess themselves and each other.

Why should you use project-based learning?

Project-based learning is not something new, teachers just didn't use it a lot when you were young. The ordinary way of teaching is teaching with disconnected lessons. Daily lessons that teach a skill which fits into a unit based on a topic or a theme. But, each lesson works independently and doesn't connect other units in a learning story.

Besides creating a learning story that connects everything to each other, there are plenty other reasons to use PBL:
1. PBL provides opportunities for students to use technology
Most students are using technology and apps almost every day. They are familiar with and enjoy using a variety of tech tools. As it happens, tech tools can be a perfect fit with project-based learning. With those tools and apps, teachers and students can find the right resources, information, create products and collaborate more effectively. They can even reach out to communities, experts and partners.
2. PBL promotes lifelong learning
Because technology is present, its use enables students, teachers and administrators to reach out beyond the school building. PBL also teaches students to take control of their learning, the first step as a lifelong learner.
3. PBL connect students and schools with the real world
Project-based learning enables students to solve problems and address issues important to them, their communities, and the world. Through PBL, students learn how to interact with adults and organizations. They are exposed to real workplaces and jobs so they will develop career interests. Even parents and other partners can be involved in certain projects.
4. PBL lends itself to formative and authentic assessment
Formative assessement allows us to systematically document a student's progress and development. Authentic assessment focuses on deep learning, asking thorough questions.

Why is this any different than any other class? Well, PBL encourages formative and authentic assessment by doing the following:

It allows students to demonstrate their capabilities while working independently.

It lets teachers have multiple assessment opportunities.

It shows the student's ability to apply skills such as doing research.

It develops a student's ability to work with other students, building teamwork and group skills.

The teacher learns more about the student as a person.

It helps the teachers communicate in meaningful ways with the student or a team. Being able to give meaningful feedback is very important.

5. PBL encourages students to be more engaged and to learn actively
The fact that students are working on a project that has to be the key of solving a problem, makes them more actively involved. A real project engages their mind and their hearts. It's a real world relevance for learning.
6. PBL builds skills for college, career and life
Success in life requires more than knowledge and skills. With PBL, students learn how to take initiative, be responsible and build a good attitude. They learn to build their confidence, solve problems, work in teams, and communicate ideas.
7. PBL encourages imagination and creativity
When you need to solve a problem, you have to be inventive and creative. PBL often asks to solve world class problems, so thinking out of the box is necessary. Because there are no real guidelines, visual design, drawing, and creating are very important elements within project based learning.

15 project-based learning ideas for in your classroom

Project-based learning has no magic plan you can use to guide you. It's flexible and it's a curriculum planning tool that's often used to "embed" other learning methods like game-based learning, blended learning, place-based learning, and so on.

This means you will need some inspiration to get a first taste of project-based learning. I went through some sites to find some challenging project-based learning examples. Here we go!

1. Plant and manage a garden to feed local homeless

2. Design an alert system to halt the spread of a deadly disease

3. Artfully illustrate the global history of civil rights

4. Film a documentary on a social issue few people see

5. Redesign the complete school, including new content areas, grading, collaboration and community involvement

6. Redesign public transport in your city

7. Create an interactive family tree with voice-overs from family members.

8. How to survive on a deserted island? What do you do?

9. Develop a brand new invention

10. Plan a school party

11. Work out a modern school library system that encourages students to read

12. Create and manage a YouTube channel for a self-determined and authentic purpose

13. Design a book with educative physical exercises to keep students moving during the day

14. Help local businesses increase environmental sustainability

15. Solve your parent's problem of being too busy.

These are just project-based learning ideas. You'll have to work them out and include several other learning aspects and materials. Take a look at this example: Island survival. If you scroll down on that website, you'll find a whole collection of project-based learning lessons, completely worked out for you.

Don't know how to really start with project based learning? Here are some tips.

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What is project-based learning? 15 PBL ideas fit for your classroom

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PBL, a term you've probably seen a few times as a teacher. But what does it actually mean? And how do you use it in your classroom? PBL, or project-based learning. That's what this post is about. PBL or project-based learning is a learning method in which students identify a real-world problem and develop its solution.

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What Is Concept Attainment?

Looking at this set of pictures, what theme do you think all the pictures have in common? If you guessed, 'weather,' you are right. The pictures and text associated with the pictures (sunny, rainy and cloudy) all have one thing in common - they are symbols and descriptors of the weather!

That was pretty easy, you may say! Well, that was a very basic and elementary example of concept attainment. Concept Attainment is a teaching strategy created by Jerome Bruner that encourages critical thinking and involves a teacher giving students a group of pictures or words and asking them to decide what the pictures or words have in common. The concept or common theme, therefore, is kept from the students so that they can use their critical thinking skills to figure it out themselves! It really is a fun teaching method and fun for students as well!

Why Does Concept Attainment Work?

Jerome Bruner developed the concept under the premise that humans naturally tend to group together things of similar characteristics as a coping strategy to deal with the diversity and complexity in our environments. Political parties, eating habits (vegetarians, vegans, meat-eaters, etc.) and religions (Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) are all categories that we group people into, for example. Humans love to group things! That is why this learning strategy is relevant and works so well!

Concept Attainment Model

The concept attainment model consists of a teacher showing a list of words or a grouping of pictures and telling the students which words or pictures fit into the unknown concept and which words or pictures do not fit into the unknown concept.

Here's another example of the concept attainment model at work:

Teachers may use the concept attainment model when they want their students to learn a set of attributes or characteristics about a certain concept, group or category. For example, if a teacher wanted to teach his students the attributes of mammals, he could use the concept attainment model. He may have a stack of cards, each card with a picture of an animal. He would not tell his students the concept and ask them to instead guess the common theme themselves.

He would hold up each card of an animal and say 'yes' when there is a picture of a mammal or 'no' when there is a picture of another type of animal. The students would hopefully realize, sooner, rather than later, that the commonality of the 'yes' animals were that they were all mammals! They would only be able to do this if they knew the common attributes of mammals.

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concept attainment: model & strategy - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Concept Attainment: Model & Strategy - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Looking at this set of pictures, what theme do you think all the pictures have in common? If you guessed, 'weather,' you are right. The pictures and text associated with the pictures (sunny, rainy and cloudy) all have one thing in common - they are symbols and descriptors of the weather!

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Information Processing - Overview and Practical Teaching Examples 

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Information Processing - Overview and Practical Teaching Examples 

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Instructor: Natalie Boyd Show bio

Natalie is a teacher and holds an MA in English Education and is in progress on her PhD in psychology.

Information processing theory states that learning moves information from sensory storage to working memory, then to long-term memory. Explore an overview of information processing, discover the impact of the cognitive load, assess automaticity, and review practical teaching examples. Updated: 10/07/2021

Joanie is just learning to read, and she's struggling. She's a very slow reader, and by the time she finishes a sentence, she can't remember how it started! Reading, like other types of learning, is about storing information in a person's mind. Specifically, learning involves storing and accessing information in memory.

But how, exactly, does this happen? There are many theories. Among them, the information processing theory of learning says that information from the world around us moves from sensory storage to working memory to long-term memory.

For example, when Joanie is reading, she is receiving sensory information from the book in front of her: Her eyes are taking in the size and shape of each letter, the letters grouped together to make words, and how it all looks on the page. That's all in sensory storage.

As she moves her eye across the page, she remembers what she just read a second or two ago. That means that the information is in working memory, or storage of memories that occurred only a few seconds in the past.

If things go right, though, Joanie will remember the information in the book longer than just a few seconds. If everything works well, it will move to long-term memory, which is really just memories that are stored for a person to access later.

Let's take a closer look at the information processing theory of learning and how teachers can apply it to help students.

Video

Quiz

Course

Cognitive Load

When Joanie is learning how to read, it's very important for information to move from sensory to working memory to long-term memory. Why? Working memory is very limited. Only a few things can be in working memory at a time, and they can only be stored there for a few seconds.

This can cause problems in learning. Take Joanie, for example: If she's reading a paragraph, she can't remember every word in that paragraph or even every sentence. She needs to move that information to long-term memory. Otherwise, when she gets to the end of a paragraph, she will have forgotten how the paragraph started!

When a student can't get information from working memory to long-term memory, they can become overloaded. Cognitive load involves having too much information in working memory and not being able to remember anything.

So if Joanie is reading a long, complex paragraph, and she can't get information to move from working memory to long-term memory, she's likely to experience cognitive load, which will leave her unable to remember or take in new information.

To help Joanie as she learns new things, her teacher can do three things:

1. Encourage attention and rehearsal

The more Joanie is able to attend to something, and the more she goes over it in her mind, the more likely it is that the information will move to long-term memory.

2. Only present a few things at a time

If her teacher tries to teach Joanie a bunch of new material all at once, Joanie is likely to forget most of it. Teaching only a few new things at a time can help Joanie retain the information better because she's likely to avoid cognitive load.

3. Chunk material

Quick, remember these numbers: 2094857643. Did you remember all of them? Probably not. But if you divide them into a few chunks, like 209, 485, 7643, you're more likely to remember them. This is the idea behind chunking, or grouping information so that it's easier to remember and easier to avoid cognitive load. If Joanie's teacher can group information together to help Joanie remember it, she will be better off.

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