Hi. This is Jennifer Gonzalez for Cult of Pedagogy.
In this video I'll show you how to teach an inductive learning lesson.
To understand what inductive learning is, let's see how it compares to its opposite:
deductive learning.
In deductive instruction, the overall concept or rule is presented first,
then students work with examples to apply the concept or rule.
In inductive instruction that order is reversed:
Students study examples of the content first, then they make generalizations,
leading to an understanding of the rule.
The order of deductive learning is rule to examples. In inductive it's examples to rules.
So instead of giving students the rule first,
then having them practice it with examples.
we would give them the examples first, then let them organize them until they discover
the rule for themselves.
One big advantage of inductive learning is that it uses the practice of identifying similarities
and differences,
which research has shown to be one of the most effective ways people learn.
It also requires students to think on higher levels,
Especially that hard-to-reach analyzing level,
because students really have to determine what information is and is not relevant.
And although inductive learning has a lot of different names and structures,
we're just going to look at a very simple type of lesson you can use without a lot of
preparation.
This is Gina, a middle school science teacher.
Gina is about to begin a unit that addresses the Next Generation Science Standards concerning
Natural Selection and Adaptations.
Eventually, Gina's students will have to be able to demonstrate complex levels of understanding
about things like hereditary traits
and how species have changed over time, but before they can do that,
Gina wants them to have a basic understanding of how different species of animals are grouped
by traits.
Now she could just go about this in a straightforward way,
by showing them the basic taxonomy that organizes animals,
and then having students do some sort of work that applies the concepts she just taught them.
Instead, Gina is going to have her students learn about these groupings
by exploring the animals and their traits first, to see what conclusions they can come
up with.
Step one of inductive learning is to provide students with examples of the content.
Now I'm calling these "examples," but you can also fill in this blank with
key words from the content,
sample problems, such as in a math class or scenarios in a lesson about history or life
skills,
artifacts in a science, technology, or history lesson,
images that illustrate certain phenomena or techniques,
or sets of data.
Gina starts her lesson by giving students these animal fact cards to study.
Each card contains information on the animal's diet, size, coloring, habitat, and reproduction.
Gina tells her class that they are going to consider how scientists organize animals in
order to better study them.
For this lesson, Gina will use twenty different cards.
She has students work in groups. Each group will have its own set of twenty cards.
Step 2 is to have students arrange the examples into groups.
Gina tells her students that there is no one "right" way to group them, but that they should be
thinking about the reasons why one way of grouping might be more useful to scientists.
This group decided it would organize their animals by size.
When students have placed their items into groups, have them give each group a descriptive label.
The process of coming up with a label will further push students' thinking.
You can encourage this by asking students to define their categories more specifically.
Step 4 is to have students draw a conclusion, make a generalization,
or form a hypothesis about the content, based on their groupings.
Ideally, they should do this in writing.
So remember, this group has organized their cards by the animals' size.
Gina has asked her students to draw a conclusion about why their method of grouping is useful
to scientists.
They prepare this:
What you see in red is a sentence stem that Gina gave them ahead of time.
Although the students' conclusion doesn't necessarily address the issue of physical traits,
it shows that the students are already thinking about the purpose of organizing information
for study.
The next step is not required if students are already approaching the concept you're
hoping they'll learn,
but it will result in more creative, higher-level thinking:
Have students group examples in a different way and repeat the process.
So now our group organizes their animals by habitat, theorizing that this type of organization
allows scientists to more easily study ecosystems.
Eventually, some groups organize their animals by common physical traits,
noting that some animals stand in their own categories.
This is the concept that will help Gina's class ultimately understand the taxonomy
that will form the basis for more complex discussions.
She can now deliver a brief lecture or have students read about the taxonomy,
keeping their other theories in mind and looking for evidence to support their conclusions.
This strategy comes from Silver, Strong, and Perini's wonderful book, The Strategic Teacher.
Click on the book cover to see all the strategies we have studied from this book.
And thanks for watching.
To learn an even easier strategy you can use to turn almost any paper-based task
into an interactive group activity, watch our video on Chat Stations.
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