Student teachers in sections 04, 05, 06, and 07 of Ed. E 746 agreed to share these draft concept sets that were developed to support current British Columbia curricula. Through such sharing, our own understandings may evolve. These samples, shared in the spirit of caring about education, provide a foundation for critical reflection and refinement. We invite you to build upon these concept sets. The concepts represented here are intended to support key learning outcomes in the Social Studies K to 7 Integrated Resource Package (IRP, 1998) and/or the Personal Planning IRP.

A concept is an idea or mental schema that we form to represent items (objects, events, ideas) that have common attributes. We cluster items with such commonalities into a group or class of things and give or find for each group a name. For instance, we might find that the name that we have given to responses such as fear, hate, anger, and love is emotion. Each of these examples of emotion represents how we might feel in particular situations. Or we might find that the name we have given to a body of water that is bigger than a puddle, lasts a long time, and is surrounded by land is lake. Some examples of lakes that share these features include Elk Lake, Prospect Lake, and Lake Erie.

The concepts that we have may be more or less adequate. Our understandings evolve with experience, hopefully becoming more refined as we learn what does and what does not count as an example of a concept. For example, babies may over-generalize by calling all men 'daddy' until they learn how daddy differs from other men.

Concepts have been described as building blocks of knowledge. This is so in as much as we must first understand the concepts embedded in larger ideas (facts and generalizations) if we are to comprehend the larger ideas. But alas, some suggest that we may not be doing a good job of teaching concepts (Case, in Case & Clark, 1997). If this is so, then our students' judgements about ideas may well be based on flawed understandings. Or it may be that students do not partake in such decisions at all, and merely 'learn' by rote without much hope of understanding. If we are to fulfill our mandate to educate, we need to strive to make a positive difference to the conceptual readiness of our students. It is toward this end that these student teachers share their concept sets.

Concept sets provide the teacher with resources that they need to teach a concept for depth of understanding. Concept sets include the concept name, a fulsome definition of the concept that identifies the larger group to which the concept belongs and attributes that 'all' examples of the concept share. A concept set also identifies 3-4 examples of the concept and if applicable, 3-4 non-examples and 3-4 borderline examples of the concept. It is important that these samples that are selected clearly illustrate how examples and non-examples differ in the presence of key attributes.

An important consideration when developing concept sets is to keep the language of the definition and the samples meaningful to the target students. Note that examples and non-examples of the concept should both fit within the larger group that the concept belongs to. Note also that examples of a concept exhibit the key attributes of the concept whereas non-examples will not do so. For instance, Prospect Lake and the Pacific Ocean are both bodies of water (larger group) but they are not both examples of the concept, lake. Prospect Lake is surrounded by land (key attribute of lake) but the Pacific Ocean is not surrounded by land.

When developing examples, test each example to be sure that it exhibits the key attributes that 'all' examples of the concept exhibit. Note that some concepts may not have non-examples. Check each non-example to be sure that it differs mainly from examples in its absence of key attributes of the concept (Consider, culture, an enduring way of life that is transmitted across generations. A hermit's way of life might be a non-example of culture as it may be an enduring way of life but it is not transmitted across generations. Instead, this way of life may be the hermit's reaction against a transmitted way of living). As for borderline examples, consider samples that help clarify the meaning of the concept.

• Personal Planning IRP--identify problems; relate consequences to actions and decisions; give examples of goal setting (these outcomes could be related to the consequences of weak listening as impediments for maximizing personal growth and interactions)
• Social Studies IRP--describe roles, rights, and responsibilities in school (could include personal responsibility to listen to others in a fair-minded way; the right to hear what others have to say; and the right to have one's own ideas listened to in a similar way)

Definition: Good listening (concept name) is what one does (larger group) when one pays close attention so that one can hear something (key attributes).

1. John retold his little brother the story that his father had told him, hardly missing a word that his father had spoken.
2. Emily asked her friend, Sara, to tell her why she had said that she was mad at Michael.
3. Mark followed exactly all of his father's instructions.
4. Mary said that the poem that the teacher just read to the class reminded her of how she felt when she moved to Canada.

1. Mary and Sandra were talking about the party they went to on the weekend when the teacher was giving instructions. While others in the class were able to follow the instructions easily, neither Mary nor Sandra was able to do so until the teacher repeated the instructions for them.
2. Non-example: Harry was making loud noises when his classmates were sharing their projects. While others were able to say how well the presentations fit the expected criteria, Harry could not, even though he had helped develop the criteria. Example that supports non-example above: But when Harry stopped making loud noises and paid attention to the presentations, he was able to evaluate the presentations competently.
3. Dennis asked the visitor a question about the ages of students he had taught in Peru, even though the visitor had just shared this information. Students in the class turned to look at Dennis as they called out the answer to his question.
4. Non-example: Marcy was engrossed in writing a note to her friend, telling her about the noon-hour fight that she was involved in. When the teacher asked the class to put their books away and to get ready for P.E., Marcy did not do so. Example, that supports non-example above: However, when Marcy's friend poked her and told her what she was supposed to be doing, Marcy put her books away and got ready for P.E.

1. Graham did not look at the teacher when the teacher scolded him.
2. Cindy did not take her eyes off the visitor while the visitor was speaking.
3. Marcus was doodling during the movie.
4. When Carrie was asked a question about a student's presentation, Carrie could not answer the question.
5. After the instructions were given, Mike did not follow them.

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