Supporting Concrete Examples

Below are various means of supporting concrete examples. You can build some of these assets and interactive opportunities into your courses and you can share these ideas with students so that they have a means of building concrete examples into their own study sessions.

Customizable Tools to Support Concrete Examples

These tools have been designed to be customizable by faculty. Furthermore, they can be embedded directly into your LMS content. For further information on how to utilize these tools in your LMS see the Interactive-Components page.

Short Answer with Feedback

Short answer questions require students to construct a written answer. The question acts as a prompt for a concise and focused response.

Short Answer Quiz Tool Exemplar

Tips for Writing Short Answer Questions

• Structure the question so that it provides a clear focus, scope, and direction to guide the student’s response.
• Include verbs that match the intended learning outcome to ensure you are assessing the appropriate level of learning.
• Ensure that there is only one correct answer to the question.
• Provide clear instructions so the student knows whether to answer in sentences or bullet points, provide a specific number of statements, etc.

Multiple Choice Questions

Multiple choice questions are a quick and simple way to assess learning and provide prompt feedback to students. With multiple choice questions, students select one correct option from a list of possible answers.

Multiple Choice Quiz Tool Exemplar

Tips for writing multiple choice questions:

• Structure the question so that the stem provides a cue for the student. The options help the learner to identify the correct response through recognition.
• Carefully selected multiple choice options promote learning of information related to that on the questions. Provide 3-4 options for each question, so that the question is neither too easy to guess or too time consuming to read. All options should be similar difficulty; do not include silly options as they distract from the learning.
• Avoid the use of “none of the above” options. None of the above exposes the student only to incorrect options and does not provide an opportunity for the student to identify and learn the correct response.

EdTech Tools to Support Concrete Examples

There are many EdTech tools that can support you in embedding concrete examples into the learning experiences you create. In addition, making students aware of some of the simpler tools below can also support them in building strategies to support more effective independent learning.

Using Concrete Examples Outside the Digital Space

To support students in building their own tool box of study strategies, encourage students to engage in the some of the following activities as they are preparing for your assessments.

Tips to Support Concrete Examples

The following are some quick tips that you can use when you are building your learning experiences to embed concrete examples directly into the learning.

1. Begin by introducing the abstract concept and then immediately use an example or story to illustrate/demonstrate the concept.
2. Generate examples ahead of class so you do not have to try to generate one in the moment.
3. Bring the students’ attention back to the concept following delivery of the example and highlight the direct connection for them.
4. Provide students the opportunity to generate their own examples and explain how the example illustrates or connects to the concept.
5. Provide multiple examples with different characteristics to help learners recognize the underlying principle shared by the examples.
6. Scaffold the transition from working with concrete examples to the abstract concept to enable transfer of knowledge.

Checking Your Knowledge

References

Photography on this page used with permission from the Durham College Online Photo Database.

Harvard, B. (2018, January 1). A more concrete classroom. The Effortful Educator. https://theeffortfuleducator.com/2018/01/01/a-more-concrete-classroom/

The Learning Scientists. (n.d.). Concrete examples. The Learning Scientists. https://www.learningscientists.org/concrete-examples

Weinstein, Y., Madan, C.R. & Sumeracki, M.A. (2018). Teaching the science of learning. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 3(2). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-017-0087-y

Weinstein Y., & Smith, M. (2016, August 25). Learn to study using… concrete examples. The Learning Scientists. https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/8/25-1

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