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| | Inside this section
[ Taba Lessons ]
Taba
(hot linked to a Power Point about Taba
developed Dr. Krull of Estonia) influenced by
Piaget went on to look at how knowledge
is structured in Teacher's Handbook to Elementary Social Studies.
Hilda Taba believed that
students make generalizations after data are organized. She believed that
students can be led toward making generalizations through concept development
and concept attainment strategies. In A Teacher's Handbook to Elementary
Social Studies, Hilda Taba described generalizing
as a higher order of thinking when compared to forming concepts.
"Generalizations like concepts, are the end
products of a process of an individual's abstracting from a group of items of
his experience those elements of characteristics the items share, and expressing
his recognition of this commonality in a way that is convincing to others. The
two major differences between concepts and generalizations are, first of all,
that in generalizations the verbal form of the process is expressed as a
sentence rather than a word or phrase as in the case of concepts, and second,
that generalizations are here taken as representing a higher level of thinking
than concepts in that they are a statement of relationships among two or more of
these concepts." (1971, p. 72)
Outline: Teaching Strategies and Procedures (Chapter 5)
in "Teacher's Handbook to Elementary Social
Studies"
Introduction
Major Strategies
 |
Developing
Concepts
| Aimed at
establishing a firm basis for later
development of well-understood generalizations
| Concepts
are building blocks for generalizations
|
|
| Students
identify a number of concrete items from their
experience.
| A field
trip |
| A story
they have read |
| (Units
they have studied) |
|
| After a
suitably large list is produced, students
group the items that belong together and give
reasons for doing so. |
| Students
then label their groups. |
| Teacher
questioning elicits identifying, grouping, and
labeling responses.
| Questioning
| What
did you see at the fire station?
| Students provide items
|
| Teacher places items on display, writes
names of items on board, paper or
transparency. |
|
| Do any
of these items seem to belong together?
| Students find similarities as a basis
for grouping items. |
| Teacher marks with symbols or underlines
in colored chalk, crayon, etc. |
|
| Why
would you group these items together?
| Students verbalize common
characteristics of items grouped.
|
| Teacher seeks clarification where
necessary. |
|
| What
would you call these groups you have
formed?
| Students verbalize a label (category)
that is appropriate. |
| Teacher records the labels on paper,
chalk board, etc. |
|
| Could
some of these items belong to more than
one group?
| Students state different relationships
|
| Teacher records or notes.
|
|
| Can
anyone say in one sentence something about
all these groups?
| Students offer suitable summary
sentence. |
| Teacher reminds students to take into
consideration all the groups.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Attaining
Concepts
| Difference
between building concepts and attaining
concepts lies in degree of control:
| Concept
formation (Inductive)
| Concept
labels are the students' own. |
| They
label a group in the most appropriate way
|
|
| Attaining
concepts (Deductive)
| Students are first given a concept word to
say and recognize. |
| Students are then asked to recognize when
examples fit the concept. |
| Attaining concepts can be used in a unit
to clarify word meanings that are
important for continuity of learning.
|
|
|
| Using
concept attainment:
| Make a
chart on the board, on paper or on a
transparency. |
| Ask
students to suggest examples that fit the
category named (Mammal). |
|
|
|
Mammal |
Not a
Mammal |
|
cat |
frog |
|
dog |
snail |
|
whale |
bird |
| |
|
|
Developing
Generalizations
(Interpretation of Data)
| The end
product of a process:
| Abstraction from a group of items following
such processes as building concepts or
concept attainment. |
| Generalizations are verbalized in the form
of sentences rather than in single words as
in concepts. |
| Higher
level of thinking. |
|
| Generalizations can take two forms:
| Interpretations or conclusions, which are
statements of relationships from given data.
|
| Inferences, which are statements of
relationships that go beyond the given data.
|
|
| Examples of
questions utilized in developing
generalizations:
| What do
you notice about the data? Why did this or
that happen? |
| What do
you think this means? |
| Do you
notice any connections within the records or
across the data? |
| What
makes you think this? |
| What can
you conclude? |
|
|
|
Applying
Principles (Application
of Principles)
| Examples of
questions utilized in applying principles:
| What if?
|
| Why do
you think this or that would happen?
|
| Based on
the data, would these conditions be logical?
|
|
|
Bruner, J., Goodnow, J.
J., & Austin, G. A. (1967). A study of thinking.
New York: Science Editions.
Taba, H. (1962). Curriculum development;
theory and practice. New York,: Harcourt Brace & World.
Taba, H. (1967). Teacher's handbook for
elementary social studies (Intro. ed.). Palo Alto, Calif.: Addison-Wesley.
Taba, H.,
Durkin, M. C., Fraenkel, J. R., & NcNaughton, A.
H. (1971). A teacher's handbook to elementary
social studies: An inductive approach (2nd ed.).
Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley.
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