Conceptual understandings as transition points: making sense of a complex social world

An Empirical Investigation of the Conception Focused Curriculum: The Importance of Introducing Undergraduate Business Statistics Students to the “Real World”

“…Concept‐based approaches allow educators to embed desirable concepts (ethics, sustainability, culture, global society, and corporate responsibility) into the curriculum by ensuring students integrate the concepts into their knowledge (Burch et al., , Hibbert & Cunliffe, ; Korosteleva, ). “When teachers deliberately assist learners in their concept formation through the analysis and clarification of concepts, learners are more likely to see the significance of concepts in the social world” (Milligan & Wood, ). The CFC allows for the integration of multiple concepts while causing the student to be reflective.…”

“…Teaching conceptually focuses on how meaning is produced, and allows students to “integrate factual information within a context, so that concepts, not only facts, become the foundation of understanding” (Hardin & Richardson, , p. 157). Concept‐based approaches are becoming more prevalent as witnessed by their implementation in nursing (Giddens & Morton, ), biology (Halme, Khodor, Mitchell, & Walker, ; Morse & Jutras, ), biochemistry (Rowland, Smith, Gillam, & Wright, ), early childhood education (Birbili, ), social studies (McCoy & Ketterlin‐Geller, ; Milligan & Wood, ), engineering (Custer, Daugherty, & Meyer, ), mathematics (Eisenhart, Borko, Underhill, Brown, Jones, & Agard, , Rittle‐Johnson & Siegler, ), and more recently in business (Burch, Kendall, & Shaw, ).…”

Health literacy as a learning outcome in schools

“…Here, the use of a variety of conceptual frameworks may promote conceptual understanding. Being subject to prejudice, partiality, and bias, such frameworks are never neutral or objective (Milligan and Wood, 2010), and thus they can serve well as teaching-learning devices to promote critical thinking. A thorough analysis of various health-related concepts, with perhaps even the creation of new ones, can help students to see how they themselves relate to the social world they are part of (cf.…”

“…A thorough analysis of various health-related concepts, with perhaps even the creation of new ones, can help students to see how they themselves relate to the social world they are part of (cf. Milligan and Wood, 2010).…”

Teacher perceptions of the development of one school’s own concept-based curriculum programme and its intended and unintended outcomes: A case study of an International Baccalaureate World School in the United Arab Emirates

“…With regard to putting the philosophy of teaching for conceptual understanding into practice, Milligan and Wood (2010) draw attention to the fact that when conceptual understanding is not viewed as "transition points as opposed to learning destinations" (Milligan and Wood 2010, p.488) it simply leads to facts being replaced with concepts, thereby becoming synonymous with teaching for factual understanding. In doing so, the authors warn that there is a possibility of missing out on the whole point of teaching for conceptual understanding.…”