Inductive Discovery Learning: Design and Consideration

2. Inductive Discovery Learning: Design and Consideration

2.1 Define critical attributes of a concept, and focus on one attribute at a time

Every concept has four elements: a name, examples, attributes, and value of attribute [2]. To

have students see what is expected to be seen, the critical attributes have to be identified and

singled out [8]. Take the meaning of denominator as an example, critical attributes include

the number of parts and whole, and each part is equal. Separating critical attribute of a

concept and only presenting one at a time make students learning material easier.

2.2 Make the critical attribute obvious

Once the target critical attribute is decided, it has to be obvious to be noticed. Lo, Pong, and

Chik [8] pointed out that people tend to aware something when (1) the thing keeps change

while other things remain the same; and (2) the thing remains the same while other things

keep change. For the first situation, if the target attribute of denominator is the number of

parts into which one whole is divided, similar examples can be given. For example, the pie

graph share the same representation, which only the numbers of parts are different so that

the meaning of denominator can be discerned. Or, for the second situation, examples of

different representations can be given while the fraction number keeps the same.

3. Design structure and ideas of learning material

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Before design learning material, we had to analyze and identify the structure of each

conception in detail. The content design must focus upon each unit of the phenomenon [8],

so one page only taught one critical feature to avoid students misunderstanding what we

expected. Students must follow learning steps to discover the critical feature relevance.

Each step based on simplifies scientific reasoning steps