CBCI for Thinking & Understanding

CBCI is not a just an acronym for “Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction” but it is a mindset that can help students and adults alike in learning and growing. CBCI is a wholistic strategy on education that focuses on learning universal concepts that cover many bases with while using specific examples and facts to support each concept. With information being available at the touch of a button (or a screen), the stereotypical dates and events that are taught are not engaging, but also aren’t practical. Through CBCI, there are variety of ways to engage students for a more purposeful sense of learning and activities.

If you are looking for more information on CBCI, and why it just makes sense, please click here or follow this blogs author, Rachel French, on X (formerly twitter) @ProLearnInt.

Main Points of CBCI

• 3 Dimensional Learning: CBCI has a large focus on synergy (synergistic thinking) between low level facts and high level concepts in order to form a more practical understanding. Why memorize information to spit it back up and forget it after a test, when you could take overarching concepts and adapt them to everyday life? The choice is simple.

• Integration of Thinking: Students, at times, think of subjects one dimensionally, as in if they are in Language Arts class, they see no reason why any type of math should be done. We as adults know that reasoning, logic, and life in general, is not one dimensional. CBCI promotes the integration of thinking to allow for a more interdisciplinary view of what we learn. This promotes collaboration between teachers of different content in the pursuit of a common goal; a better understanding for the student. To see concepts addressed in different perspectives can bring students to a more well rounded education.
• Real Life Questions: At some point in most educators careers they will hear the phrase “when will I ever use this in real life?”, and frankly, the students make a good point here. Education should be practical, and that is why CBCI pushes questions that relate to real world events in an effort to better understand them. With large overarching concepts and questions, students can learn from the past to better understand the present, and adapt to the future. Through these connections, students can become more engaged as they see events happening in real life, while still getting the content, skills, and facts.

Influence on my Teaching

As I have read and studied CBCI, I have made a shift in how I plan for my next unit, and next year of teaching. Here are few ways that this has made my life easier, and my teaching stronger.

1. Simple Planning and Student Choice: Planning can always be hard for a teacher, especially one with students with varying accommodations and level education. With CBCI, the concept itself is the main point. As I lead students through the concept, I can provide students an array of examples that they can learn from in which they choose what they want to learn about. With some pre-planning and student buy in, class becomes simpler when each student or small group is working towards their own goal, that still envelopes the concept at hand.
   
2. Collaboration and Skill Sets: Students are naturally hesitant to go outside their comfort zone with topics and peers. When students have a choice in what they learn however, that resistance may find itself waning. With each student bringing their own background information, interests, and skill sets, concept based classrooms become more student led. Students who may not typically pair up are now able to learn off each other in both the concept, and how they present their findings.
   
3. Questioning: As a teacher, we all ask questions, but are they the right kind of questions? With a broader set of questions, I have not only been able to gain more informative data, but I have brought more students into the realm of participation. When being very specific about questions, especially those with one right answers, I have found that students can check out through boredom, or just not knowing the answer. While I am not perfect by any means, I have opened up my questions to more open ended answers, and that has resulted in a variety of evidence based opinions. For more help with asking better questions, and the importance of a question, please view the video below!

Upcoming Unit Plan for 8th Grade Social Studies

For my CBCI unit, we will focus on conflict in America in the 1600-1800’s. In this unit, students will study and present a conflict of their choosing to class including what led up to their conflict, the conflict itself, the immediate effects seen during the time, and how the conflict still affects us today.

1. Concept: Conflict arises when norms are challenged.
   
2. Essential Questions: Why does conflict happen? How has conflict led to progress? Has America learned from past conflict, if at all? How has conflict made America the country it is today?
   
3. Critical Content: Students will know:
   • Causation of conflicting ideals both nationally and internationally,
   • The effect of geography on society,
   • Differences between natural advantages that come with geography, status quo, and race through a historical lense
   • The significance of the resolution to different American conflicts
     
4. Choice of Content:
   • Colonization
   • The French Indian War
   • The American Revolution
   • Manifest Destiny/Trail of Tears
   • The Alamo
   • The Civil War
   • Any other teacher approved topic
     
5. Academic Vocabulary: Cause and Effect, Multiple Perspectives, Inquiry
   
6. Assessment: Students will make a presentation (podcast, video, blog post, etc.) about their topic of choice. Students will also be asked to respond to their peers and draw connections between topics to prove the overarching concept in a short response format.

The major challenge I see when planning this out is the abundance of information out there on these subjects. Students can be overwhelmed with a lot of text at once, especially if it is above their reading level. While I could compile a list of resources to use, I want students to also research on their own as well, but that comes with possible wrong information, and a lot of bias. While frontloading the skills needed for quality research is a possibility, I cannot help but to think students will venture into misleading territory.

CBCI & TCE Working Together

Threshold Concept 1: Curriculum is more than standards, textbooks, and courses of study

• With CBCI, education and curriculum push past the surface level teaching that comes straight from the textbook only to align with standards. CBCI allows for more individual opportunities to grow and connect connect concepts in a meaningful way that is personal to the student.
  
• Within my school district, teaching is more about the HOW you and not so much the WHAT. Students crave the personal attention comes with teaching concepts, since you can make each concept personal to the student. We strive to push thinking through questioning that leads to the discovery of modern day facts. To simply teach out of a textbook each with little interpersonal connections would be detrimental to the classroom and the students as well.
  
• My community is based in concepts as well, while pushing and questioning standards. This past summer there was a standard set to push to clean up Middletown residential properties. Just as there are with many standards in school, there were loopholes and pitfalls. By questioning the standard, more focus was put on individuals who may not be able to afford renovations or trash removal. Help was found, not because that was the standard, but rather because of the questioning behind it.
  
  

Threshold Concept 2: Education is not neutral/ teaching is political

• As the world becomes more political by the second it seems, CBCI aims to change beliefs for the better. There are just some universal truths that everybody agrees on, no matter the color of their skin or political alignment. By building off of those basic truths/concepts, we as educators can point out hypocrisy throughout history and present day alike.
  
• While being confrontational can be hard for some teachers, it is essentially a must when teaching. This is not exclusive to classroom behavioral issues, but the world itself. The school I teach at is heavy on snap judgements and overreactions from parents, and thus, administrators, but to be neutral is to withhold information. Classrooms are the place to dissect modern day issues in a controlled and respectful manner, rather than ignore them or have discussions devolve into chaos. For more on why teachers should take a stance against neutrality in the classroom, please click here for details.
  
• Within my community, things have grown increasingly political as I live in the home city of vice presidential nominee JD Vance. This has brought issues on both sides from an older generation. The type of discussions seen on community post show that evidence and logic is not always at the forefront of people’s minds, but rather “having the loudest voice” will win out. This is the reason why politics should be talked about in school. Not only because it is a place where issues can be discussed in a civil manner, but because there are certain requirements that should be met. We have the opportunity to change the “loudest person wins” notion that my community and so many others are currently going through by teaching future democratic citizens early, just how to go about this concept.