Rebooting Key Concepts

If you have taught in an IB Programme then you will have come across key concepts. They are defined as "broad, organizing, powerful ideas that have relevance within and across subjects and disciplines, providing connections that can transfer across time and culture."

If you have met the work of Lynn Erickson then you will be aware that her thinking on this topic has influenced the IB greatly, indeed she wrote a white paper for them on the matter. In Lynn's vernacular key concepts would be called macro concepts. Macro concepts, in her view, are said to be universal and timeless and can be captured in a generalisation that aids transfer across the disciplinary divides.

Well I tried it and quite frankly they don't. Each time I met a concept I could find parallels with its use in different subjects but they didn't transfer well. Then I realised we were forcing the concepts to do something that they are not purposed to do. This is because a concept is not universal. Their meaning changes with time, and culture, and context, and disciplinary lens, and priorities, and values, and, and, and. Take a simple concept like a chair - this is a concept that is influenced by context (for example today my principal sat on a bin to talk to me, was this now a chair?) and if this concept is fluid then how much more so the more abstracted concepts!

So if we agree that concepts are changeable then what of them can be generalised? Well it turns out that it is only the simplistic surface meaning of the concept - at best. At worst it is a vague statement that tries to say nothing contestable. As a result, generalisations offer little insight. If such little can be captured by the generalisation then what transfers? See how this unravels!

Note: I am exclusively referring to interdisciplinary concepts - things are quite different inside the disciplines. Here concepts have a much greater defined consistency and the generalisations can be more specified and specialised. Here concepts aid transfer.

In short, concepts are not designed to transfer generalisations across disciplines.

So I want to see interdisciplinary concepts get a reboot - a reimagining of their purpose:

Key concepts - terms that create a meeting place where different perspectives on an issue can be explored.

This repurposing of concepts allows us to focus on some crucial values.

1. Teaching for Conceptual Understanding

One of the five principles of an IB approach to teaching is that we teach for conceptual understanding. In simple terms this means that we are not teaching ideas and facts in isolation but connecting those important elements of our curriculum content to bigger ideas. The value of doing this is well documented as an individual who has connected ideas together has both made more meaning of things for themselves and is more able to face the complex interconnected world that we inhabit. Most experts acknowledge that the problems facing the planet today can only be solved in an interdisciplinary way and will require contributors who can work on their piece without losing sight of a bigger picture.

2. Key Concepts as a Curriculum Connector

To achieve the above the IB uses Key concepts. Key concepts are single words that potentially offer the power to be connecting words across the curriculum. We want these words to act as a framework that raises the prompt to students about the potential of an idea raised in a Science lesson to connect to an idea raised in Art, and for an idea in French to resonate with one in Geography. The connections that they offer are not the identical idea (as some might claim) but the chance of unique perspectives on a shared idea. We see key concepts as signposts for perspective taking.

3. Perspective-Taking as the Core of International Mindedness

One of the highest principles of IB teaching is to teach in a way that supports international mindedness and develops in our learners attributes of the IB Learner Profile. To be internationally minded the most crucial skill a person needs is the ability to see an issue or problem from another person’s perspective - to be open minded. This perspective-taking is somewhat unnatural to us. We are primed at an individual level to be blinded to our personal biases and at a community level to be unconscious of our cultural assumptions. The ability to step aside and see things outside of ourselves and / or the bubbles we are in is a skill in increasing need in a global, yet polarised, world.

4. Key Concepts as Tools to Support Perspective Taking

Key concepts allow us to pause and acknowledge that big ideas are influenced by context, disciplinary perspective and values held, both at the individual and cultural level. Key concepts offer the chance for learners to make meaning across the subjects by comparing and contrasting the ideas raised in one subject with those in another. They can consider how the ideas are shaped by circumstances, by the players involved or by priorities that the discipline may be focussing on. These conversations allow students to build meaning across the curriculum and a narrative for understanding the world around them. Each student will build their own meaning and narrative so we need activities that help them to express these thoughts.

5. Key Concepts as Boundary Objects

A boundary object is any object (or term) that is part of multiple social worlds (in our case different curricula subjects) and facilitates communication between them. Boundary objects offer a shared language because as generalised definitions they are the same but crucially they have a different identity in each context. As a result a boundary object must be simultaneously both concrete and abstract, and both fluid and well-defined. Key concepts have definitions, which can be found in the guides, but it must be understood that these shift in the different situations that they find themselves in. Key concepts can be also used to formulate generalisations but again these are subject to nuance and difference depending on the context. It is vital to explore these differences (and similarities) and as such we use the concepts as meeting places to facilitate interdisciplinary perspective-taking.

References

Bateson, Nora. Preparing for a Confusing Future: Complexity, Warm Data and Education. World Academy of Arts and Science Journal. 2018 https://norabateson.medium.com/preparing-for-a-confusing-future-complexity-warm-data-and-education-8eaae6b09eef ?

Stoytcheva, Sveta. Boundary Objects: A Field Guide, https://scalar.usc.edu/works/boundary-objects-guide/boundary-objects .?

Vasiljuk, D.; Budke, A. Multiperspectivity as a Process of Understanding and Reflection: Introduction to a Model for Perspective-Taking in Geography Education. Eur. J. Investig. Health Psychol. Educ. 2021, 11, 529–545. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe11020038 ?