The use of concrete examples is one of the six strategies for effective learning that we feature on our website. The idea is to take an abstract concept and use real world examples to increase understanding. It is important to use varied examples so that students do not associate that one example with the only meaning of the concept.

Today, we provide you with some ideas for using concrete examples, including some (wait for it) concrete examples of how to use concrete examples! See what we did there?

1) Related Course Material to Real-Life Situations by Michael Theall

Michael Theall describes several of the reasons why concrete examples are important in the classroom, connecting them to educational theory, and then provides ideas for using this technique in the classroom and online.

2) Teaching Empathy with Concrete Examples by Ruben Brosbe, @blogsbe

In this thought-provoking article, Ruben Brosbe discusses how we can use concrete examples to foster empathy (a complex concept) to children in a world in which empathy is very much needed.

3) Use Real World Examples to Teach Sustainability by InTeGrate

Using funding from NSF, a group of researchers and educators have developed free, downloadable materials for educators in the earth sciences. This particular page focuses on real world examples to teach sustainability, but the entire website is full of excellent resources.

4) Classroom Modeling: Scaffolding Learning or Stifling? An Inquiry by Amanda Miska

This article discusses the pros and cons of using concrete examples in the classroom, but then provides some ideas for how to use concrete examples in an English class.

5) Top 12 Ways to Bring the Real World into Your Classroom by Kim Haynes

Our last resource is intended to give educators some ideas about how to use concrete examples in the classroom. This quick list provides some easy and more challenging ways to use concrete examples in any classroom.

Every Sunday, we pick a theme and provide a curated list of links. If you have a theme suggestion, please don’t hesitate to contact us! Occasionally we publish a guest digest, and If you'd like to propose a guest digest click here. Our 5 most recent digests can be found here:

Weekly Digest #68: Desirable Difficulties

Weekly Digest #69: Behaviorism in the Classroom

Weekly Digest #70: Teachers’ Implementation of Spaced Practice

Weekly Digest #71: Technology to Help You Create an Active Classroom Environment

Weekly Digest #72: Talk to the Learning Scientists!