Representation - How do you teach concepts?

I want to share a little visual that has been floating around in Sanger that has been super helpful with getting teachers to think differently about their representation of concepts. 

Concrete:
When establishing a concept. Make it concrete! We all know the things we most remember  is the stuff we can hold, feel, and manipulate. For concepts that can't be held,  find the real world connections or experiences that concept defines. 

Pictures/Visuals:
Make the concept visual. After students have experienced a concept physically, let them experience it visually through pictures and videos. Just like the picture of the apple above, we all know that isn't a real apple, we understand that it represents an apple and can be used in place of an apple when we need people to connect to the concept of an apple. 

Pictures/Visuals with embedded Text & Symbols:
Use the visual representations with embedded text to support understanding of a concept. We can now see the relationship between the word and the concept. Think infographics!

Just Symbols:
Finally we need to get to a point with concepts we are representing where students can simply see a symbol or world and understand the complete continuum of the concept that the world or symbol represents. 

Important Questions to ask when Representing stuff

1. Am I only using my voice to describe this?
   
2. Am I only using pictures to show this?
   
3. What does this concept look like played out in my students' day?
   
4. Could a student who is blind, deaf, or needs visuals access this concept?​