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Concentric Circles – Getting Students to Think Bigger (and Smaller!)

Concentric Circles is a differentiation technique which moves students up and down the ladder of abstraction, applying a single idea in multiple contexts.

Example:

concentric circles differentiation technique

In this example, my students are applying the big idea “🏛️ Problems lead to new rules. Those rules lead to new problems.” (yes, it’s a favorite of mine) to three contexts of increasing “size”: home, school, and our city.

You could add to or change those around, of course. How does the big idea apply to a country? To an apartment complex? To Disneyland? The key is how students are thinking! They’re working with one idea across various contexts.

The big problem? My students hated writing in those circles and I hated reading their writing in those circles. Solution? We’d drop the circle organizer just write boring old square paragraphs in a list!

  1. Home
  2. School
  3. City

This is an example of “Think Big! But Also Small.”

Get your students' thinking moving from specific to the abstract and then back again.

See other examples of “Think Big! But Also Small.” ❯❯

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