Good Examples

An insufficient number of examples or bad examples can impede learning. There are two types of examples: positive examples and negative examples.

Positive examples are instances of the concept that somehow represent the concept. A picture of an apple is a positive example of the concept of “apple.”

Negative examples, on the other hand, are representations that may confuse the person into thinking that they are positive examples of a concept. They are close in form to the concept, but instead they are examples of another concept. For instance, to a child a pear can be confused for an apple. What is the difference between a pear and an apple? Visually there are two main differences. One is the shape of the fruit the other is the color of the skin. When teaching someone to identify an apple it is essential to use the negative example of the pear to identify the individual factors that differentiate the two.

Use positive and negative examples to develop fine discriminations.