Variation Theory (VT) provides theoretical support for the use of conceptual conflict to promote conceptual change. When extended to include ‘unifying aspects’, VT also provides a practical pedagogical framework for generating and resolving conceptual conflict. Unifying aspects allow students to build vital subconscious connections between individual concepts that, when brought to the fore of their awareness, can be varied to produce conceptual conflict. Before unifying aspects can be constructed, however, educators need to identify students’ existing misconceptions in order to build distinct patterns of variation for each individual object of learning. During this process, teachers need to consider relational hierarchies between critical aspects (e.g. introducing the critical aspect ‘animal’ before the critical aspect ‘type of snake’) to produce effective patterns of variation (Ling, 2012). This increases the likelihood that students will find a new theory intelligible and plausible (Hewson & Hewson, 1984). Then, when students are exposed to variation along the unifying aspects that connect individual objects of learning, they can determine for themselves whether or not a new concept explains more adequately a certain phenomenon. The benefit of VT, relative to more philosophical learning theories (i.e. Constructivism), is that it provides an established pedagogical framework that teachers can apply to their own practice. I believe that my introduction of unifying aspects demonstrates the adaptability of VT to introduce a wide range of complex concepts and support students learning.