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Teaching For Understanding : - Coggle Diagram
Teaching For Understanding :
What is Teaching for Understanding?
The framework is just a guide to follow, other factors like classroom structure and student-teacher relationship play a role
Framework
Generative Topics
What makes the topic or concept worth teaching?
central to given discipline or subject area, connect to something familiar to students, engaging to students and teachers, accessible to students through multiple resources and ways of thinking
Sometimes restrictions on what teachers must teach can be a bad thing, good teachers find ways to make the topic more generative
not all topics can be taught the best for understanding because not all topics have familiar aspects to them
Understanding Goals
Teachers must develop understanding goals for the year, each unit, and each lesson
those understanding goals need to be specific
Performances of Understanding
throughout the year students should engage in performances that show understanding
discussions, quizzes, projects, etc.
overtime the performances of understanding would get harder
these performances should support the understanding goals and engage students from the beginning to the end of the unit
Ongoing Assessment
Rather than assessing outcomes primarily at the end of the unit, teachers provide feedback, learning criteria, and opportunities for reflection throughout instruction.
What is Understanding?
that understanding is a matter of being able to do a variety of thought-demanding things with a topic
like explaining, finding evidence and examples, generalizing, applying, analogizing, and representing the topic in a new way.
understanding is being able to carry out a variety of “performances” that show one's understanding of a topic and, at the same time, advance it.
these are called performances of understanding
they can
explain
things in their own words, they can
interpret
things, they can
apply
using what they already learned, can
demonstrate
perspective by seeing the big picture and other viewpoints, can display
empathy
, and have
self-knowledge
by showing metacognitive awareness and reflective on own learning and experiences
Putting Understanding Up Front
Floor plan of a community center example- math teacher makes students utilize what they learned in a new way
Literature teacher has students reflect on and write about their own growing-up process, because soon they will read a novel and focus on the character's development from child to adult
A science teacher has students create a presentation to explain their position on whether or not the President should sign an international environmental protection treaty, because students must use what they learned to support their position and make an argument
all great examples of teaching for understanding
They illustrate the committed effort to engage students more thoughtfully in subject-matter learning—drawing connections between students' lives and the subject matter, between principles and practice, between past and present.
Teachers found challenges in teaching for understanding
they began to explain things more clearly, looked for opportunities to clarify, and pose open ended tasks
Still found students not understanding what they should. Why?
teachers had to focus on other areas of teaching, not just teaching for understanding
schools and tests given to teachers often give little support for teaching for understanding
questions of strategy arose, what was the best approach?
Why should we teach for understanding?
The nature of the modern world
that today’s students will enter.
the world is constantly changing and is increasingly interconnected, bringing new problems and potentials daily
Students need to develop a deeper understanding of the world around them in order to be successful
our children need to learn how to find, sort, evaluate and apply information to new situations
The Knowledge Explosion
"Teaching for understanding calls for a fundamental shift from a content “coverage” approach – teaching and testing a series of facts and discrete skills – to one that emphasises the “uncoverage” of important, transferable ideas and processes. Teaching for understanding calls for a fundamental shift from a content “coverage” approach – teaching and testing a series of facts and discrete skills – to one that emphasises the “uncoverage” of important, transferable ideas and processes."
There is so much information that teachers are supposed to teach now a days it is overwhelming and hard to fit in a certain amount of time
Research on Learning
research has found that teaching for understanding is supported based on how people learn
better than drill and practice approach
knowledge of experts is not simply a list of facts and information
knowledge learned at the rote level rarely transfers and sticks with the learner
How do you learn for understanding?
learn by doing, by participating in the performances for understanding
reflect on how one learns best and utilizing that information
Engage Learners in meaning-making
meaning-making is when students are given the opportunity to construct their own-understanding around big ideas and essential questions
learn by doing and through physical and mental activity that helps them make connections and construct their own meaning
Teach and assess for transfer
this means that students should understand core ideas and have the ability to transfer them to new situations
What does this mean for my own learning and teaching?
I think that after reading this article I started to think about how this seems like something everyone would want or try to use in the classroom
I don't think it is that simple though, it takes a lot of planning and thinking and honestly time and experience to understand the best way to teach so that students are learning and understanding what is important
I learned best when I learned for understanding.
these journals we are doing in this class have really helped me to learn for an understanding- my learning is much deeper than it was in previous semesters.
this assignment made me realize I have learned mostly to remember and not for understanding, I was taught to use rote memorization and then forget everything I learned after my test
I think that in teaching we need to connect what students are learning to things that they will need to know in the real world
teach them to use what they know in new situations and how to apply what they know to learn new things and solve problems in their lives
teach them to be successful in life, not just on standardize tests
don't teach to the test as a teacher, teach for understanding and for students to come out as smarter people, not just smarter students
what I mean by that is to teach them to be able to use what they are learning in their real life outside of school- yes school is so important but I think when teachers focus too much on teaching to meet standards and for the tests there is a value that is lost in education