Teaching for Understanding

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For
Understanding Sona Sargsyan
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What is understanding?

• Understanding is a matter of being able to carry
  out a variety of flexible performances concerning
  the topic taught.
• Learning facts can be a crucial backdrop to
  learning for understanding, but learning facts is
  not learning for understanding.  
• Understanding shows its face when
• people can think and act flexibly
• around what they know. In contrast,
• when a learner cannot go beyond rote
• and routine thought and action,
• this signals lack of understanding.

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• Teaching for Understanding is an Apply for
  Education.
• David Perkins
• (Senior Associate at the Harvard Graduate School
• of Education)
• Nowadays teachers are providing
• The students the wrong apple.
• The apple of knowledge isnt the
• apple that truly nourishes. We need
• the apple of understanding.

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• Questions
• What shall we teach?
• What is worth understanding?
• How shall we teach for understanding?
• How can students and teacher know what students
  understand and how students can develop deeper
  understanding?

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What's the Teaching for Understanding
Framework?

• The Teaching for Understanding framework,
  developed in a research project at Project Zero
  during the early nineties.
• David Perkins co-director of Harvard Project
  Zero- has called "four cornerstones of pedagogy"
  with four elements of planning and instruction
  The Four Elements of the Teaching for
  Understanding Framework (TfU).

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The four elements of the TfU.

• Generative Topics
• Understanding Goals
• Understanding Performances
• Ongoing Assessment

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1. Generative Topics

• Generative topics have several key features
• They are central to one or more disciplines or
  domains.
• They are interesting and accessible to students.
• They have multiple connections to students'
  experiences both in and out of school
• They are interesting to the teacher.
• e.g.
• It is easier to teach for understanding about the
  Boston Tea Party than about colonial tax
  policies, because the Boston Tea Party dramatizes
  issues around colonial tax policies.

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2. Understanding Goals
GOAL
Unit-Long
Year-Long

• Identifies specific goal for the specific topic
• What will students understand?
• What will they appreciate?
• Where will they use the obtained knowledge?

• Year-Long / Overarching Understanding Goal are
  called "throughlines.
• Each of the individual units makes up the course
  would have understanding goals that related
  closely to the overarching understanding goals.
• What will the students take away from my class?

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3. Understanding Performances

• Understanding performances are the heart of
  developing understanding and are linked closely
  to understanding goals.
• Students should be engaged in performances (hold
  a good conversation, improvise jazz,
  service-learning than multiplication table) that
  demonstrate understanding from the beginning to
  the end of the unit or course.
• Learning facts can be a crucial backdrop to
  learning for understanding, but learning facts is
  not learning for understanding.  

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4. Ongoing Assessment
Self-Evaluation
Criteria
Students need
Reflection
Feedback
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TFU Will.

• Guide and allow room for personal expression
• Help you and your students to achieve goals
• Help your students to understand
• Help your students to be knowledgeable and
  skillful
• Help you in becoming a
• NUMBER 1 TEACHER

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References

• 1. URL http//learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/tfu/info3
  .cfm
• 2. URL http//www.newhorizons.org/strategies/unde
  rstanding/
• front_understanding.htm
• 3. URL http//www.newhorizons.org/strategies/unde
  rstanding/
• unger.htm
• 4. URL http//www.pz.harvard.edu/Research/TfU.htm
  
• 5. URL http//www.weac.org/News_and_Publications/
  
• education_news/1996-1997/under.aspx
• 6. URL http//www.exploratorium.edu/IFI/resources
  /
• workshops/teachingforunderstanding.html
• 7. URL http//www.newhorizons.org/strategies/und
  erstanding
• /neal.htm