Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The enduring understandings that teachers must grapple with
There are many challenges teachers must overcome when trying to teach students to truly “understand” not just “know”. Understanding is represented by a multifaceted view. True understanding is said to explain, interpret, apply, have perspective, empathize, and possess self knowledge. I wonder how often teachers actually think about and incorporate these facets when planning lessons. Implementing the essential questions including topical and overreaching questions and knowing when to use one over the other is also difficult. These essential questions that make connections and transfer to other areas take skill and time to develop. It would take some practice to get your mind thinking in this way when planning lessons and during the three stages of UBD. I would think topical questions are used more by most teachers. Although topical questions are helpful, they do not ensure transfer. On the other hand, implementing only overreaching or open questions may mislead discussion away from understandings and core content. The challenge is to use the appropriate questions during the appropriate time. This can be difficult. I don’t think I have kept these areas in mind when designing lessons, however I was surprised how much of these concepts I have been implementing all along without realizing it when reading about essential understandings and crafting understandings. Teachers must realize that enduring “understandings” use discrete facts to focus on the bigger picture and provide transfer to new situations. A more broad strategy enables application of ideas to other situations. According to Wiggins & McTighe (2005), understanding requires students to consider, propose, test, question, criticize, and verify. How often teachers actually require or expect students to understand at this level? I often wonder why I usually can’t apply a concept that I have learned previously when I understood it. Maybe I truly did not understand it. Maybe it’s not just because I seem to forget things easily. Maybe it’s because I didn’t truly learn it. In order to require students to learn and understand at this level would take a major reevaluation of ones teaching to redirect lessons and concentrate on essential questions and understandings. This will also allow students to make valuable connections and enable transfer to other areas. These ideas seem to be a lot to “grapple” with especially when writing a curriculum according to UBD, but imagine how much easier it would be for a teacher that has a curriculum to follow that was designed according to UBD.
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3 comments:
You bring up a good point in terms of planning. If we want students to understand in the number of different ways as defined by the reading, then why don't we incorporate these as our learning objectives. Whenever I do my plans, I always have a sheet with the bloom's taxonomy level of thinking, along with some words that I can use in developing my learning objectives to make sure my students reach these different levels. A good plan can go a long way for sure.
I agree with your inquiry into how many teachers actually plan to have their students attain higher understanding. At the same time, I recognize myself as a teacher that holds my students to the highest of expectations, only because of circumstances that are out of my control, I find that my initial attempt into delving deep into content sometimes gets lost along the way and is sacrificed for more superficial learning. If curricula were designed with the enduring understandings in mind, it would be a lot easier for a teacher to follow through and ultimately pass on the achievement of worthy understanding on to his or her students.
I agree with you that thinking about the effect that your questioning has on students is something that most teachers often don't do. But I also think that it's interesting that you said that there were lots of things in the reading that you realized that you really do use in the classroom without really knowing it. While UbD is definitely a newer concept, I believe to a certain extent that teaching is at least somewhat inherent and therefore you may be using these skills subconsciously.
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