Teaching for Understanding

Summer InstituteStrong Museum, July 11-15, 2005

Notes & ThoughtsMark D. Fairchild

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Project Zeroat the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as

well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels.

Through Lines

What is understanding and how does it develop?

How is inquiry related to understanding?

How can frameworks help us support all our students in developing genuine understanding?

Monday, July 11

What is understanding?

Think of something you understand; How was that achieved?

Practice & Reflection

With Sustained Motivation

How do you know you understand?

Success, Satisfaction, Recognition, Explain to Others, Repeatable, Gets Easier, Extend to New Situations/Uses, FIx Errors

Performance-View Definition

UNDERSTANDING is the capacity to use information and ideas flexibly in novel circumstances.

What is Understanding?

How does understanding develop?

How does a poem mean?

Interpretation in Different Media

Understanding is comfort with topic

Develops through practice, reflection, play

Discussion is an accelerator/expander

A poem means by providing the raw material for understanding

Can completely stand alone, but doesn’t need to

Tuesday, July 12

Jigsaw on Understanding

16 students

4 papers assigned

Each paper read by 4 students

Session 1

Break into 4 groups by paper read

Answer 3-4 questions on the paper as a group

Discuss answers to understand paper

Session 2

Shuffle groups

Each group of 4 has one representative for each paper

Answer 3-4 questions about an example (learning experience in this case)

End with full group discussions/review

AM Conclusions

In addition to other attributes, understanding also requires ...

PLAYFULNESS

SERENDIPITY

Pre-Knowledge Sticks

Need to empty out the old ideas

You are not just filling a void

Harvard grads: Explain the seasons or phases of the moon?

MIT grads: Light a bulb with one wire and a battery?

PURPOSES (Why, Reasons)

METHODS (How, Processes, Disciplinary)

FORMS (Where, Product, Outcome, Tools)

KNOWLEDGE (What, Content)

Dimensions of Understanding

Using Dimensions

Laying out objectives in the 4 dimensions

Choose and refine your teaching based on what you want to do in those 4 dimensions

USE ALL 4 (not just knowledge)

DisciplinesPre-disciplinary Learning

Topics that cross disciplines and are interesting

Disciplinary Learning

Learning tools well

Inter-Disciplinary Learning

Solving the toughest problems

Wednesday, July 13

WHAT ARE DISCIPLINES?

Communities with some common understanding, interests, motivations, and processes.

Topic: Tip of the iceberg

Discipline: The whole iceberg

A Goal ...

Help develop students who can look at a situation through the “glasses” of various disciplines (the scientist, the artist, the historian, the engineer, the writer, etc.)

Disciplines (Slices of Pie)PURPOSES (similar across disciplines - center)

METHODS

FORMS

KNOWLEDGE (different across disciplines -

edge)

Do educators spend too much time on knowledge (not readily transferred across disciplines) and not enough on purposes (readily transferred)?

Levels of Understanding

NAÏVE: no ability or alertness, low inclination

(internal)

NOVICE: range of ability & inclination

(external), low alertness [rote & ritual]

APPRENTICE: range of ability, high internal

inclination, highest alertness

MASTER: highest ability, inclination, alertness

Entry Points

How does form follow function in flowers? (A question in botany).

How do entry points contribute to and distract from the development of understanding (A question of pedagogy).

Entry PointsAesthetic: ... Start by observing and drawing what you see. Group says what they see and what it does.

Interpersonal: ... I think it ... and share/discuss

Quantitative-Logical: Sorting ... sort by some attribute then name the sorting and explain why (each taking turn).

Experiential: Dissecting and translate into motion

Narrative: List words and write a poem

Philosophical: What is, why, and what evidence

Narrative Example

A writing tool

List words under...

See, Hear, Smell, Feel, Think, etc.

Take them together to write

Circular symmetry wondersTough flowers fragileBeauty is a functionSpongelike cave surprisesCuriosity enlightenedMysteries unsolvedSubtle smudges leave dusky patternsSqueeks!

Thursday, July 14

We do not describe the world we see;

We see the world we can describe.

-Peter Senge

Teaching for Understanding Framework

Generative Topics

Understanding Goals

Performances of Understanding

Ongoing Assessment

Generative Topics

Central to some discipline(s)

Engaging to students and teachers

Accessible through resources

Richly connected to other valued topics

Understanding Goals

Explicitly articulated for clarity

Publicly posted and referred to

Directly aimed at concepts to be understood (not work to do)

Performances of Understanding

Development and demonstration of understanding

What is done to learn

CRITERIA:

Active engagement, Thinking, Aimed at understanding goal, Expanding of context

Ongoing Assessment

Occurs throughout instruction (not just at the end)

Focuses on learning and understanding (not just judging and grading)

Varies by who does and how conducted

Refers to public criteria known to students

Grade & Subjects

Overarching Understanding Goals (Through Lines)

Generative Topic (Unit)

Unit-long understanding goals

Sequence of understanding goals

Introductory, Guided Inquiry, and Culminating performances

Skill strands (Criteria for evaluation)

“Lesson Plans”

General Learning Methods(1) Play, then Play, then Test

(2) Lecture, then Read, then Test

(3) Play, then Lecture or Read, then Test

#3 works best for understanding

Early education errs on #1 side

Later education errs on #2 side

#3 works on all levels

You are teaching for understanding when ...

The learning is generative

The understanding goals are clear and explicit

Students are working on performances of understanding almost constantly

The assessment is ongoing

Faculty Meetings

Would be better to be about teaching for understanding instead of administrative trivia.

Huge changes could occur.

e.g., Bi-weekly faculty/staff “dangerous” seminars

Assessment FunnelWHO: Self, Peers, Teachers, Other Experts?

WHAT STUDENTS: Say, Make, Do?

HoW: Casual or Formal Looking?

WHEN: ALL UNDERSTANDING PERFORMANCES!

WHY: To gather evidence of understanding.

Want to mix up a variety of assessment types in a given course.

Self & Peer Assessments

If the students are involved in doing the assessment, it is also a performance of understanding.

Always keep aiming at your understanding

goals...

Friday, July 15

Museum Resources

Assessment Strategies

Museum Points of Entry

Slow down

Explore a single artifact with entry point types and questions

not 7 seconds per object ... 30 minutes per object

MUSE-QUESTs Booklets

Questions for Understanding, Exploring, Seeing, and Thinking

These five games synthesize the structure of The Generic Game with The Entry Point Approach to learning, which accommodates individual differences among learners. The result is five different sets of open-ended questions, each of which accesses learning through a particular entry point: 1) Experiential, 2) Narrative, 3) Aesthetic, 4) Foundational, and 5) Logical/ Quantitative.

Ongoing Assessment

How are performances of understanding assessed (use various methods)

Do it continuously, not just at the end

Resources

Teaching for Understanding Guide (work book)

Teaching for Understanding: Linking Research with Practice (research book)

The Disciplined Mind

MUSE QUESTs Booklets

<www.pz.harvard.edu>

Conversion of MaterialFrom Traditional Unit Topic to Generative Topics

From Behavioral Objectives to Understanding Goals

From Activities/Lessons to Performances of Understanding

From End of Unit Evaluation to Ongoing Assessments

Overall Conclusions

There is a better, systematic, way to improve learning ... but the molds need to be broken, at least a little bit.

Easily adapted to graduate education ... more difficult (subversive) at lower levels.

Continuous improvement.

What is understanding and how does it develop?

Ability to apply knowledge in novel circumstances.

Information & Ideas.

Communication in multiple media, disciplines, modes.

How is inquiry related to understanding?

Inquiry provides motivation

Pose meaningful questions

Address & reflect upon inquiries of meaning to learners

Relate to the world & life

How can frameworks help us support all our students in developing genuine understanding?

Organize the closet of teaching units

Keep focus on understanding goals

Integrate performances of understanding with ongoing assessment

Break out of the stranglehold of teaching to examinations...

The Multiple IntelligencesLogical-Mathematical Intelligence

Musical Intelligence

Spatial Intelligence

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence

Intrapersonal Intelligence

Interpersonal Intelligence

Naturalist Intelligence

Community

Workshops

Followup Discussions/Reflections

Change courses one little step at a time ... forever.

RIT Followup