This week's readings in Understanding by Design were chapter 7: Thinking Like an Assessor and chapter 8: Criteria and Validity. The biggest aha moment for me while reading this week's chapters was that "teaching to the test" is not a bad thing. That is as long as the test is a valid assessment of true understanding. Why wouldn't I want to teach to true understanding. If my assessments are proof of true understandings and I teach to that, then all I am doing is teaching my students to understand! By creating the assessment before planning lessons, I give myself and my students a road map of where we are going, and why we are spending our valuable time on certain things.
This week I read chapter 6: Crafting Understandings in the book Understanding by Design. I think one of the most important things I discovered in this chapter was the definition of understandings. 1. An understanding is an important inference, drawn from the experience of experts, stated as a specific and useful generalization. Having understandings defined helped me most as I tried to craft my own. I'm still a little unsure that I have correctly identified the understandings for the lessons I am writing, but I hope that with time and practice that will come a bit more easily. I hope my instructor will give me some good feedback as to whether I am on the right track and how I can get better at crafting understandings.
The six facets of understanding are the key ways for students to bring meaning and transfer ability to content. The six facets are: explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. The facet that is easiest for me to achieve in my students is application. In Family and Consumer Sciences the whole curriculum is applying core subject concepts in real-life ways. At least once a week I will tell my students "This is your real-world math application."
Understanding is a confusing topic. The biggest thing that I learned from this week's reading (chapter 2 of Understanding by Design is that the term "understanding" is about transfer. Can the student transfer their knowledge and skill that is explicitly taught in class to other and unique situations. I think the hardest thing for me it to simplify and make sure that I do not try to cover too many topics too quickly. I am so excited to show them all that I know, that I forget a slow start will lead to deeper understanding and skill.
Another thing that stood out to me was the three types of misunderstandings. "the three pathologies of mislearning: we forget, we don't understand that we misunderstand, and we are unable to use what we learned." This stood out to me because I can see where at times each of these "mislearnings" have been present. I need to be more intentional in planning away potential misunderstanding so my students will be able to better transfer their skills and knowledge. |
AuthorI am a middle school Family and Consumer Sciences teacher working on an education technology endorsement. Archives
November 2015
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