Designing for Understanding

1. Designing for Understanding Encouraging meaningful, classroom learning

2. Sources Brandford, J.D. et al. How People Learn, 1999. http://learnweb.harvard.edu/ALPS/tfu Mattingly, Kevin. Lectures, TC Columbia University, Summer 2007. Ormrod, Jeanne. Human Learning. 5th Ed., 2008. Stipek, D. Motivation to Learn, 2002.

3. Teaching v. Learning • At the most basic level, we might compare teaching with telling and learning with listening. But teaching for understanding is much more than telling, and learning with understanding involves more than just listening.  

4. Teaching • My approach to teaching 20 years ago - emphasis on teaching my subject • My approach to teaching 10 years ago - emphasis on student centered learning • My approach to teaching 2 years ago - emphasis on how students learn

5. Pedagogical Content Knowledge • There is a difference between expertise in a discipline and the ability to help others learn about that discipline. • Knowledge of the discipline and knowledge about how students learn (i.e. principles consistent with cognitive psychology) are needed to yield deep, meaningful learning

6. Teaching v. Learning • Coherency (for the student) is in the learning not in the teaching.

7. Learning ???? ? ?

8. How do I decide what is important for my students to learn? • Will my students be able to use anything they learn in this class in the future? How will I know? • Why can’t my students seem to remember anything from the previous unit once we move on to the next one? • What are my students really getting out of this class? • Am I really reaching all my students?

9. Learning • How do students learn? • How do I design a course that promotes learning?

10. Answers • Teachers College, Columbia University • Department of Organization and Leadership • Klingenstein Center Master’s Degree Program for Independent School Leadership

11. Learning • “How Students Learn: Practical Applications of Cognitive Science” • Kevin Mattingly, Dean of Faculty at the Lawrenceville School

12. Learning • Cognitive Science explains how people perceive, learn, remember and think about information

13. Learning Exercise • You are in charge of conducting the New Faculty Orientation at WRA this fall: What three principles or insights about how children learn would you choose to emphasize in a workshop whose purpose is to provide novice teachers with a beginning understanding about how people learn and the ways it informs teaching?

14. Learning • To make good progress, students need to process information actively, relate it to their existing knowledge and make sure they understand it.

15. Learning • Learning is constructive, not receptive • Learning involves self-awareness, self-revelation of thinking • Motivation and beliefs direct learning • Attention and Perception influence learning

16. Learning ??????????

17. Learning • What motivates students to learn in an academic setting? • How do we help students pay attention in class? • How do we take motivation into account when we design curricula and choose instructional strategies?

18. Motivation Factors that influence a child’s motivation to learn: • Need for autonomy • Need for a sense of competency • Need for a sense of purpose • Need for interpersonal connection • Interest and Curiosity • Value

19. Motivation • Motivating students to learn means not only stimulating them to take an interest in and see the value of what they are learning but also provide them with guidance about how to go about learning it.

20. Motivation • To help students see the worth of what they are learning communicate clear learning goals that students can value and meaningfully make their own

21. Motivation • When a student finds the academic activity meaningful and worthwhile, they will try to get the intended learning benefits from it.

22. Motivation • Respond to students’ autonomy needs by encouraging them to function as autonomous learners and also allow them to make choices

23. Attention • Attention is closely bound up with motivation in the real world – what we attend to is determined in large measure by our motivational state and by the goals we are pursuing.

24. Attention Factors Influencing attention: size personal significance intensity incongruity novelty emotion .

25. Design • The research about how people learn, can inform leadership in curriculum design, teaching strategies, student assessment practices

26. Learning Learning Experience = Teaching for Knowledge, Skill and Understanding

27. Teaching for Understanding • Most of us have no trouble teaching for knowledge or skills. • Teaching for understanding is more subtle

28. Understanding Understanding • What is something that you really understand well? 2. How did you acquire or develop that understanding? 3. How do you know you understand?

29. Wiggins on Understanding • Can Explain • Can Interpret • Can Apply • Have Perspective • Have Empathy • Have Self-knowledge

30. Understanding • Superficial coverage of all topics in a subject area must be replaced with in- depth coverage of fewer topics that allow key concepts in that discipline to be understood. The goal of coverage need not be abandoned entirely. But, there must be a number of cases of in depth study to allow students to grasp the defining concepts in a specific domain.

31. Strategies There have been a number of teaching strategies proven to promote deep, enduring, transferable learning and encourage understanding.

32. Models of Curriculum Design • Understanding by Design – Grant Wiggins • Coalition for Essential Schools – Ted Sizer • Teaching for Understanding – Howard Gardner

33. Teaching for Understanding • Teaching for Understanding encourages you to articulate your major instructional goals

34. Educational Aims “If you don’t know where you are going, you probably aren’t going to get there.” Yogi Berra

35. Goals • What do I want my students to accomplish in a unit, in a course, in a discipline? • What should my students be able to do at the completion of a unit?

36. Educational Aims • Backward Planning is a good way to figure out how to reach the aims you have established for your students.

37. Teaching for Understanding • We can organize our curriculum to insure that students recognize the priority ideas, skills and habits of mind – “understandings” – that underlie each subject. The power of backward planning is that it clarifies and focuses curriculum design, prioritizing content, reducing aimless coverage and avoiding the futility of trying to teach everything of importance.

38. TFU Framework • Throughlines • Generative Topics • Understanding Goals

39. TFU in the Classroom • This approach to teaching encourages good communication. • Being able to explain your thinking so someone else can grasp your ideas encourages understanding.

40. TFU in the Classroom • On its most basic level teaching for understanding in the classroom is about creating a learning environment where things make sense.

41. TFU in the Classroom • The conversation in the classroom is dominated by the questions --- Does this make sense to you? Why or Why not ?

42. Ask students to do something that puts the understanding to work • Make every class and writing assignment a performance of understanding. • Ask students to explain their answers, give reasons, offer supporting evidence, assess each others work and make predictions.

43. You Know You Are Teaching for Understanding When. . . .

44. The Learning is Generative • Instruction is focused around a few central topics • The topics are personally significant for you and your students • Students are engaged actively in their work • An atmosphere of genuine inquiry pervades the classroom

45. And When. . .

46. The Understanding Goals are Clear and Explicit • Overarching goals or throughlines are explicitly stated • Goals for particular units are closely related to overarching goals • You and your students regularly discuss and reflect on unit-long and overarching goals to help students make the connection between what they are doing and why they are doing it

47. Horgan Generative Topics • Marking Period 1 • The World in 1492- Age of Exploration • Original English Colonies • American Revolution

48. Throughlines for U.S. History What is history? How can we learn or benefit from the study of history? Why does it matter? How do we establish historical significance? How has technology influenced history? How has land shaped human culture? What makes a good leader? Should the notion of progress be privileged? What role has religion played in the development of societies? Why do some cultures succeed when others don’t? What motivates man to explore? What is the role of law in a society?

49. How do we determine bias? What does it mean to be a critical thinker? How do you evaluate a primary source? Why is it important to use evidence to support your argument? What is an historical question and how do you answer it? What is a reliable source? What are the components of a good discussion question? What does good listening look like? Throughlines for U.S. History

50. Throughlines • Everything we do and everything we study should help my students to understand more about these questions. I