Teaching for Understanding Framework in Practice

TEACHING FOR UNDERSTANDING 1

Running head: TEACHING FOR UNDERSTANDING 1

Teaching for Understanding Framework in Practice

Su-Tuan Lulee

Professor: Dr. Susan Moisey

Prepared for Assignment 1

EDDE 803: Teaching and Learning in Distance Education

Ed. D., Athabasca University

October, 2010


Abstract

This paper describes the Teaching for Understanding framework, a pedagogical theory developed by the

Teaching for Understanding team at Project Zero in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and ways

of using it in actual instruction. The essential elements of the framework are described first. The paper

then delineates how the framework can be applied in unit design and learning processes with the

supporting tools and techniques. The conclusion points to a need for exploring the integration of

emerging social learning technologies with the Teaching for Understanding framework so that the

framework can better support teaching and learning from distance.

Keywords: Teaching for Understanding framework, instructional design


Teaching for Understanding Framework in Practice

Most educators would agree that learners in schools need to develop understanding about

important academic subject matter, not merely memorize facts and figures. Leaders in all fields would

welcome employees who know how to think and learn in the constant changing Information Age. How

can educators foster understanding outcomes? Educators strive to explain clearly, look for opportunities

to re-clarify, and plan activities that call for and build understanding. However, it is not rare to find that

some students still don’t understand. How can factual knowledge be accumulated into understanding

that equips learners to demonstrate their knowledge in real problems? What strategy would best

support daily teaching for understanding in terms of designing units or curriculum, conducting

educational activities with learners, and assessing learners’ progress? This paper tries to answer the

questions through examining the Teaching for Understanding framework.

Literature Review

In this paper, “Teaching for Understanding” is used as a specific term for describing the

pedagogical theory developed by the Teaching for Understanding team at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate

School of Education. The principal investigators are Howard Gardner, David Perkins, and Vito Perrone

and the project managers are Rebecca Simmons and Martha Stone Wiske

What is Understanding?

“Understanding is a matter of being able to do a variety of thought-demanding things with a

topic - like explaining, finding evidence and examples, generalizing, applying, analogizing, and

representing the topic in a new way” (Perkins, & Blythe, 1994, p. 5). For example, understanding in

mathematics is not just being able to apply equations to routine textbook problems. Students must be

able to carry out a variety of “performances” that apply equations to or make predictions about

authentic situations. Based on this definition, we can say that being able to achieve a high score in a


paper-and-pencil test alone is not “understanding”; being able to describe facts or methods only is not

necessarily “understanding.” Understanding is not just having knowledge (i.e., information) or

demonstrating skills (i.e., routine performances). “Understanding is the ability to think and act flexibly

with what one knows” (Perkins, 1998, p.40).

It is not to say that factual knowledge is not important. Factual knowledge is the foundation of

competence. However, students must understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual

framework and organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application (Bransford, Brown, &

Cocking, 2000).

Teaching for Understanding Framework

Teaching for Understanding was a research project (1988 - 1995) in Project Zero at Harvard

Graduate School of Education. In the developing years, researchers and participants collaborated to

develop, refine, and test a pedagogy called the Teaching for Understanding framework. The framework

was tested in collaboration with 60 middle and high school teachers. It has grown to become a widely

adopted framework in the US and some non-English speaking countries like Mexico and China through

online teacher development certificate programs. The main contribution of the Teaching for

Understanding framework to the field of teacher education is that it provides a set of language and

structure for planning curriculum and for discussing pedagogy with other colleagues and students.

The core of the framework is a performance view of understanding – When students

“understand” a topic, they not only can rephrase knowledge but also can put their understanding into

action and applies it to a novel situation. For example, a student in a literature class might be able to

describe the outline of a story in her own words,role-play a character in an episode as she reacts to

different part of the story, or write out an imagined debate to the authors to challenge them about some

ideas. These “performances of understanding” provide opportunities for students to demonstrate what


they understand and in the meantime allow the educators to assess students’ levels of understanding

and to adjust their teaching accordingly.

Figure 1: The interplay between the elements of TfU framework

The original Teaching for Understanding framework contains four elements: Generative Topics,

Understanding Goals, Performances of Understanding, and Ongoing Assessments (Figure 1). All these

four elements serve the purpose of focusing the energy and time of the educators on helping students to

learn about the most important topic for understanding in a particular domain or discipline. The fifth

element was added to the framework few years after the model was first proposed, when technology

integration began to be taken into consideration by the researchers (Wiske & Franz, 2005).

Constructivism Assumption

The Teaching for Understanding framework is based on the assumptions of constructivism

(Perkins, 2006b). In general, constructivism is a philosophical and psychological view of learning that

argues that knowledge and understanding cannot be learned through rote learning. Rather, learners

have to construct their knowledge and understanding by experiences given by the world and especially

by the educators. Constructivism emphasizes active participation by the learners and that knowledge


and understanding are socially constructed (Philips, 1995).

Core Elements

Generative Topics

Since limited time is available for teaching at schools, considering “What topics are worth

understanding?” is the first priority for the instructors when planning a curriculum. The instructors need

a topic that is generative enough to allow the essential concepts, principles, and procedures to evolve in

the teaching-learning process. What topic is not only central to the domain, but also interesting to both

students and the instructor? Certainly, to investigate the topic, there must be sufficient appropriate

resources available. Also, the topic should be able to generate multiple connections to more than one

domain. For example, global warming is a generative topic that can connect to weather, glaciers, or rain

forests in a biology course; because it’s an important issue, everyone will be concerned about it; plenty

of resources are accessible; and it has potential for multiple connections.

Generative Topics are not just themes because themes lack centrality to the discipline. For

example, a mathematics teacher may decide to use the theme of gorillas. The unit might involve

measuring the number of gorillas in certain regions, collecting facts about the height and weight of

gorillas, locating gorillas on maps with coordinate tools, and so on. The unit might involve lots of

mathematics, but not a central mathematical idea. As such, “gorillas” is a theme, but not a generative

topic. Generative Topics should be concerned first with the core idea of the domain or discipline.

Due to limited teaching hours, it is difficult to create one generative topic per lesson. The

generative topics are usually designed by unit. A unit is a group of lessons intended to deliver related

concepts, principles, processes, or facts, e.g., Circle, Triangle, and Square could be the three lessons in a

unit on Shapes. The creation of the generative topic should be targeted on the broad concept of shapes

instead of each lesson - circle, triangle, or square.


Understanding Goals

Understanding Goals define what needs to be understood in terms of the ideas, processes,

relationships, or questions involved. Since Generative Topics often have potential to develop more than

one understanding, in order to keep students’ focus on central concepts of the discipline, educators need

to identify several specific understanding goals for a topic. For example, suppose that the topic is

“Globalization.” One understanding goal might be: “Students will understand that globalization is not

only a global issue but will have great impacts on their career.” Another topic might be: “Students will

understand the impacts of globalization on our society in terms of the transnational circulation of ideas,

languages, or popular culture.” There is no right or wrong list of understanding goals so long as they

ensure the focus of the instruction (Perkins & Blythe, 1994). However, Understanding Goals should align

with the central idea or Generative Topic as well as the key disciplinary concepts, processes, and uses.

Most important, Understanding Goals should address the “big ideas” and should not be behavioral such

as “Students will be able to state the three causes of Civil War” (Blythe, 1997; Hetland, 2006; Wiske,

1998a).

The Teaching for Understanding framework suggests two types of understanding goals (Blythe,

1997; Hetland, 2006; Wiske, 1998a). One is the Throughlines that describe the overarching goals of an

entire semester or year long course. Another is the unit-level Understanding Goals that define the focus

of a particular unit. In addition, the theory behind the Teaching for Understanding theory also suggests

that the instructors list their understanding goals in phrases of the form: “Students will understand

that …” or “Students will appreciate that …” Understanding Goals should also be stated as interesting,

student-friendly questions so that students will be interested and focus on what they are expected to

understand (Blythe, 1997; Hetland, 2006; Wiske, 1998a). Wiske (1998a) argued that Understanding

Goals are most useful when they are explicitly defined and publicly posted, have nested structure, and

are focused on the key concepts and modes of inquiry in the relevant subject matter.


Performances of Understanding

Performances of understanding are the core of developing understanding (Perkins & Blythe,

1994; Wiske, 1998a). The fundamental conception and assumption of the Teaching for Understanding

framework is that it treats understanding as a performance rather than a mental state. That means

understanding is developed by performing one’s understanding. When students learn a sport, a craft,

various arts, and most learning outside of the school, they learn by engaging in complex performances.

The Teaching for Understanding framework argues that engaging in complex performances should have

the same value in formal learning in terms of fostering understanding.

Performances that show one’s understanding of a topic and advance it called “performances of

understanding.” The focus is on what a student rather than the teacher does. Not every learning activity

is a “performance of understanding”. We can distinguish Performance of understanding from activities

by asking “Can students do this and not understand?” Some activities such as true-and-false quizzes are

too routine to be considered performances of understanding. The student answer the quizzes correctly

doesn’t mean that they can apply the knowledge to solve a novel problem. A person may first learn how

to ride a bicycle by reading instructions or watching other bike-riders in action. That might help, but the

person will not be able to ride unless he/she really gets on a bicycle and ride it.

Perkins and Blythe (1994) claimed that in order to foster an outcome of understanding, students

must be engaged in performances that show understanding. There are three progressive categories of

Performances of Understanding: the initial introductory performances, the guided inquiry, and the

culminating performances. The introductory performances include varied entry points, analogies, and

multiple presentations of core ideas. As students demonstrate understanding of preliminary goals

through performances, teachers should move to guided inquiry and provide guidance during the later

phases of students’ learning. A useful strategy is to foster a thinking culture that makes thinking a habit


in the classroom; for example, asking students with questions such as: “What do you think about this?”

or “What have you seen make you say that?” and providing them with timely feedback. By the end of

the unit, students should be required to work more independently than they did in the initial

performances and guided inquiries, and to synthesize the understandings that they have developed

throughout the unit. The culminating performance could be an exhibition of the final products, report

presentations, extended essays, and so forth.

Performances of Understanding should be challenging yet accessible to students. Good

Performances of Understanding would provide evidence for assessments. Therefore, it is important to

make students’ thinking visible (Ritchhart & Perkins, 2008).

Ongoing Assessments

How can we tell what students understand? Rather than coming at the end of a topic and

focusing on grading and accountability, the Teaching for Understanding framework suggests that

assessments should be continuously executed throughout the course so that students’ progression can

be monitored and evaluated. The information obtained from Ongoing Assessments should be used to

modify the next step in an instructor’s approach to teaching.

Perkins (2006a) emphasized the importance of involving students in the process of defining

criteria and constructing rubrics for the understanding performances they have to demonstrate.

Students will likely be more motivated to meet assessment criteria that have been shared among and

shaped by the class. The processes of co-constructing the rubrics also allow the teacher to play the

student role, and to see things and recognize values that he/she might not be able to conceive in the role

of a teacher. Moreover, the co-construction of the criteria is stronger because of wider participation. It is

not to say that all settings of learning should be totally democractic. Educators can always add things to

the rubric that students might not think of, while having some forms of a democratic process for the


construction of rubrics.

Involving learners in their own assessment and that of their classmates’ work is essential. The

instructor should not be the only person who controls the evaluation of performances. Ongoing

Assessment should include peer- and self-assessment. Peer- and self-assessment are important to help

students self-regulate their learning. Another key concept of Ongoing Assessments is that the

assessment could be formal with grading or informal without grading as long as the instructors can gain

the insight and trace the cognitive processes of how learners learn.

Reflective Collaborative Communities

A few years after the development of the Teaching for Understanding framework, Wiske and her

colleagues added a new element, Reflective Collaborative Communities, to the original framework

(Wiske & Franz, 2005). They argued that learning in a reflective learning community can support

dialogue and reflection based on shared goals and a common language. To immerse students in

collaborative communities would expose them to diverse perspectives thus promoting respect,

reciprocity, and collaboration among members.

Qualities of Understanding

In considering the quality of understanding, Mansilla and Gardner (1998) suggested four

dimensions and four levels of understanding. They argued that the quality of students’ understanding

was based on their ability to master and use bodies of knowledge that are valued by their culture. The

four dimensions of understanding were knowledge dimension, method dimension, purpose dimension,

and form dimension. The four levels of understanding were naïve level, novice level, apprentice level,

and master level.

Dimensions of understanding aim to provide a balanced view of topics and goals (Mansilla &

Gardner, 1998). The knowledge dimension is concerned with “What is this topic about?” while the


purpose dimension is about “What do experts care about the topic?” or in other words, “Why is it

necessary to learn about the topic?” The method dimension, on the other hand, is concerned with “How

do experts find out?” or “How the experts use what approaches to find out about the topics?” Lastly, the

form dimension is concerned with “Where do experts share what they know?” or “What symbol systems

and genres do the experts use to communicate about the topics?” Mansilla and Gardner argued that

educators should consider covering more dimensions when defining a set of understanding goals for a

unit.

Technology Integration

The Teaching for Understanding framework becomes more feasible with the use of new

technologies (Reigeluth & Carr-Chellman, 2009). Using technologies as tools in the educational process

could help learners and instructors better fulfill the criteria in each element of the Teaching for

Understanding framework especially when dealing with those difficult spots for teaching or learning

(Wiske & Franz, 2005). For example, students learning to solve a 3D geometry problem often find it

difficult to imagine the third invisible dimension. The use of 3D dynamic geometry software can show all

sides of the 3D graph to students and make learning 3D geometry much easier.

Moreover, technology integration allows the Teaching for Understanding framework to be

applied to distance education. For example, online resources, such as libraries of lesson plans, can

provide ideas for designing Generative Topics; online educational projects such as WebQuests can

engage students and their instructors in collaborative inquiry and social action initiatives; web-based

multimedia presentation tools can enrich Performances of Understanding by enabling teamwork

between students and allowing the combination of multiple forms of expression in conveying ideas; and

the statistical feature of a learning management system (LMS) can help make the progressive results of

Ongoing Assessments more accessible to the instructors. Overall, technology can help to strengthen


connections among The Teaching for Understanding elements. Finally, the Teaching for Understanding

framework has also been developed into asynchronous web-based courses since 1999 (Perkins & Wiske,

2005).

Teaching for Understanding in Practice

The Teaching for Understanding framework is like a map that shows you big things (Perkins,

2006b). Teachers can organize the nuances of their own practices around those big things while focusing

on more important ideas. Since most teachers are surrounded by students, textbooks, tests, and

administrative works, it is difficult for teachers to make time for reflection and innovation. Therefore,

teachers learning to use the Teaching for Understanding framework can benefit from collegial exchange

and supportive coaching. “Talking with other teachers who are thinking with the same framework helps

teachers build bridges between the abstract principles and their own experience.” (Wiske & Franz, 2005,

p. 11)

This section will discuss about how to apply the framework to actual teaching situations

including some useful techniques and tips. While reading this section as reference, it is important to

remember that there is no fixed starting point or sequence for planning a curriculum using the Teaching

for Understanding framework. Teachers should work dynamically or even cyclically among the elements.

For example, articulating Understanding Goals helps to verify the essence of a Generative Topic.

Analyzing Performances of Understanding may reveal the flaws of Understanding Goals. Defining

Ongoing Assessment criteria may lead to a refinement of Understanding Goals. The Teaching for

Understanding framework lacks details that may be needed in applying the framework to real tasks.

Teachers must bridge the gap between the general principles and the particular situations as well as add

personal ingredients to fit their own teaching styles and contexts.

In this section, the author will first propose methods for conducting each of the four elements


then continue providing check points for reflection or tips for increasing efficiency. The following

description is presented as a linear process; however, in practice, the process should be dynamic and

iterative.

Getting started – planning the unit

Designing a unit or a curriculum using the Teaching for Understanding framework involves a

significant effort including analyzing the context of students’ characteristics and the resources available

in that particular time and place; checking content standards set by the organization or government;

specifying details for all four elements of the Teaching for Understanding framework, and so forth. The

following paragraphs suggest some techniques and tools for unit planning using the Teaching for

Understanding framework. Some of the tasks could be very trivial. It can help you work more effectively

if all analysis results and design thoughts are put on paper. Appendix A provides a sample organizer for

unit planning using the Teaching for Understanding framework.

Creating a Generative topic

A practical way of designing a Generative Topic can start from brain storming in which the

teachers or curriculum designers participate in a face-to-face meeting or online discussion forum. To

begin, participants can suggest or post important concepts, skills, processes, standards, or uses that they

think are relevant to the discipline or content area The second step involves using lines to connect

related standards, concepts, skills, processes, and uses in order to create a knowledge web. Finally, the

participants should look into the knowledge web to find the spot that has most connections and nodes.

That spot is the one containing the thickest knowledge and is the place from which the Generative Topics

should be generated (Blythe, 1997).

Some instructors might insist that anything can be a generative topic if good teaching is involved.

However, Perkins and Blythe (1994) argue that some topics are more central to the discipline, more


accessible, and more connectable than others. Often there are particular topics that have to be taught in

a curriculum and those topics are not always interesting. In such cases, Perkins and Blythe suggest

adding a theme or a perspective to make the topics more interesting, for example, teaching Romeo and

Juliet as an exploration of the generation gap or teaching about the food chain to illustrate that all living

things are connected.

Defining Understanding Goals

Articulating clear Understanding Goals is difficult for many instructors (Wiske, 1998a). The

instructors are usually more familiar with behavioral-type objectives such as “Student will be able to

describe three causes of the Civil War without any help in three minutes.” It takes practice for the

instructors to refer to the “big ideas” and devise appropriate understanding goals such as “Students will

understand how to distinguish truth from bias about things that happened long ago.”

Concept maps that draw the connections between important concepts in the content areas can

help instructors reveal tacit goals. The nodes that are linked to many other nodes are often the most

valuable goals for understanding. When outlining Understanding Goals, it is also important to address

students’ common difficulties and misconceptions as well as to check the balance between the four

Dimensions of Understanding.

Other than the statement form, Understanding Goals may be stated in question form. The

question format can help students understand the goals easily and be able to participate in the co-

construction of Understanding Goals. In addition to sharing with students, instructors are encouraged to

share Understanding Goals with parents and colleagues.

Blythe (1997) provided the following checklist for articulating Unit-level Understanding Goals:

• Are the Understanding Goals clear?


• Is the number of Understanding Goals manageable to assess?

• Are they closely related to Throughlines (the overarching goals of the course)?

• Do they focus on central aspects of generative topics?

• Do they capture what you think is most important for students to understand about the

generative topics?

• Do they take the form of a question and a statement?

Developing Performances of Understanding

Many instructors have concerns regarding their teaching practices. They spend a lot of time

improving their teaching techniques or following teaching tips in order to be good performers in the

classroom. Performances of Understanding refer to what students do, rather than what the instructors

do. An assumption of the Framework is that deep learning will not occur simply by listening to a lecture

or reading the course materials. Rather, engaging activities are required to ensure that students will use

their higher level thinking skills to relate, synthesize, evaluate, and apply what they have learned. This is

not to say that lectures are not useful. After students have gained an initial understanding of the topics,

lectures might be able to speed up the learning cycle (Perkins, 1998).

Teaching with good activities is not something new. Many instructors teach using engaging

activities; however, these activities do not always involve performances of understanding. Perkins and

Blythe (1994) argue that a Jeopardy-style history quiz, an art activity of drawing the Boston Tea Party, or

a follow-the-recipe-style science experiment are all engaging activities, but they are not Performances of

Understanding because the activities do not push learners to think beyond what they already know.

Another type of mistaken examples related to the activities that engage students in Performances of

Understanding but they might lack the focus provided by Understanding Goals. Appendix B lists the


verbs used by the statements of regular activities and the statements of Performances of Understanding.

The next two paragraphs suggest two approaches for designing Performances of Understanding.

Varied entry points

Multiple intelligences theory (Gardner, 2006) suggests that every learner has a different

intelligence profile and, as such, individuals do not all learn in the same way. Gardner suggested that any

rich, nourishing topic can be introduced in at least seven ways (see Figure 2), which roughly map onto

the multiple intelligences: (1) narrational entry point, (2) logical entry point, (3) quantitative entry point,

(4) foundational entry point, (5) aesthetic approach, (6) experiential approach, and (7) collaborative

approach. He claimed that “using multiple entry points can be a powerful means of dealing with student

misconceptions, biases, and stereotypes.” (Gardner, 2006, p. 141)

Developing habit of thinking and making thinking visual

Performances of Understanding help students construct their understanding. Good

Performances of Understanding aim directly at developing understanding of one or more Understanding

Goals and are sequenced to guide learners through different entry points. In addition, good

Performances of Understanding provide a range of evidences for Ongoing Assessments.

A very important skill related to Performances of Understanding is the development of a

“thinking habit.” When the thinking becomes routine, it creates a culture that pulls participants in and

learners might become the educators, too. The Visible Thinking project at Project Zero and other

research projects have developed many strategies for fostering thinking routines that are widely adopted,

e.g., see-think-wonder that asking students: “What do you see?”; ”What do you think about that?”;

and ”What does it make you wonder?” Other examples include think-pair-share, claim-support-question,

and connect-extend-challenge (Ritchhart, Palmer, Church, & Tishman, 2006). Thinking routines stimulate

not only individual thinking but also social interaction through which the new knowledge can be


internalized (Vygotsky, 1978).

Figure 2: Developing disciplinary understanding requires delicate considerations on what dimensions to cover and which entry points to utilize. Based on Boix-Mansilla, Hetland, & Ritchhart (1997) Developing Disciplinary Understanding.

Designing Ongoing Assessments

Fair and valid assessments cannot be obtained through paper-and-pencil assessments that

require higher levels of linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences. To learn for understanding,

assessments need to occur frequently within and combined with the instruction (Andrade, 2000). During

the ongoing assessments, students need public criteria, regular feedback, and opportunities for

reflection (Perkins & Blythe, 1994).

There are two useful tools for designing Ongoing Assessments. The first tool is the assessment

funnel, developed by Hetland (2005), in that it synthesizes all key concerns regarding Ongoing

Assessment in one single diagram (See Appendix C). The second tool is the following six-step process,

developed by Andrade (2000), for co-constructing useful rubrics with students and instructors: (1) Look

at models; (2) List criteria; (3) Pack and Unpack criteria; (4) Articulate levels of quality; (5) Create a draft


rubric; and (6) Revise the draft.

Ladder of Feedback

When students are engaged in learning activities, they need appropriate feedback to help them

to perform better. “When teachers successfully developed effective feedback strategies with their

students, self- and peer-assessment are further enhanced.” (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & Wiliam,

2003, p. 67) Feedback is an integral part of Performances of Understanding, Ongoing Assessments, and

any group discussion. To keep learning organized and efficient, researchers in the Teaching for

Understanding project developed the Ladder of Feedback to guide a constructive process for improving

understanding through dialogues between students, peers, and instructors (Hetland & President and

Fellows of Harvard College, 2005).

The Ladder of Feedback involves the use of the following sequence when providing feedback:

1. Clarify. Ask questions about unclear points or missing details.

2. Value. Highlight the strengths of the work. Tell students what they have done well and

what makes it good.

3. Offer concerns. Express disagreement with some part of the work or identify potential

problems or challenges.

4. Suggest. Provide suggestions on the concerns mentioned above.

Integrating Emerging Technology to TfU and Future S tudy

Although technology integration with the Teaching for Understanding framework is a recent

addition to the literature (Wiske & Franz, 2005), it has been limited to the use of electronic technology

and stand-alone or intranet computer technology. The emerging technologies such as Web 2.0 and social

learning applications have largely been ignored. To ensure that learners acquire requisite skills and


knowledge as they progress through the course and hopefully to sustain the learning over the long term

as Moisey (2001) advocated educators need to utilize more, if not all, of the five types of media

described by Laurillard (2002): narrative media, interactive media, adaptive media, communicative

media, and productive media. The table below presents an initial proposition for integrating emerging

technology into the Teaching for Understanding framework for use in an online setting.

Table 1 Sample list of media and tools for applying TfU in online learning

Element Key Actions Media Type Tools / Resources

GTs Identifying the topic through

brainstorming & synchronous

/ asynchronous discussion

Communicative

media

Electronic whiteboard, computer

mediated conference, discussion forum,

instant message, and live chat.

UGs Drafting UGs; Negotiating

goals with learners,

publicizing goals

Productive,

interactive, &

communicative

media

Discussion forum, Wiki or co-editor,

presenting tools embedded in LMS.

PofU Present content; nurturing

habit of thinking; visualizing

thinking; implementing

actively-engaged activities;

practicing and demonstrating

Interactive,

adaptive,

productive, &

communicative

media

Books, tutorial, online resources,

lectures, Learning Objects, tutor-led

seminar, workshop, virtual fieldwork,

threaded discussion, WebQuest, web-

supported presentation tools e.g.,

SlideShare & ZOHO.

OA Negotiating criteria with

learners; publicizing criteria;

allowing instructor-, self-, &

Interactive,

adaptive,

productive, &

Online rubric creating tools, e.g.,

RubiStar; feedback, quiz, essay writing,

self-study practice, educational game,


peer-assessment; providing

feedback & revising ID based

on formative assessment;

delivering assessments;

commenting & grading

communicative

media

concept mapping, grading features in

LMS.

RCC Team building; team working;

socializing

Interactive,

productive, &

communicative

media

Grouping features in LMS, web-supported

presenting tools & concept mapping

tools, social leaning software, e.g.,

bookmark manager, blog, wiki.

Note: GTs – Generative Topics; UGs – Understanding Goals; PofU – Performances of Understanding; OA –

Ongoing Assessment; RCC – Reflective Collaborative Community.

How to take advantage of new technology, along with the corresponding implications, to

advance the efficiency and effectiveness in applying the Teaching for Understanding framework to web-

based learning is a topic that worth further exploration.

Conclusion

The world of education is full of advice (Perkins, 2006). Educators learned all kinds of frameworks,

strategies, approaches, techniques, and tools from books, articles, and lectures. Such advice need to be

taken into practice in order to know their applicability and usefulness. Through years of practice, the

Teaching for Understanding framework has showed its validity in supporting daily teaching for

understanding in terms of curriculums, activities, and assessments. Factual knowledge will only

accumulate into understanding that equips learners to perform their knowledge in real problems

through instructional strategies that foster understanding outcomes.


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