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Learning for Learning for UnderstandingUnderstanding

Week 3Week 3

2AnnouncementsAnnouncements

Project guidelines available

No class on Monday, Columbus day

Project PRE-proposals due next Tuesday

Sample projects soon on line

Section meetings scheduled (see next slide)

Submitting your pre-proposal digitally: info coming

Further questions about course, projects, etc., after class.

3Section meetings, rooms to be decidedSection meetings, rooms to be decided

Wednesday, October 18 at 11:30 AM

Thursday, October 19 at 2:00 PM

Wednesday, November 1 at 11:30 AM

Thursday, November 2 at 2:00 PM

Wednesday, November 15 at 11:30 AM

Thursday, November 16 at 2:00 PM

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Review and Review and previewpreview

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Seeing how the Pandora questions help to organize ideas about creating learning

Avoiding ‘aboutitis’, thinking of learning as a matter of always getting better at some rich activity.

Some skill in looking at learning through the lens of Theory One

A feel for creating learning guided by the Pandora questions and Theory One

6Avoid aboutitis! Play the whole game!Avoid aboutitis! Play the whole game!

Getting better at something of scope and richness…

And more engaged by it…

And more alert to opportunities for it.

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Knowledge base

Field of action

8PreviewPreview

1. Adding to Pandora

2. What is understanding

3. Teaching for Understanding

4. Water balloon bungee jumping

5. The art of TfU

6. Rapid review and looking ahead

9Learning goalsLearning goals

Sharp sense of what understanding is and how it can be developed.

Initial familiarity with the Teaching for Understanding framework (TfU) as a way of describing and planning learning

Continuing exploration of how to avoid ‘aboutitis’ in favor of learning ‘whole games’

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Adding to Adding to PandoraPandora

Goal: Refresh on the Goal: Refresh on the readings and Pandora readings and Pandora questionsquestions

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1. What’s worth learning?

2. What’s hard about learning that?

3. So how is it best learned?

4. How is the learning going?

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What is What is understanding?understanding?

Goal: Get a better Goal: Get a better sense of what sense of what understanding is understanding is through an example through an example and activityand activity

The tower problem

100 m

10 kg

The hole problem

100 m

10 kg

15Personal stories of understandingPersonal stories of understanding

1. What’s something you understand really well?

2. How did you come to understand it?

3. How do you know you understand it?

16From stories to theory…From stories to theory…

Very active knowledge.

Fewer academic topics.

Getting understanding requires thinking and doing.

Assessing understanding requires thinking and doing too.

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Have an understanding

Possess an understanding

Grasp something, apprehend something

Getting it

“Either you get it or you don’t”

Being able to think and act flexibly with what you know.

Understanding Understanding as performanceas performance

Wilder

Understanding as Understanding as possessionpossession

A theory of understanding…A theory of understanding…

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Teaching for Teaching for understandingunderstanding

Goal: Get acquainted Goal: Get acquainted with the Teaching for with the Teaching for Understanding Understanding framework through an framework through an explanationexplanation

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‘‘Aboutitis’ versus the skating principleAboutitis’ versus the skating principle

Learning for understanding is more like learning to skate than learning about skating.

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Learning to skate with… Newton’s laws

Contrasts between U.S. and European legal systems

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date” (Sonnet 19)

The law of supply and demand

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Understanding performances… Ask learners to think and act with what they

know so far…

showing understanding so far…

and building understanding further.

An understanding performance“Goes beyond the information given”

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Teaching for Understanding Teaching for Understanding (TfU)(TfU)

What images or mental models that I provide or that they articulate or construct can support the activity system and the target understanding performances?

How is ongoing assessment arranged to provide frequent informative feedback throughout?

What are the understanding goals, the things about the topic that people should understand?

What is the generative topic, a phrasing of or spin on or selection of a topic that makes it generative?

Understanding Performances

What do people do to learn to think and act

flexibly?

23What is TfU? – Useful sourcesWhat is TfU? – Useful sources

ALPS, Active Learning Practices for Schools

http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/tfu/index.cfm

ENT, Education with New Technologies

http://learnweb.harvard.edu/ent/

The Teaching for Understanding Guide, Tina Blythe and others, Jossey-Bass, 1998.

Teaching for Understanding, Martha Stone Wiske, Ed., Jossey-Bass, 1998.

TfU findings…

1. Teachers like it and find it allows them plenty of elbow room to express their own style.

2. Learners like it, feel it makes learning more interesting.

3. Learners achieve good understanding, greater than one would normally expect.

4. Learners’ conceptions of understanding shift from a possession view toward a performance view.

5. Learners with more of a performance view show greater understanding.

From Teaching for Understanding, Martha Stone Wiske, Ed., Jossey-Bass, 1998.

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Water balloon Water balloon bungee jumpingbungee jumping

Goal: Understanding Goal: Understanding the TfU framework the TfU framework better by analyzing an better by analyzing an exampleexample

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..\..\My videos\Creative Classroom 4 DVD\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_0.IFO

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Teaching for Understanding Teaching for Understanding (TfU)(TfU)

What images or mental models that I provide or that they articulate or construct can support the activity system and the target understanding performances?

How is ongoing assessment arranged to provide frequent informative feedback throughout?

What are the understanding goals, the things about the topic that people should understand?

What is the generative topic, a phrasing of or spin on or selection of a topic that makes it generative?

Understanding Performances

What do people do to learn to think and act

flexibly?

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The art of TfUThe art of TfU

Goal: Get sharper Goal: Get sharper about TfU through about TfU through quick designquick design

Rain forest ruminations

From activities / lessons Read books about RF

Write a report about the RF

Draw pictures of the RF

Write poems about the RF

Build a RF in the classroom

To understanding performances

Make a list of all of the things that your life, livelihood, and enjoyment depend on over the course of a given day. Explain why and compare and contrast with a similar list for a rainforest organism

Wild

er

Rain forest ruminations

From activities / lessons Read books about RF

Write a report about the RF

Draw pictures of the RF

Write poems about the RF

Build a RF in the classroom

To understanding performances

Write an essay comparing the rainforest to a Calder mobile, a mathematical equation, and a tight-rope walker. Explain which of these makes for the best analogy.

Wilder

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Teaching for Understanding Teaching for Understanding (TfU)(TfU)

What images or mental models that I provide or that they articulate or construct can support the activity system and the target understanding performances?

How is ongoing assessment arranged to provide frequent informative feedback throughout?

What are the understanding goals, the things about the topic that people should understand?

What is the generative topic, a phrasing of or spin on or selection of a topic that makes it generative?

Understanding Performances

What do people do to learn to think and act

flexibly?

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Rapid review Rapid review and looking and looking aheadahead

Goal: Consolidation Goal: Consolidation and mental and mental preparationpreparation

33Learning goalsLearning goals

Sharp sense of what understanding is and how it can be developed.

Initial familiarity with the Teaching for Understanding framework (TfU) as a way of describing and planning learning

Continuing exploration of how to avoid ‘aboutitis’ in favor of learning ‘whole games’

34Back to PandoraBack to Pandora

1. What’s worth learning? What topics are worth learning? What inside a topic is worth learning? Beyond knowing stuff, what games are learners getting better at? (Avoid ‘aboutitis’!)

Can we have generative topics (TfU)?

2. What’s hard about learning that? Where should we watch out for fragile knowledge: missing, inert, naïve, ritual

3. So how is it best learned? What’s the source’s share? / What’s the learner’s share Can we keep all four sides of Theory One in play? – clear information, thoughtful

practice, informative feedback, strong intrinsic or extrinsic motivation.

Can we mobilize TfU: Generative topics, understanding goals, understanding performances, ongoing assessment, mental models?

4. How is the learning going? Can we arrange for truly informative feedback (from Theory one)?

How can we organize ongoing assessment (TfU)?

35Out in the world of GSE and beyond…Out in the world of GSE and beyond…

Think about your learning experiences. Where are you playing the whole game with performances of understanding?