Teaching for Understanding: Linking Research with Practice

Most educators agree that students need to acquire and use knowledge in ways that go beyond the rote memorization of facts and figures—to develop a level of understanding that will serve them well throughout their lives. Unfortunately, traditional teaching approaches fall short of achieving this goal.

This book presents an innovative approach to teaching that develops understanding. Based on a six-year collaborative research project of school teachers and researchers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the book describes what teaching for understanding looks like in the classroom, and examines how teachers have learned to design and enact such practices.

At the heart of the book is a framework that transforms traditional teaching by providing clear and coherent guidance on choosing curriculum topics, defining explicit goals, designing learning activities, fostering student understanding, and assessing students? performance. Most important, it offers a model to support the ongoing learning of teachers and students.

Written by a diverse group of researchers and teachers, this important resource will convince all who care about schooling that understanding is education's worthiest goal.

This book presents an innovative approach to teaching that helps students acquire and use knowledge in ways that go beyond rote memorization of facts and figures—to develop a level of understanding that will serve them well throughout their lives. Based on a six-year collaborative research project of school teachers and researchers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the book describes what teaching for understanding looks like in the classroom, and examines how teachers have learned to use it.

Part One: Foundations of Teaching for Understanding

1. Why Do We Need a Pedagogy of Understanding?

Vito Perrone

2. What is Understanding?

David Perkins

Part Two: Teaching for Understanding in the Classroom

3. What is Teaching for Understanding?

Martha Stone Wiske

4. How Do Teachers Learn to Teach for Understanding?

Martha Stone Wiske, Karen Hammerness, Daniel Gray Wilson

5. How Does Teaching for Understanding Look in Practice?

Ron Ritchart, Martha Stone Wiske, Eric Buchovecky, Lois Hetland

Part Three: Students' Understanding in the Classroom

6. What Are the Qualities of Understanding?

Veronica Boix Mansilla, Howard Gardner

7. How Do Students Demonstrate Understanding?

Lois Hetland, Karen Hammerness, Chris Unger, Daniel Gray Wilson

8. What Do Students in Teaching for Understanding Classrooms Understand?

Karen Hammerness, Rosario Jaramillo, Chris Unger, Daniel Gray Wilson

9. What Do Students Think About Understanding?

Chris Unger and Daniel Gray Wilson with Rosario Jaramillo andRoger Dempsey

Part Four: Promoting Teaching for Understanding

10. How Can We Prepare New Teachers?

Vito Perrone

11. How Can Teaching for Understanding Be ExtAnded in Schools?

Martha Stone Wiske, Lois Hetland, Eric Buchovecky

Conclusion: Melding Progressive and Traditional Perspectives

Howard Gardner

Martha Stone Wiske is a lecturer and researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she co-directs the Educational Techono

MARTHA STONE WISKE is a lecturer and researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she co-directs the Educational Techonology Center. She is the coeditor of Software Goes to School: Teaching for Understanding with New Technologies (1995).