Chapter 2: Understanding Understanding
When we think of school education, there is a series of lacks which are evidence at the level of classroom teaching and the quality of students’ learning.
True understanding is the final product of a well planned process which has been carefully developed and thought by a teacher.
Understanding is about going beyond the information given.
Considering Bloom’s taxonomy regarding cognitive skills, the main issue which arises is that students are usually asked in the first two categories, i.e. knowledge and comprehension, which do not consider high order thinking. Therefore, their results reflect knowledge, which is short-termed. However, when higher order thinking is required, i.e. application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation and creation (the latter has been added lately), learners usually struggle to success if there has not been a guided process in order to achieve them.
Consequently, teachers can pursue the achievement of the desired understanding by engaging students’ previous knowledge, applying it within known and unknown situations. Learn by doing.
Understanding thus involves meeting a challenge for thought.
It implies the ability to ask and answer many why-questions. Hence, there is an avoidance of randomly correct responses. When students themselves are able to perform the latter successfully, the goal is attained. Nonetheless, it is a cyclical process, i.e. it has to be restarted as many times as necessary by all the educational participants.
We cannot cover concepts and expect them thereby to be understood; we have to uncover their value – the facts that concepts are the result of inquiry and argument.
The main concern is to know and be aware of the mental process to reach a product, i.e. understanding. Children are to be able to provide evidence of the output and intake of the means, and so do teachers. It is certainly a conjoined task.
15 comments:
thx
sp
hi Loreto!
Creation is one of the indicators now? interesting and even more challenging for us, teachers, specially if we ourselves sometimes are not very creative...
Yep, I agree with you that we usually ask our students to get just the basic level of knowledge when there are many others beyond that one.I don't know if you have experienced this but sometimes I can clearly percieve that for some students getting the level of knowledge is not enough and they demand for more, but since our class was not prepared to go beyond, that effort made by the student seems to vanish in the air.I've felt very frustrated watching this.....
Anyway....
Thanks and see you around
Vicky
it is a cojoined task as you suggest.Certainly Bloom's works have served as the basis for analysing big important issues like the one Johnsons refers to. It is the next step, or 'going beyond the first step of this long ladder of learning, so as to reach the upper floors and not remain silent on the basement of misconceptions' what is really necessary for true learning to take place. And it is a huge challenge not only for us, but for pupils too.
Loreto
One of the most important problems in school education is that there is no straightforward equivalence between what teachers expect from students and students’ learning. This problem occurs when teachers plan and apply activities in the classroom which are not related to the objectives. For instance, if the aim of education is understanding, a teacher must not teach and assess students with the first two categories of Bloom’s Taxomomy. In other cases, classes are taught to know the contents where students do a very good job but when students take tests their results don’t show the excellent performances of students in classes.
Do teachers really understand Bloom’s taxonomy to apply it in their planning and assessment? Do universities prepare students to know or understand how to be teachers? Who is going to take the blame for the failure? These are questions that have to be answer to improve education.
You mentioned a very clear and self-explanatory sentence: “Understanding is about going beyond the information given”. I think it is crucial to consider that we teachers are not only providing information or “knowledge”, we have to provide “real understanding”. One of our main objectives when teaching is to develop critical thinking abilities in our students; therefore our students will be able to show clear evidence of their understanding. And this evidence is clearly demonstrated through the students’ doing.
Angelina
loreto
Basically I'll repeat what I have said in some of the previous statements. It's basic thing to know; this guy (Bloom) has done the job, and now we just have to take it, work on that basis and be able to modify and design materials, evaluation, classes and all possible means to go eventually climbing his pyramid. By doing this we would be have a chance to work in these high order mental processes that you mention. Paloma also mentions one point relevant to carry out this objective "Do universities prepare students to know or understand how to be teachers? Who is going to take the blame for the failure?" As she mentions, these are points to consider from the very beginning at university where this issues should be really discussed.
Hi Loreto,
I'd would like to say that I'm totally agree with the last post regarding the quality of preparation we receive as undergraduate students and how this affect the way we do our job.''True understanding is the final product of a well planned process which has been carefully developed and thought by a teacher.''
I ask how many of us DO really knew that when we finished our studies?????
“Understanding is about going beyond the information given”....Definitely. And this issue concerns either teachers or students. By this I mean we as teachers have the great responsibility to conduct the teaching learning process to achieve the aim of the so called “product”. How? As you wrote Loreto, setting a well planned process, developing critical thinking nad finally applying these concepts to real life.
Hi Loreto!
I'll refer to a sentence you wrote: "True understanding is the final product of a well planned process which has been carefully developed and thought by a teacher". I partially agree on this statement, since we, teachers, are the ones to put into practice the necessary strategies to achieve the final goal which is understanding, of course. But I also consider it important to mention that there are many other factors involved in the process, such a coherent curriculum, the appropriate use of a suitable textbook, and government and school policies (just to mention some)which, many times do nothing but make classroom practices even more difficult. We, teachers, are a very important part, but not the only one.
As you mention, "tru understanding is the final product...." is totallty right, but also we have to consider that sometimes we as teacher plan carreful lesson but the society makes our work harder, Bloom says something but chilean curriculum says something different, so whose responsibility is this, we as teachers that just do what we are ask to do or the system ?
Loreto,
I would like to refer to the idea of “true understanding is the final product of a well planned process which has been carefully developed and thought by a teacher”. I think it is essential to keep in mind the idea of teaching as a process, a well planned process which should be carefully developed in the classroom by professionals. We as teachers must understand this very clearly since it is our responsibility to carry on with this complex process. Unfortunately, sometimes it is quite difficult to find the space to do this careful planning, and consequently the necessary corrections or modifications while we detect difficulties in our classrooms.
Regarding what you stated in your comments, I can see the importance that planning stage has, in order to, set up the suitable aims which help to students to cover their learning needs. Pitifully this doesn’t happen in Chilean education, because we as teachers are not focusing in looking for the development of a higher thinking, but only the cover of big amount of information. This way of teaching is not advisable to make students aware about why they are learning that, and what that is for. Therefore teachers ‘mission is to contribute to find sense to what is learnt by the pupils.
Developing critical thinking is what Loreto suggests here. It is certainly a long-lasting objective to demand from students higher order thinking in our educational context, if we consider that priority has been given to successful acquisition of knowledge over last decades.
I absolutely agree that comprehension and knowledge are not as memorable as the experience of understanding. We have to start at an early period of learning in our students; otherwise, students will not develop this level of thinking if we do not encourage them over and over again as Loreto proposes. Interestingly enough, our cultural context does not awake students’ critical thinking. This is also true for other geographical context, even considered a global issue. We can tackle it though starting as early as possible.
Dear Loreto
It seems to me there are two possibe scenarios to explain why students are usually asked in the first two categories, i.e. knowledge and comprehension, which do not consider high order thinking. On the one hand, there is a negative perception of what students are able to produce. Therefore, students are not encouraged to go through more challenging tasks. On the other hand, teachers are simply not able to elaborate application questions for students to evaluate, classify, analyse,etc.
So, who's to blame?
Lore:
Sometimes, I feel down because I think it is too much responsibility for just one person; the teacher of English. How can we solve or fill a gap that has been dug for years in prevoius levels/grades? How can we teach our students to think critically when thay have been given (and will be given) the questions and the answers during all their school years? How can we expect our students to do more than the first two steps in Bloom's taxonomy when at the same time they are not being challenged/taught in the other courses? We are just a bunch of revolutionary new teachers who want to change the world fighting against the mummies of education. It is so difficult for us to teach understanding when they are not being taught that in their own native language... Perhaps we are wrong, just a rotten apple affecting the good ones with these crazy ideas... Sometimes I believe the highest the students can get is the first two levels.
Bye dear!
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