Putting strongUnderstandingstrong Up Front.pdfVIP

EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP February 1994 I Volume 51 I Number 5 Teaching for Understanding Pages 4-7 Putting Understanding Up Front A Silllpk 11 u -·parl franwlw -k ~i cs tea hers:.i ,nguage and stralegy for l haucing th ~ir (tf.,rls ((.i I ach for g -e- t r ullderst3nding. David Perkins and Tina Blythe In Braintree, Massachusetts, a mathematics teacher asks his students to design the floor plan of a community center, including dance areas and a place for a band. Why? Because the design involves several geometric shapes and a defined floor area. The students must use what they have studied about area to make an effective plan. In Newton, Massachusetts, a literature teacher asks her students to reflect on and write about their own growing-up process. Why? Because the students will soon be reading Their Eyes Were Watching God (by Zora Neale Hurston) and focusing on the central characters development from child to adult. In Sudbury, Massachusetts, science students prepare presentations that explain their position on whether or not the President should sign an international environmental protection treaty. Why? Because creating these statements engages students in applying and evaluating a number of scientific perspectives concerning global warming. Anyone alert to current trends in teaching practice will not be surprised by such examples. They illustrate the committed effort to engage students more thoughtfully in subject-matter learning-drawing connections between students lives and the subject matter, between principles and practice, between past and present. Yet there is something different about the examples given-not what appears on the surface but what lies