Week 8: Teaching for Understanding - Response #2

Stripling, B. K. (2007). Teaching for understanding. In B.K. Stripling & S. Hughes-Hassel (Eds.) School reform and the school library media specialist (pp. 37-55) Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited.

Focus Quote:
"Educators can only teach for understanding by creating learning experiences that require the development of essential knowledge, the use of cognitive and metacognitive skills, and the application and transfer of knowledge." (Stripling  2007)

The second reading I selected for this week's readings on assessment and communicating evidence of student learning was Barbara Stripling's chapter on Teaching for Understanding.  At the beginning of the chapter, Barbara devotes a section to defining understanding in which she clarifies the difference between facts, knowledge, and understanding.  Basically, she states that facts provide information and exist outside the learner, knowledge is created when students attach meaning to facts and exist within the mind of the learner, and understanding is what happens when students interpret, evaluate, or apply their knowledge to another situation or context.  (Stripling 2007)  According to Stripling, the fact that understanding comes from the learner means that understanding is not something that can actually be taught by teachers.  Rather, she states, "Educators can only teach for understanding by creating learning experiences that require the development of essential knowledge, the use of cognitive and metacognitive skills, and the application and transfer of knowledge." (Stripling  2007)

This definition of understanding was new to me.  I think before reading this article, if someone had asked me to define understanding, I would have confused the definitions of knowledge and understanding.  Now, after reading Stripling's definition, I think its a good definition and I think more educators need to to be aware that knowledge and understanding are two very distinct things.  I also liked how she mentions that understanding has to come from the learner.  With the No Child Left Behind law weighing heavily on the minds of many educators, it seems that we are so focused on what the teachers can or should do to improve education that we forget that students have a part to play in their own education.  As Stripling points out, teachers are responsible for setting up situations where understanding can take place, but they are only piece of the puzzle.

Further on in the chapter Stripling discusses how to design inquiry-based instruction that leads to understanding.  Using the theories from Understanding By Design, she recommends following three keys steps when planning instruction: "(1) target specific understandings; (2) develop how students will demonstrate their learning; (3) design the instructional activities." (Stripling 2007)  In terms of the final step, designing instructional activities, Stripling also recommends using the Stripling model of inquiry, which includes six phases of inquiry: connect, wonder, investigate, construct, express, and reflect.  (Stripling 2007) For each phase she also includes possible teaching strategies such as the use of concept maps or reflection logs.  I found these strategies to be very useful and can see how they would be a good way to get students in the right frame of mind for true understanding to take place.