From Mastery to Understanding

In this week’s media segment, Dr. Harvey Silver discusses the distinction between knowing and understanding. Reflect on your lesson plans from the past week (or from a week during the previous school year if you are not currently teaching). Think about a lesson that focuses mainly on mastering knowledge of the subject matter. In this Discussion, you will post a description of this Mastery-type lesson. Your colleagues will then read about your lesson and provide feedback for ways to change this lesson to reflect the principles of the Understanding model.

As you consider changes you could make to your colleagues’ lessons, focus particularly on applying the four principles of the Understanding model (CORE):
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? Curiosity:
Teachers create curiosity by providing partial knowledge or fragmented, unclear information.
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? Order:
Students seek order. They look for patterns in the data.
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? Reciprocity:
Teachers provide opportunities for students to see reciprocal relationships between hypotheses and data.
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? Evidence:
Students use evidence to support their theories. With these thoughts in mind, follow the instructions below to post your response to this Discussion topic.
Posting Instructions:

Post a description of a lesson that focused on mastery of subject matter. Include in your description the lesson’s objectives, instructional method(s) and assessment techniques.

Required Readings
? Required Readings
Course Text: Learning-Driven Schools: A Practical Guide for Teachers and Principals
o Chapter 4, “Assessment for Learning”
Book Excerpt: Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding understanding. In Understanding by design (2nd ed., chap. 2). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Copyright 2005 by ASCD. Used with permission. Learn more about ASCD at www.ascd.org.
Media
Course Media: “The Understanding Model” (Harvey Silver, EdD, and Art Costa, EdD)
Dr. Harvey Silver and Dr. Art Costa explore what it means to teach for understanding.
View one of the following:

o Course Media: “Concept Attainment Strategy” (Harvey Silver, EdD, and classroom demonstration)
Dr. Harvey Silver explains the components of the Concept Attainment strategy.
o Course Media: “Mystery Strategy” (Harvey Silver, EdD, and classroom demonstration)
Dr. Harvey Silver describes and demonstrates the Mystery strategy. This strategy provides an excellent way to engage and motivate students to use their inquiry and problem-solving skills.
Optional Resources
Web Resource: New Horizons for Learning?Teaching for Understanding
Researchers are consistently confirming the importance of teaching for understanding. To read a selection of articles on this topic, go to:

https://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/

Article: Oehlkers, W., & Ruple, H. (2007, June). Inquiry into action: A model for learning. Reading Today, 24(6), 40. Retrieved using the Walden Library Academic Search Complete database.
Article: Strong, R., Silver, H., Perini, M., & Tuculescu, G. (2003, September). Boredom and its opposite. Educational Leadership, 61(1), 24?29. Retrieved using the Walden Library Academic Search Complete database.