UbDDI+B2+Chapter+7

Chapter 7: Teaching for Understanding in Academically Diverse Classrooms Synthesis by Charli Sayward
Abstract: This chapter discusses how important it is for teachers to make sure students understand the material being covered in class. To ensure this happens, asking essential questions will help get students interested in the material, and see why they are learning the material. It gives them an idea of what their final goal is and where the class will be heading. If essential questions are asked throughout a unit, student will be able to bring what they’ve learned back to the questions and see how it connects. The six facets are explained in this chapter as ways to create lesson plans that will help students understand. The same wheel that we are using to create our own [|lesson plans] right now is used as an example to show brainstorming. Along with the six facets is the WHERETO framework which will help us remember the essential principles when teaching students. We need to know our goals, what we are teaching, how will we interest the students, how we will provide the information in a meaningful way, how will we give formative and summative assessment, and how will we organize all of this in a logical way? The facets and this model are meant to guide teachers when planning lessons to help student understanding.

Synthesis: Each of us pointed out the three main points of this chapter: essential questions, six facets, and WHERETO. We all agreed that we will want to pose essential questions to our students as a way to hook them and get them interested in what we feel they should understand. The [|essential questions] can be used to help students think deeper into the concepts instead of just memorizing important facts. They will have a deeper understanding if they can answer the essential questions we ask them. The six facets and the WHERETO model are ways to help us create lessons that will allow students to have deep understanding. Some of us related this chapter to what we are doing right now in Stage 3, and how helpful it is in keeping organized with our lessons. This chapter really ties everything together for us. toc

Kassaundra
Chapter 7: Teaching for Understanding in Academically Diverse Classrooms There are three instructional approaches that are designed to develop student understanding: essential questions, six facets, and WHERETO framework. The tips for using essential questions impact me because I saw some, such as when I use more than one question to sequence them in logical order, that I could use to improve on the essential questions I have already brainstormed for my unit. Also, I’m glad that it was mentioned that not all of the six facets need to be used in activities all the time because I thought they did. This will make writing my lesson plans easier and more focused. It’s very important for me to keep in mind that even if I have a struggling student in my class I shouldn’t limit them to the basic skills. I should let them explore the larger concepts as well. I learned a lot about the WHERETO framework and I believe I will be dealing with the revision and rethinking part as well as the self-evaluation and reflection part in my content area of English. All of these ideas and skills will be beneficial for me when I start to really write lesson plans and come up with units.

Charli Sayward
UBD Chapter 7: Teaching for Understanding The three main ideas from this chapter were using essential questions to engage learning, using the six facets, and using the WHERETO model. Essential questions are meant to jump-start interest for a certain lesson. As a math teacher, I would definitely want to get my students interested and thinking by asking starter questions. To further make learning meaningful for students, the six facets (explain, interpret, apply, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge) can be used to create individualized lessons. When planning these lessons, WHERETO helps keep the students in mind by asking, what they will be learning, how will they be hooked, what will they need to be equipped with, how will they rethink, how will they self-reflect, how will you teach them, and how will the lessons be organized? I will make sure use these questions to guide my planning and to be as differentiated as possible.

Alyssa Wadsworth
The broadest concept in this chapter was teaching for understanding, as implied by the title of the chapter, but the base of this was the term “uncovering,” how it is used in the classroom, and how it //should// be used in the classroom. Essential questions are included in how “uncovering” should be used in the classroom and this affects both my students and me because essential questions “…can be used to frame both content and process” (page 112). This allows my students to understand goals and how long or how much content is required to reach the goals of a learning process.

Kelly Steinhagen
This chapter gives great examples of how to help students generate deep understanding and thought through open-ended discussions focused on big ideas. I realized how important it is to raise interest before delving into the unit itself. By doing this, students will be much more likely to engage in discussions and it allows the beginning of the unit to be a level playing field. This is mainly because working backwards and starting with big ideas and narrowing in on the essential concepts means that all students can think and add to the discussion regardless of prior knowledge of the unit. I can see myself coming up with "hooks" to units, especially with all the various types of literature one reads in an English class. I believe that these type of questions will raise more interest in reading and joining in on discussions.

Ryan Pelletier
This chapter focused on three major things. The first was using essential questions to engage learning. Essential questions are meant to get the subject moving. It should catch the student’s interests. The six facets are the second part we learned about. The six facets are explain, interpret, apply, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. These are all meant to create individual lessons. The WHERETo model was the third thing we learned about. The WHERETo model improves what the student is learning by making them think deeper and rethink. It helps them self assess and reflect. I think all three of these examples are going to be great tools in my classroom. I found the essential question to be very important. The start of a unit can make or break it. If I use well thought out questions that make the students interested and curious, then I will be able to have a more successful unit.

Linda McLaughlin
//Chapter Seven: Teaching for Understanding in Academically Diverse Classrooms// What I got out of this chapter was the importance of introducing the content with questions that can help uncover the content. This can be achieved using the WHERETO framework. This helps teachers to consider the perspective of the students. This helps us keep the students as our focus and at the center. This impacted me because I recognized that a lot of my teachers in the past have used the ladder model, which basically says they must know certain information in order to learn the new material. It’s personally impacted me, because it’s pretty much the only way I’ve learned. It’ll be hard for me to stray away from that. This will impact my classroom because it will help me with my units and lesson plans and help keep them concise and focused. It’ll be extremely beneficial for my students. It’s going to force me to think and plan differently than I’m used to.

Brianna Douglass
Chapter 7 talks about what we want students to learn. Not just skimming information but rather going deeply into the content is really beneficial for students. In order to do this it is needed to look back at essential questions you planned out at the beginning of the unit and ask yourself whether the students are able to answer them or not? Are they fulfilling the understandings of the unit? I myself found that many high school classes do not go deep into information nor do they allow the students to get involved in their own learning. I really don’t want to be the teacher that is an easy grade and nothing more. I want my students to deeply understand the “whys” and “hows” involved with math formulas, graphs and equations. Instead of just memorizing, which is the extent of most high school math courses, I want my students to be challenged and play a role in their own learning of math. I think that involving other assessments than just tests will help with covering material deeply and not just memorizing it for the test.

Lyzz Stevenson
Chapter 7: In this chapter there were three main concepts were discussed. The first topic was about asking essential questions. Asking these questions at the beginning of a lesson will spark students’ interest in the topic. The next main idea is using the six facets (explain, interpret, apply, perspective, empathy and self-knowledge) to create individualized lessons. The last concept was the WHERETO model. Incorporating all of these into your classroom and lessons helps “uncover” content. By using these in my classroom I will be able to keep the content in mind and clear to students and actively engage them in their learning.

Taylor Kemp
Three main ideas were presented in this chapter, using essential questions to engage learning, essential questions, and the WHERETO model. All of these ideas can be used to help students stay focused on what they are learning. Making it more interesting for them while learning. If done right then the students will be interested in learning. How this will impact me as a teacher is will implement these ideas into my classroom and hopefully be able to grab my students attention. That is always the goal as the teacher, to make learning as interesting and enjoyable as possible.

Justin Stewart
Chapter seven focuses on the three main parts of planning lessons: using essential questions to engage learning, using the six facets, and the WHERETO model. These three tools can be used to engage students in your class and provide help in lesson plans. What relieved me was that I don’t have to use these tools all of the time in my planning. Trying to remember everything that should be included in each and every part of the lesson planning can be daunting. By using these tools here and there, it will help to un-clutter the planning process and allow for flexibility in my plans. The three main tools will be very effective in my classroom how ever because it will help to keep the students engaged in the lesson. I would also like to challenge my students who need a little help. I don’t want to label them as being “slow” and give them basic material to work on. I want to push them to keep doing their best as well and have them attempt to understand the bigger questions involved, while still being reasonable.

Jenn Baum
Chapter 7: Teaching For Understanding in Academically Diverse Classrooms This chapter emphasized the fact that in order to achieve understanding, students must uncover the answers themselves. In order to do so, teachers need to incorporate more than lectures and sheer memorization into the curriculum. Teachers should find ways to challenge the ways their students think, question them, set up learning experiences in ways that guide students towards understanding and uncovering major concepts and ideas by keeping questions open-ended, which allows all students to participate in learning, thinking, and applying and connecting content to authentic situations. There have been classes that I have had where the teacher is unclear or unfair in the way that they assess learning. In those classes, the material usually is not connected to authentic situations so students struggle understanding and because the assessment is unclear and unfair, they usually do not perform well on the assessment. I have had a few tests where I look at the questions and panic because they are nothing like the ones that we have learned over the unit. I do not think that this is a fair way of assessing students, so as a teacher I want to make sure that I am very clear from the beginning about what I expect my students to know and be able to do. In order to do this, I will make sure that I post the essential questions, rubrics, and samples of student success in the classroom so that there are no surprises in the expectations of the class.

Darcie Simmons
When you are teaching for understanding you are “uncovering” the content that you are teaching, instead of covering the content or “skim the surface”. If we want the students to get a better understanding of what they are being taught, you need to have the students really dig deeper into the material, and ask them thought-provoking questions that ensure this deep thought process. In the book, the way that I learned the best way to make sure your students are through the WHERETO framework model, while keeping the six facets in mind as well. Through this model, there are seven key points that the students should be getting out of the content to create a deeper understanding for them to carry for years to come. WHERETO is useful for the teachers to be thinking about while preparing the unit for their perspective students, along with keeping this WHERETO model in mind, it is also useful to keep the essential questions in mind. Along with keeping the essential questions in mind, they should also be presented numerous times throughout a unit. This helps to keep the students aware of what they’re learning, and also for the teacher to be aware of what their supposed to be teaching. While in the classroom, I will be sure to use this WHERETO model, with the six facets to ensure my students are gathering the deeper knowledge they come to school to receive.

Megan Wallace
I learned there are three main concepts for teaching students effectively. These three things are using the essential questions, the six facets, and the WHERETO model. These concepts create a very good beginning, middle, and end to a lesson or to a unit. I can use the essential questions to jump start conversations about what I will teach to the students in the coming unit. The six facets will make sure that I stay focused on the students and making sure that they learn what I am teaching them. Finally, the WHERETO model will show me if my students have fully grasped the information and how I can improve in the future.

Erin
Chapter 7: Teaching for Understanding cover three basic ideas about comprehending. I learned that you need to engage the students. I feel that this is essential in my concentration, math, because students do not seem to get interested in math right off the bat. I think it would be important to relate the essential questions to my students’ lives this way the connection is deeper. These questions are meant to be open ended. The facts were another main idea in this chapter and we used those in our Stage 1 when deciding on a topic for our unit. The WHERETO acronym is a tool for teachers to ask themselves essential questions about the material, about how they will present it, about how they will assess students, etc. This impacted me because it is important to plan out your intentions for the lesson before actually teaching it so it is easier to stay on track. In my classroom, I will not only ask myself these questions before teaching a lesson, but I will also share my answers with my students so that they will know the main ideas or voice their concerns. = =

= =

Kaitlyn Haase
Chapter 7: Teaching for Understanding in Academically Diverse Classrooms In chapter 7 I learned about the three stages in designing a unit to teach for understanding. I learned about the importance of essential questions (stage 1), the six facets of understanding and the metaphoric “ladder” (stage 2) and WHERETO (stage 3). This chapter gave me a great overview of the three-stage process we are currently using to create our units in class. I think this design of teaching for understanding will be so beneficial in my classes. After completing stages 1 and 2 in class I feel as though I’m truly on my way to becoming a teacher. I’ve found a new self-confidence in my abilities to create meaningful lessons for students because this framework makes the unit planning process so simple. I think if teachers who are stuck in their traditional ways of teaching converted to using this framework, they would be surprised at how easy it is to follow the steps. I think they would also be surprised at how incredibly beneficial “teaching for understanding” is for students.

Olivia
In chapter 7, there was mostly information given about sparking interests and still helping students to comprehend the subjects being taught. One of the things that I loved reading about in this chapter was the use of discussion in the classroom to help students become interested. The largest reason I chose to teach secondary education as my major over any other type of education is that I love classroom discussions. When I become a teacher, I will be sure to help my students with comprehension by designing units with the three stages with asking essential questions, stage two using the ladder, and three using the WHERETO. I will also use classroom discussions as a way to get my students thinking about what we will be learning.

Matt Towle
 Chapter 7 talked about being prepared to teach to diverse learners when you are creating lessons/units. One piece of advice that really stuck out to me was that if you reform your essential questions into more provocative questions they can be used at the beginning of a lesson to hook students' interest. This is a technique that a lot of my high school teachers used but I never saw it as a teaching technique.  This will impact my classroom because I think that asking thought provoking questions is a good way to grab students' attention. There was a quote in the chapter that said "Before you try to teach them, you've got to get their attention" (122). I think this is very true, if you can't get students to pay attention to what you are teaching then they are not going to gain any understanding of the topic.