Chapter 6: Crafting Understandings

This book is making me question my own teaching practices and how I create units and objectives. Chapter 6 is about “Crafting Understandings”. Understandings in this chapter are elaborated more and see as an important inference, transferable idea, abstract, and acquired best by uncovering and creating with them. This chapter reinforces that teachers can’t simply stand in front of the class utter out facts for students to memorize. Instead, they should be giving students opportunities to work with content activity and question it and also building inference skills.

To form understandings teachers should ask themselves, “Students should understand that…” And teachers should create two kinds of understandings, overarching and topical (just like the formation of Essential questions). I interpret, according to the text; teachers should focus on overarching understandings because these give students more of a chance to connect different content areas. They also give students the chance to make real world connections.

Understanding how to create understandings is an important ability teachers should have. I feel that if teachers know thoroughly what they want their students to understand and take away from the lesson then they can create assessments and units that challenge students to critically think. It can also help students understand why they are learning what they are learning. I often remember memorizing facts in school, but never knew why I had to learn them.

In my lesson plans, I never really have focused specially on creating understandings. I always thought that is what the objectives were. But the way they explained how understandings work in the learning process makes me excited to try to start using them. I have always wanted to get my students thinking deeper and more critical. I think one of the things I have to do is focus more of my attention on knowing the understandings I want my students to take away from my units.