Chapter 2: Understanding, Understanding...

This chapter can be simplify through the quote "Understanding is about going beyond the information given".

Understanding is at the core of educational expectations. It is the very essence and foundation in which learning holds on. It is the final objective of teaching and its raison d'etre. So, the challenge is to achieve understanding.

Teachers are responsible for the process of learning in students and their achievements as well as their failures. However, how can teachers know when there is understanding? What do teachers comprehend by understanding? These are some of the questions that might explain some of the current failures of our traditional educational system. Most teachers think that understanding is the sum of grades in a book at the end of the year, determined by the covered units of textbooks. This is of course a tremendous mistake that jeopardizes students learning, motivations, and thinking.

There is a misunderstanding of concepts, therefore learning becomes fruitless.
If you ask me, there is no learning without understanding. Those are two concepts that should always hold hands, because once you understand something, then the next step will be to show your understanding, thus creating learning. And if that learning is continuous, then more understanding should take place.

Nonetheless, this is not something that should solely be assumed. To merely assume it, would be to destroy our own tittle of "teachers".

Wiggins states: We cannot cover concepts and expect them thereby to be understood; we have to uncover their value – the facts that concepts are the result of inquiry and argument.

That is the key! If we want learning and understanding to happen, then the teacher should encourage students to THINK about things they are exposed to. If there is a new concept to teach, the teacher should guide towards the inquiry-based understanding, and let students to shed lights on meaning in their own way. Consequently, students would become learners, and transform knowledge into understanding and beyond. Hence, the role of the teacher in here is to guide students to build their path on learning, and challenging them to go beyond the concepts themselves.

To develop thinking is the key to understanding. Thus, a well thought   process that serves the achievement of understanding and thinking is in the hands of well prepared teachers. Lousy teachers make lousy students.

At least, this is why I understand.