 |
Further
Reading
Online
Readings
- Why
Learning to Write Well in College is Difficult
by Bill Cerbin and
Terry Beck
- Excerpt:
"Criteria, standards, and definitions
of good writing differ from course to course (even within
the same department). Students develop the idea these are
arbitrary and a matter of instructors' personal preferences."
- Writing
for Understanding by
Bill Cerbin and Terry Beck
- Excerpt:
"As teachers, we all strive to foster students' understanding
of important concepts, ideas, and skills. Yet a large body
of research indicates that students often acquire little more
than a passing familiarity of our subjects."
- Conceptions
of Learning, Understanding and Teaching in Higher Education
by Noel Entwistle (SCRE)
- Excerpt:
"[The concept maps included in this article] are intended
to help university teachers to become more reflective, by
offering a more precise language, and set of relationships,
through which to scaffold their conceptualisation of teaching
and learning."
Online
Bibliographies
Annotated
References
Teaching
for Understanding
Bransford, John D.,
Brown, Ann L., & Cocking, Rodney R. Editors 1999. How people
learn: Brain, mind, experience and schooling. Washington, DC:
National Academy Press.
This book-length report
summarizes important developments in the science of learning.
Accessible to a non-specialist audience, the book examines such
topics as differences between novices and experts, conditions
that improve students' ability to apply knowledge to new circumstances
and problems, the design of learning environments, teacher learning,
and effective teaching in history, mathematics, and science. This
volume provides teachers with a thorough grounding in contemporary
theory and research, and highlights important implications for
teaching.
Stone Wiske, Martha.
Editor 1998. Teaching for understanding: Linking research with
practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
This book is the product
of a six-year collaborative research project by school teachers
and researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Although
it focuses on pre-collegiate teaching, it is applicable to university-level
teaching as well. According to the TfU model, there are four fundamental
elements in teaching for understanding-generative topics that
afford possibilities for deep understanding in a subject, goals
that explicitly state what students are expected to understand,
performances of understanding through which students develop and
demonstrate understanding, and ongoing assessment. The book provides
interesting examples of these elements from actual classrooms
and examples of student performance. This volume should be valuable
for any instructor who views better student understanding as a
primary goal of teaching.
Wiggins, Grant 1998.
Educative assessment: Designing assessments to inform and improve
student performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
This book, a precursor
to Understanding by design by the same author, challenges common
assessment practices and offers a comprehensive approach to the
design and practice of assessment intended to improve student
performance. The book examines authentic assessment, the nature
of feedback, how to use assessment to promote understanding, how
to assess understanding, how to design assessments and create
assessment systems.
Wiggins, Grant and McTighe,
Jay. 1998. Understanding by design. Alexandria, Virginia:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
This book proposes
that understanding is revealed to the extent that one can explain,
interpret, apply, empathize, and have perspective and self-knowledge.
The authors describe a process by which teachers can design experiences
and materials to be consistent with these facets of understanding.
A key component of the process is a way to assess understanding.
Toward this end, they offer a rubric that defines different "levels"
of understanding and suggest ways to evaluate different facets
of understanding. This is a valuable book for those who want to
translate abstract notions of understanding into concrete, observable
aspects of student performance.
Suggestions for additions to this page are welcome. Please send
to kopp.brya@uwlax.edu
|
