To me, knowing is the little sister to understanding. To know something means that you have awareness of the subject, perhaps even that you can teach the subject to someone else. But to understand means that you can take knowing to the next level and actually apply the subject to other aspects of your life. It centers around the question I hear so often from my tutoring students when I'm teaching (math in particular) "why do I need to know this?" I tell students, you need to know division/percentages/percentage change/etc. so that when you're at a store you can figure out what 20% off means (for example). So often though students can learn how to do something, but still not understand what the real-life application of that knowledge is and to me, that's the central difference between knowing and understanding - being able to take knowledge and apply it to something else that is not so obvious. A good example of knowledge versus understanding referenced in Understanding by Designwas the teacher's efforts to get his students to not just learn what good foods were, but to apply this knowledge to creating their own diets. By doing so, the students show an understanding of nutritional value that affects their daily lives.
As teachers, this quote from Understanding by Designresonated with me in terms of identifying the difference between knowledge and understanding was that "we must grasp the key idea that we are coaches of their ability to play the "game" of performing with understanding, not tellers of our understanding to them on the sidelines (Wiggins and McTighe, 17). I think it is definitely possible, if not even common, for teachers themselves to forget the difference between knowing and understanding and I wonder if sometimes teachers themselves don't necessarily understand the subject that they are trying to teach to their students. I think this is how the design templates referenced in chapter one of Understanding by Design can be useful - to help teachers organize their own understanding of a subject before they design a lesson plan to teach their students.
I think the "real life applications" is a good, and necessary point in terms of understanding, the ability to apply knowledge in a real way. Sometimes I wonder, particularly in K12 education, if we are so busy getting content across that we forget about application, or understanding. There is a question here: breadth or depth? What is the role of the teacher in K12? Wiggins and McTighe have a view point, and what is interesting is the ability to apply this view within the construct of current educational policy and paradigms; but is this view employed? with any success? Do we too often accept knowledge as understanding? All of this is not what the original question asked of course, but as you reflect on your practice in your blog it made me think of how the question relates to common practice.
ReplyDeleteYour first sentence sums it up perfectly. In my post, I described it as the "first step on the road to understanding" (which maybe sounds a little more cliché, but that phrase exists for a reason). It's a factual error to assume the two are identical or equal.
ReplyDeleteI think there are situations, of course, where understanding something might not have much practical real-life application: for example, understanding how the slave trade worked might not be relevant to everyday life unless you are a historian or work in some human rights field where that information could be applied to modern-day events...I suppose it could be useful if one needs to recognize a recurring pattern in a subsequent study of history, as well. But I think your point is still valid for most things students learn, especially in other subjects, and your store example is a good one.
I just made a similar point about teachers needing to understand the difference between knowing and understanding on Susan's blog! I think us having the same idea shows there's some merit to it, which is good since I didn't pull in any hard data to back my claim.
-Kristin Laughtin
I enjoyed reading your post. I like that you have defined understanding as applying knowledge to something else that is not so obvious. That is a good definition of the word. I have never been a teacher, but I would love to be able to teach in the way you described. As you mentioned, it is important to teach as a coach, and not just tell my understanding on the sidelines.
ReplyDeleteStacy Wells