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OUR
METHODOLOGY
Fleming
College is committed to developing the highest academic
standards. Since 2002 and after careful analysis and teacher
training, we embarked on the Teaching for Understanding
Framework as our feature methodology.
Created
in 1988 by Howard Gardner, David Perkins and Vito Perrone,
three faculty members at the Harvard School of Education,
the Teaching for Understanding Framework is an approach that
highlights the importance of understanding in the learning
process.
We
believe that there is a difference between knowing and
understanding. While knowing means acquiring concepts and
bringing them forth, understanding means taking such
knowledge and using it in new ways. It is the ability to
perform a variety of thought provoking tasks, such as
generalizing, explaining, applying, finding evidence, or
representing a topic. We are not implying that many student
performances are wrong. Routine performances like true-false
quizzes, standard arithmetic exercises are important, but
they do not build understanding. Understanding is built, not
just by reading instructions and watching people act on them.
Most of all, we all learn by building up performances of
what we can comprehend well.
THE
FRAMEWORK
The
framework is developed in four distinct parts. Each lesson
will first present generative topics,
which are themes, ideas or concepts that provide
significance to support students’ learning. In class, you
will see children excited about brainstorming ideas or
creating a mind map that will build multiple connections to
what they already know.
Then,
generative topics lead our students to exploring new fields
of study. These destinations are called understanding
goals. They represent the processes and
skills that are the most important and that we want our
students to get out of their work over the unit or semester.
Finally,
performances
of understanding show the students the
criteria by which their performance will be evaluated. These
are the actions done to develop and demonstrate
understanding. Basic skills are included here, but without
understanding why they are important and useful, students
will not learn them well.
Assessment
of understanding in this framework is certainly more than a
simple end-of-unit test. We call it
ongoing assessment. It
is a process of providing students with clear responses to
their performances in a way that will help them improve. It
also informs stakeholders about what students currently
understand and about what to do next.
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