Course Throughlines:

• How can teachers use the Teaching for Understanding (TfU) Framework as a tool for reflecting on daily practice?
• How can such reflections suggest ways to refine efforts to teach for understanding?
• How can the online environment and this community of learners support efforts to be reflective practitioners?

Through a close examination of issues that arise in the classroom each day, efforts to teach for understanding stay grounded. The TfU Framework, in encouraging careful attention to curricular planning, student learning, and assessment, should enable educators to address effectively the instructional challenges of learning for understanding. The process of continual reflection and adjustment--managing the tension between disciplinary goals, interdisciplinary learning, and students' constantly evolving understanding--helps teachers recognize that there is no recipe for "teaching for understanding," only the disposition to do so (i.e. ability, alertness and inclination). It requires vigilance, sensitivity, and iterative analysis of lived experience.

This course deepens understanding of concepts and strategies learned in our introductory courses, giving you a chance to explore the practical challenges of Teaching for Understanding. Using the unit you have previously planned, we will look at ways to refine your practice and try out new strategies to keep students engaged and focused. With your fellow educators, a coach, and an instructor, we will help you combine disciplinary goals and students' understanding in the classroom and guide you through the process of continual reflection and adjustment. Participants will continue to deepen their understanding about ways to use the TfU Framework to reflect on and revise daily practice--in order to ensure that teaching for understanding is taking place and that students are developing deeper understanding of the subject matter at hand.

Course Timeline:
The course has six sessions. Typically, these sessions will ask you to:

• read the session lecture
• read an assigned text
• gather specific kinds of data from your teaching practice
• reflect on the collected data using elements of the Teaching for Understanding Framework
• respond to your online course colleagues

Course Sessions

SESSION 1: Framing our work with Throughlines
Understanding Goals: Who are we and how will we work together? How do Throughlines, or year-long Understanding Goals, focus study in order to deepen understanding of the domain or discipline?

In this session, you will develop understanding of:

• your course colleagues' work contexts and the unit they plan to work on during the course;
• ways to align what you value in your classroom with TfU;
• the development of Throughlines and the advantage of sharing these with students.

SESSION 2: Understanding Goals and Dimensions of Understanding
Understanding Goals: How can Understanding Goals lead us to engage students in meaningful learning and keep our focus on understanding? What are the Dimensions of Understanding and how can we use them to develop a cohesive set of Understanding Goals?

In this session, you will develop understanding of:

• the Dimensions of Understanding;
• the role a set of Understanding Goals, viewed through the lens of Dimensions of Understanding, plays in enhancing understanding;
• the reflection guide you will use during the course to review your unit and that of others.

SESSION 3: Performances of Understanding and Ongoing Assessment
Understanding Goals: How can we design Understanding Performances and Ongoing Assessment methods that are interconnected and promote deeper understanding? How can analogies, Thinking Routines and typical/atypical forms help deepen understanding?
In this session, you will develop further understanding of:

• The connection between Understanding Goals, Understanding Performances and Ongoing Assessment;
• The use of Thinking Routines, analogies and atypical forms to promote deeper understanding and make thinking visible

SESSION 4: Teaching your unit and assessing student understanding
Understanding Goals: In this session you will teach a part of your unit and reflect on the assessment methods you used and the insights they gave you into student understanding.
In this session, you will develop further understanding of:

• Ongoing Assessment as a window on student understanding;
• The TfU framework as a guide to reflecting on your practice.

SESSION 5: Tackling misconceptions and using rubrics
Understanding Goals: How can we use the Teaching for Understanding Framework as a tool to address commonly held misconceptions and encourage more robust and nuanced conceptions? How can we use rubrics to develop and assess student understanding?
In this session, you will develop further understanding of:

• tenacious misconceptions as a central focus of planning;
• rubric development as tool for developing and assessing student understanding.

SESSION 6: A Web of Connections
Understanding Goals: How does TfU fit into my practice? How will I continue to develop my understanding of the TfU framework and the Dimensions of Understanding?
In this session, you will develop further understanding of:

• how developing and re-versioning a unit using TfU embraces the complexity of understanding;
• the TfU Framework as a tool for planning and reflection;
• the role colleagues play in being reflective practitioners.

The course instructors will summarize the course and provide details about final evaluations, credit, and ways to continue learning about the ideas addressed in this course.

The course instructors will summarize the course and provide details about final evaluations, credit, and ways to continue learning about the ideas addressed in this course.

Professional Development Credit

For those interested in earning professional development points/units/credits, a certificate for up to 42 hours will be issued upon completion of the course, if all the assignments have been completed-- approximately 7 hours per session.

Three additional hours may be earned by completing one or more of the following assessments, for a total of 45 participation hours:

• midterm course evaluation (1 hour)
• final course evaluation (2 hours)