Chapter nine: Planning for learning

“What the teacher-designer must do here above all else is resist the temptation to fall back on comfortable and familiar techniques” (p: 192)

Teachers must be careful when planning specially when creating new activities for the students, as teachers we must focus on planning the appropriate learning activities, and how can we do that? According to the authors we have to based our teaching on the goals and evidence identified in stages 1 (desired results) and 2 (performance).  The challenge is to think more about the “learning” than the “teaching”. 

What is a good plan? According to the authors a good plan must be engaging and effective. Engaging in the sense of provoking, fascinating, energizing the students. Effective related to helping learners to become more competent and productive. 

Also, there are some key aspects we need to consider when “teaching and learning” called the WHERETO elements where such elements are tools for checking the design. The W makes reference to where the unit is going and why, the H is related to hook and hold the students attention, the E deals with the necessary equipment the students need, the R allows students to rethink big ideas, reflect progress and revise they work, the other E is for students to evaluate  their progress and self assess, the T represents the idea of the students be tailored to reflect their own talents, interests, styles, and needs, and the O is in relation to the organization of understanding. 

In conclusion I think teachers´ aim should be creating a class focusing on the learning first and then the teaching, where the last one should be guided by a good plan and that plan must consider the elements of the WHERETO and that could lead us to a successful class.

Chapter Six: Crafting Understanding

“An understanding has to be worked through and validated as an appropriate and helpful conclusion, not merely accepted as a statement or fact”

As this chapter describes, an understanding makes a claim using facts, an understanding offer a theory based on “data” or interpretation, which requires comprehension. We have to ask questions of the facts, connect them to other facts and try to apply them in various situations to make them an understanding, in order to achieve that we need to consider who our learners are and be careful when distinguishing a fact from an understanding. 

How can we differentiate them? No sentence can be declared to be a fact or an understanding out of context; it depends on the designer´s view. The more thinking, analysis and grasping we have to do, the more it is an understanding. 

So, when designing our syllabuses we really need to take into consideration the “big idea” that should be an understanding, not a fact, which will allow us to develop and analyze “the” idea dipper.