On the Coast – Families Issue 95 I August/September 2018 | Page 10

Central Coast Grammar School
Understanding
the gateway to lifelong learning
If you give a child a fish, you
feed them for a day. But teach
them to fish, and they will eat
for the rest of their life.
The same rings true in
education. If we teach our
children to know facts and
perform in tests, they will score
good marks today. But, if we
can teach them to think – to
question, to find out, to learn
– then we give them the tools
to achieve for the rest of their
lives.
In our rapidly changing
world, it is increasingly this
ability to understand and
apply that matters, not how much we
know. Understanding is different to
‘knowing’ and ‘doing’. To know things
means we can recount facts. Doing things
means we can perform a skill. But
understanding means we can explain how
and why something works the way it does
or happened the way it did. This can help
us in meaningful ways in any area of life
whether that be work, interpersonal
relationships or at home.
It is likely that our children face a future
where the workplace landscape will be
vastly different to what it is today. Many
traditional industries will merge and
blend and the ‘soft’ skills of collaboration,
leadership and problem-solving will be
seen as fundamental for success. One way
to equip children for this world is to instil
in them the understandings they need to
connect their learning to the real world.
This should be the focus of every lesson
in every classroom, every day.
Harvard’s Teaching for Understanding
Framework
Understanding is at the heart of the
Teaching for Understanding framework.
Developed by researchers at the Harvard
Graduate School of Education and Project
Zero, this type of teaching is a simple,
flexible and powerful way of re-structuring
learning to focus on understanding.
The framework supports students
to move from ‘knowing and doing’ to
‘understanding and applying’ and provides
10
KIDZ O N T H E C OA ST
them with a reason to learn and make
connections to things that matter to them,
to our community and to our world.
The purpose of learning – why students
are learning and why it matters – is clearly
explained in every subject and every lesson.
When students question, ‘Why am I learning
this?’ teachers have meaningful answers.
This different approach also increases
access to learning for all students where
different types of learning styles and
different learning paces can be catered for.
While teachers and students are working
together towards common goals, it is driven
by student need and adjusted in ways that
make it personalised for each child.
Classroom action
At Central Coast Grammar School,
we’ve been implementing the Teaching
for Understanding framework from
Kindergarten through to Year 12. This
project is driven by the belief that if we can
build understanding, then knowing and
doing will follow, as will a child’s ability to
realise their full potential.
Our Kindergarten teachers have
been deepening the understanding of
our youngest students by
encouraging them to give
feedback on a task to other
children in their year group.
This demonstrates their
authentic understanding far
more than by simply ‘doing’
the original task.
In Year 10, students applied
their understanding of
concepts to solve problems
that matter to our community
during our ‘Festival of Big
Ideas’. Working
collaboratively, these students
tackled real-world challenges
and developed solutions that
encouraged them to analyse a problem,
generate ideas and bring those ideas to a
meaningful solution. Some of our students
even pitched their ideas to members of
council and local business leaders.
More than this, we have begun
building the core principles of Harvard’s
Teaching for Understanding framework
into the very fabric of our school. By
re-designing our classrooms with flexible
furniture and cutting-edge digital
technology, we are making learning
visible, placing students at the heart of
the learning process, and focusing on
understanding in tangible ways.
Every child needs to be empowered and
supported to achieve their potential. If we
teach them to think – to really understand
what they are learning, not just to know it
or do it – then we