Teaching for Understanding: Linking Research with Practice

This book presents an innovative approach to teaching that helpsstudents acquire and use knowledge in ways that go beyond rotememorization of facts and figures--to develop a level ofunderstanding that will serve them well throughout their lives.Based on a six-year collaborative research project of schoolteachers and researchers from the Harvard Graduate School ofEducation, the book describes what teaching for understanding lookslike in the classroom, and examines how teachers have learned touse it.

Part One: Foundations of Teaching for Understanding

1. Why Do We Need a Pedagogy of Understanding?

Vito Perrone

2. What is Understanding?

David Perkins

Part Two: Teaching for Understanding in the Classroom

3. What is Teaching for Understanding?

Martha Stone Wiske

4. How Do Teachers Learn to Teach for Understanding?

Martha Stone Wiske, Karen Hammerness, Daniel Gray Wilson

5. How Does Teaching for Understanding Look in Practice?

Ron Ritchart, Martha Stone Wiske, Eric Buchovecky, LoisHetland

Part Three: Students' Understanding in the Classroom

6. What Are the Qualities of Understanding?

Veronica Boix Mansilla, Howard Gardner

7. How Do Students Demonstrate Understanding?

Lois Hetland, Karen Hammerness, Chris Unger, Daniel GrayWilson

8. What Do Students in Teaching for Understanding ClassroomsUnderstand?

Karen Hammerness, Rosario Jaramillo, Chris Unger, Daniel GrayWilson

9. What Do Students Think About Understanding?

Chris Unger and Daniel Gray Wilson with Rosario Jaramillo and RogerDempsey

Part Four: Promoting Teaching for Understanding

10. How Can We Prepare New Teachers?

Vito Perrone

11. How Can Teaching for Understanding Be ExtAnded inSchools?

Martha Stone Wiske, Lois Hetland, Eric Buchovecky

Conclusion: Melding Progressive and Traditional Perspectives

Howard Gardner

Martha Stone Wiske is a lecturer and researcher at the HarvardGraduate School of Education where she co-directs the EducationalTechono