Webbed Understanding: A Conversation for Understanding

Teaching for understanding is an important educational theory and practice that has generated an enormous body of theoretical and practical literature in recent decades.

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Teaching for understanding is an important educational theory and practice that has generated an enormous body of theoretical and practical literature in recent decades. To give structure to the concept and facilitate its application in the classroom, the present article resolves the concept of teaching for understanding into three distinct, key questions and addresses each separately. What is the essence of understanding? Which content is worth understanding? How should we teach for understanding? The answers to these questions are addressed in a dialogic style that explores the concepts of understanding in terms of making correct and systematic relationships, the meaning and role played by “big ideas,” and how these considerations impact the development of curriculum geared towards developing understanding. To support application of these ideas in the classroom, the concepts are graphically illustrated in tables and with concrete examples of curriculum design.