Teaching for Understanding - An approach you might prefer to take for 21st-century learning..

What is Teaching for Understanding?

'Teaching for Understanding' is a framework, an approach to teaching where along with gaining knowledge about the topic, learners can even think, analyze and apply wisdom into their real life.

Why should we Teach for Understanding?

When a learner understands the concept or objective of the topic, s/he knows more than just the facts. S/He can analyze and implement the learned stuff in real life. Understanding opens up the insight of core components and supports the learners to use the skills confidently and independently throughout life.

How 'Teaching for Understanding' is different than 'Traditional teaching'?

1. TFU prepares learners to implement knowledge in real-life scenarios. The planned activities are related to everyday problems and figure out the solutions to overcome. That says it helps a student to be smarter as a learner.

2. Instead of just learning the facts in traditional teaching, TFU offers a combination of knowledge + skill development. It prepares the learners for a deeper understanding of the surrounding world.

3. TFU offers flexibility in the learning process so individuals are ready to cope up with the rapid changes on a daily basis.

4. Traditional teaching is more about touching upon various topics grade-wise and assess the knowledge of students. TFU believes in the vertical development of the concept so students have a thorough understanding and required skills about the topic.

5. TFU prepares pupils for the 21st-century world and future challenges.

Approach while Teach for Understanding:

• Learners should be involved and engaged in a meaningful way during classroom processes or during exploration time.

• A variety of resources that are connected to the learning activities should be available and reachable to students all the time. More of the hands-on activities help students to concrete on conceptual understanding.

• The learning process is much more important for the students instead of the learning outcome.

• A learner should have his own connections while exploring and discoveries of findings, so it stays with him forever. Differentiated instructions and Multiple Intelligence play an important part in planning.

• The process of learning should be fun, with friends and peers as collaboration, learning from each other's strengths, encouraged by constructive feedback. make learning more effective than just as a part of regular school days.

• The new concepts are introduced building upon the previous knowledge. The model of 'Simple to Complex' helps students to move smoothly.

• The planning should have a lot of 'Inquiry-based' projects, where 'asking questions' is the core component followed by comprehending, analyzing, evaluating, connecting, applying and creating.

• The learner should know 'a big picture' of the concepts. The daily plans are created with small, timely achieved objectives to reach the big picture or purpose.

• The subjects are inter-connected and woven beautifully together as a curriculum that the students do not feel overburdened or learning different things in isolation.

• A teacher is not just the information provider or ultimate source of knowledge but a facilitator and has a 360-degree view of the needs of the learners. - a shift from the 'Teacher center approach' to 'Student center approach'.

• It prepares oneself as an independent learner. In today's world, we get tons of information at the touch of our finger but how to sort and analyze that info is a big task. TFU develops our analytical and critical thinking skills for real-life learning.

• TFU helps students to transfer the old learning to new situations. Learners can adapt the learning to new scenarios.

• TFU equips students with strong communication and demonstration skills. It offers the overall development module so learners are more successful and prepared for job-related attitude compared to traditional teaching.

• TFU emphasis a lot on 'Ongoing assessment'. It supports student scaffolding on a daily basis so constructive feedback has a constant effect for improvement and gradually students are in charge of their learning.

close up:

The main goal of teaching is to prepare a student for lifelong independence. S/He should be able to survive the challenges using the learned skills. Social skills help to perform better while working with others as a team, academic skills support to solve the problems related to the job field, mental and psychological skills help to balance the personal and professional life, technological skills help to overcome the challenges related to technology and advancement in computer and Intrapersonal skills create that long term goal to determine the direction in life. Teaching for Understanding model proposes all of these skills to sharpen at its best. I have been teaching this module for almost a decade, I have seen excellent progress in students. I would say that it's one of the best approaches for teaching so give it a try.