Designing a Unit for Teaching and Assessing for Understanding in Literacy and Numeracy UnderstandingUnderstanding Scaffolding Literacy Numeracy UnderstandingUnderstanding

Designing a Unit for Teaching and Assessing for Understanding in Literacy

and Numeracy

Understanding

Scaffolding

Literacy

Numeracy

Understanding

Current Understandingfrom theory to practice

Theory

Practice

Draw a diagram to show the influence of

educational theory on your own

teaching practice

Understandings (Throughlines)Unit long understandings

Essential Questions Unit Questions

THEORY & CONCEPTS Teachers will gain an appreciation of the contribution of early 20th c developmental psychology to modern educational theory and practiceTeachers will gain an appreciation of the contribution of Lev Vygotsky’s developmental psychology to modern educational theory and practice

What fundamental ideas in developmental psychology influence contemporary pedagogy?

How influential is Lev Vygotsky’s conception of the zone of proximal development on curriculum planning and teaching practice?How might the ZPD contribute to teaching literacy and numeracy?

Teachers will be able to use a wide vocabulary of pedagogical concepts derived from early 20th c developmental psychology and modern educational theoryTeachers will be able to explain the following terms: zone of proximal development and scaffolding, essential and unit questions, understanding, understanding goals (throughlines), understanding performances

What are the key concepts derived from early 20th c developmental psychology and modern educational theory for teaching for understanding and what is their meaning and significance to contemporary education? What meaning and significance have the following terms for teaching for understanding: zone of proximal development and scaffolding, essential and unit questions, understanding, understanding goals (throughlines), understanding performances?

MODELS & APPLICATION Teachers will be able to describe and explain various models for designing (scaffolding) learning sequences for teaching for understandingTeachers will be able to describe and explain four models - by Murdoch and others - for the design (scaffolding) of enquiry units

What complementary theoretical models are available for designing (scaffolding) learning sequences for teaching for understanding especially for literacy and numeracy and what are their key features?What are the similarities and differences between four models - by Murdoch and others - for the design (scaffolding) of enquiry units and how useful are they for teaching for literacy and numeracy?

Teachers will be able to scaffold and assess a unit of work for enquiry in a learning sequence Teachers will be able to scaffold and assess a unit of work based on given models - by Murdoch and others - which can lead to students developing literacy and / or numeracy skills which are discrete, or embedded in a problem solving activity or enquiry unit

How can a unit of work in a learning sequence be scaffolded and assessed to improve understanding?How can a unit of work be designed for the ZPD based on given models - by Murdoch and others - which can lead to students developing understanding especially in literacy or numeracy?How can students be assessed for understanding?

Understanding Goals

Post it

Write a unit question or

understanding goal - which is important to you - for this PD

Background

Vygotsky

Lev Vygotsky, born in the U.S.S.R. in 1896, is responsible for the social development theory of learning. He proposed that social interaction profoundly influences cognitive development. Central to Vygotsky's theory is his belief that biological and cultural development do not occur in isolation (Driscoll, 1994)

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http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/

Lev Vygotsky is typically described as having offered an alternative to Piaget's

stages of cognitive development. Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory of

Development is a major influence in the field of psychology and education

(Woolfolk, A., 2004). This theory stated that students learn through social

interactions and their culture – apparently in contrast to Piaget's theory

that stated children act on their environment to learn.

Vygotsky and Piaget

What is the mind’s boundary?

Suppose I am a blind man, and I use a stick. I go tap, tap, tap. Where do I start? Is my mental system bounded at the hand of the stick? Is it bounded by my skin? Does it start halfway up the stick? Does it start at the tip of the stick (p. 459) Gregory Bateson (1972)

Thought Experiment

Vygotsky's central question:

“How do humans, in their short life trajectory, advance so far beyond their initial biological endowment and in such diverse directions?”

Essential question: How important is Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development to the validation of current educational practice? Understanding goal: Teachers will gain a critical appreciation of the significance of Vygotsky to modern educational theory and practice

Tell a story about a child whose initial “biological endowment” suggested that she would not thrive yet she did go forward. What happened?

What does this proposition of Vygotsky’s suggest about

teaching and learning?

"Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals." (p57).


What are the implications for teaching of this

view of Vygotsky?

“The teacher's role is not that of simplifying

the content, but of providing unfamiliar

content and the setting for learners to step from their current level to a

higher level of understanding.”

Mary Ellen Goldfarb


“For one and the same person, a certain type of intellect may be well developed and, simultaneously, another type may be very weak.” Vygotsky 1929

In what ways has this view of Vygotsky’s influenced

contemporary pedagogy?

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

"the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by

independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined

through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86)

Understanding goal: Teachers will be able to explain the following terms: zone of proximal development and scaffolding, essential and understanding, understanding goals (throughlines), understanding performances

ZPD

Actual developmental level

What a child can do alone

Potential development

“what children can do with the assistance of others might be in some sense even more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone”.Vygotsky (1978)

Assistance of others

Scaffolding

Excerpted from R.G. Tharp and R. Gallimore (1988). Rousing minds to life (p.35).Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press

Four-Stage Model of ZPD

Teac

her s

uppo

rt

Stud

ent i

ndep

ende

nce

Modelling

Independent student work

Guiding

Sharing

I do You watch I do You help You do I help You do I watch

Gradient of Teaching

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

What is scaffolding? How does scaffolding work?

Why scaffolding?

"process that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task, or achieve a goal that would be beyond his unassisted efforts" (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). “The instructional technique in which the teacher models the desired learning strategy or task and then gradually shifts responsibility to the students is called scaffolding.”[email protected]

The scaffolding literature suggests that a major feature [of] ZPD is its dialogical structure in the Vygotskian sense: one in which tutor and learner are engaged in an exchange that aims at creating a consensus regarding, among other things, the goal structure of the problem at hand and the actions most apposite to the problem's solution.

Ideally, the teacher's utterances are aimed at ensuring the learner's maximal involvement in completing the task at hand, even in the absence of the latter's full understanding of the task situation, in this way, nudging the child "from one level of competence to the next and eventually to independent application of the instructed skill" (Palincsar, 1986, p. 74).

What is scaffolding? How does scaffolding work?

Why scaffolding?

"process that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task, or achieve a goal that would be beyond his unassisted efforts" (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976).

[T]he successful scaffolding of instruction

requires that the teacher perform a number

of functions,

among which are the selection,

organization, and presentation of suitable

tasks. These tasks must also allow for: the teaching of emerging skills; ongoing evaluation of the task's

suitability to its purpose; the generation and maintenance of the

learner's interest in the task; the use of modeling, questioning, and

explanation to clarify the goals of the task;

and the presentation of approximations and

appropriate approaches to the task

(Palincsar, 1986; Wood, Bruner, and Ross,

1976).

The scaffolding literature suggests that a major feature [of] ZPD is its dialogical structure in the Vygotskian sense: one in which tutor and learner are engaged in an exchange that aims at creating a consensus regarding, among other things, the goal structure of the problem at hand and the actions most apposite to the problem's solution.

Ideally, the teacher's utterances are aimed at ensuring the learner's maximal involvement in completing the task at hand, even in the absence of the latter's full understanding of the task situation, in this way, nudging the child "from one level of competence to the next and eventually to independent application of the instructed skill" (Palincsar, 1986, p. 74).

Scaffolding Tensions in the ZPD

Authority & Control Self-efficacy & Autonomy

Partial understanding Understanding

External(isation) Internal(isation)

From guided problem solving

to independent problem solving

“[A] picture in our minds…I understand something if…”

“It may help to have a picture in our minds of what we mean by understanding. I feel that I understand something if and when I can do some, at least, of the following: (1) state it in my own words; (2) give examples of it; (3) recognize it in various guises and circumstances; (4) see connections between it and other facts or ideas; (5) make use of it in various ways; (6) foresee some of its consequences; (7) state its opposite or converse. The list is only a beginning; but it may help us in the future to find out what our students really know as opposed to what they can give the appearance of knowing, their real learning as opposed to their apparent learning.” John Holt How Children Fail (1964) Quoted by Yoram Harpaz (2003)

“[A] picture in our minds…I understand something if…”

Two approaches to curriculum design [scaffolding]

Thinking Like an Assessor Thinking Like an Activity Designer

What would be sufficient and revealing evidence of understanding?

What would be interesting and engaging activities on this topic?

What performance tasks must anchor the unit and focus the instructional work?

What resources and materials are available on this topic?

How will I be able to distinguish between those who really understand and those who don’t (though they may seem to)?

What will students be doing in and out of class?What assignments will be given?

Against what criteria will I distinguish work?

How will I give students a grade (and justify it to their parents)?

What misunderstandings are likely? How will I check for those?

Did the activities work? Why or why not?

From Wiggins and McTighe Understanding by Design


Thinking Like an Assessor

Understand-ing


Thinking Like an Assessor

Understand-ing

Explain support, justify theorize & defend

Apply to novel situation ‘authentic’ context

Design (Scaffolding) ModelsInquiry Learning

Teaching for Understanding

Understanding by Design

Community of Thinking

Classroom connections Kath Murdoch

The teaching for understanding guide Blythe Understanding by Design Wiggins and McTighe “Teaching and Learning in a Community of Thinking” Yoram Harpaz

Stage 1. What is worthy and requiring understanding? “Represents a big idea with enduring value beyond the classroom Resides at the heart of the discipline Requires uncoverage Offers potential for engaging students.”

Unit Title “Teachers [should] build their planning around big ideas. Whether teacher-selected or negotiated with students. the best topics engage students in learning about significant, robust and transferable ideas”

Generative Topic (Unit) “Those topics, issues and themes, concepts ideas, and so on that provide enough depth, significance, connections, and variety of perspective to support students’ de velopment of powerful understanding. Typically they are interesting to students and teachers, central to one or more disciplines, and accessible to students.”

Understandings If one of the goals of integrated curriculum is … to develop a ‘big picture’ understanding o f the world …we must teach in a way that promotes understanding (not just the recall of facts). Related values/attitudes/issues Concepts

Overarching Understanding goals (Throughlines) “Goals that identify the concepts, processes and skills about which we want students to develop understanding.” Unit-Long Understanding Goals

Essential Questions … Go to the heart of a discipline … Recur naturally throughout one’s learning

and in the history of a field … Raise other important questions

Unit Questions

Fertile Question … Open … Rich … Undermining … Relevant … Practical

Team Research Question

Tuning In Finding Out Sorting Out Going further Making conclusions Taking action

Introductory, Guided I nquiry & Culminating Performances “Activities that require students to use knowledge in new ways or situations. In such activities students reshape, expand on, extrapolate from, apply, and build on what they already know. Performances of understanding help students to build as well as demonstrate their understanding.”

Stage 3. What learning experiences and teaching promote understanding, interest and excellence? Hook the students Explore and equip Rethink and revise Exhibit and evaluate

Inquiry/Research Team Concluding Performance Concluding Performance

Ongoing assessment Stage 2. What is evidence of understanding? Generative Feedback

Unit Title /Generative Topic / Fertile Question /What is worthy and requiring understanding?

Understandings(Throughline)Unit Understandings

Essential Question Unit Questions

Concepts

Scaffolding for Understanding

1

Strand Domain Dimension

Standards

Physical, Personal and Social learning

Disciplined based learning

Inter-disciplinary learning

Scaffolding for Understanding with VELS

2

Title

Under-standing

What can the student do alone?

What strategies are to be applied?What assistance is the student to be given?How will the student be assisted?

What will the student be assisted to do?

Literacy/Verbal

Assess--ment[for/as/of]

Literacy [SCAFFOLDING] Planning for the ZPD3.

Title

Under-standing




Numeracy/Mathematical

Assess--ment [for/as/of]

Numeracy [SCAFFOLDING] Planning for the ZPD3.

Title

Under-standing




Literacy/VerbalNumeracy/Mathematical

Assess--ment [for/as/of]

Literacy/Numeracy [SCAFFOLDING] Planning for the ZPD

4.

Seven ways to be smart

Bloom’s Taxonomy: Six Thinking LevelsKnowing Understandi

ngApplying Analysing Creating Evaluating

VerbalI enjoy reading, writing & speaking

MathematicalI enjoy working with numbers & science

Visual/SpatialI enjoy painting, drawing & visualising

KinaestheticI enjoy doing hands-on activities, sports & dance

MusicalI enjoy making & listening to music

InterpersonalI enjoy working with others

IntrapersonalI enjoy working by myself

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES & BLOOM’S TAXONOMY (This 42-grid matrix was devised by Ralph Pirozzo, 1997)

UNIT OF STUDY:_______________________________ YEAR LEVEL:_________

Documents

Designing a Unit for Teaching and Assessing for Understanding in Literacy and Numeracy UnderstandingUnderstanding Scaffolding Literacy Numeracy UnderstandingUnderstanding