Teaching for Understanding

Take students beyond the simple mastery of facts to apply knowledge flexibly in unfamiliar contexts.

Teaching for Understanding is an approach to designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment that goes beyond the simple acquisition of information to help students develop transferable knowledge and skills that they can apply in situations and contexts they have never encountered before. This powerful framework, developed through collaborative research with practitioners, offers a guide for answering the key questions we all ask as we plan lessons and units of instruction:

What is most important for my students to understand?
What kinds of learning experiences will best help them develop and use that understanding flexibly and thoughtfully?
Will I (and my students) know how well and how much they have understood?

Used around the world and across grade levels and subject areas for nearly 30 years, the Teaching for Understanding framework offers a time-tested way to ensure learners consistently engage in active, thought-demanding classroom experiences that generate deep, lasting, and useful learning.