ECOMP 6106: What is Understanding?

Assignment: Do a search on your own to find other articles on “Understanding” and write your own definition what “Understanding” is and how do you know you or a student has achieved understanding. 

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Article:

Perkins, D., & Blythe, T. (1994). Putting understanding up front. Educational Leadership, 51(4), 4-7. Retrieved from http://emp.byui.edu/HUNSAKERS/TuF Understanding up Front.pdf 

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Understanding is the ability to take knowledge and/or skills that has been learned and knowing when and where to apply them to when confronted with a situation/problem.  It is not simple regurgitation of facts or recounting of information discussed previously. Instead, it is the ability to know when to employ them given different situations with different and sometimes unique variables. For me, that means constantly reminding students that the knowledge and skills they learn from me in computer literacy classes are flexible and can be applied to events and challenges in other classes. For example, say I should students how to take a Keynote and show them how you can export the file into different formats including images. Then, when they are working with podcasting and adding images to make an enhanced podcast, I want them to be able to remember what they learned from their Keynote study and realize they can use it to create their own custom images to go into their podcast project. 

Take a moment to reflect the following quotes. Which one do you agree with most and why?

1. “Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.” By Aristotle 
2. “If you truly want to understand something, try to change it.” By Kurt Lewin

The first quote is an important point to keep in mind because, as was brought up in our class discussion, there are educators out there who know their subject backwards and forwards but they do not know how to teach it to others. If you understand the subject matter then you can better respond to “left-field” questions, perhaps even the bizarre ones, that might catch you off guard. Understanding will also allow you to be ready to accept new information, evaluate it, and accept how it might change the circumstances of the topic. In this way, we “advance” our understanding of the topic to include the new information. (Perkins & Blythe, 1994)

The second quote I think lends itself to the idea of turning students into teachers in order to building understanding. In order to change something you have to know how it works and how it interacts with the surrounding environment. Similarly, in order for a student to take something they’ve learned and turn around to teach it to another successfully, they have know how it works and how it affects the people and things around it. They know how they were affected by the knowledge, and now they see how another person responds to the information and whether or not the response is similar or different. This experience can give a student a change of perspective on the topic and further their understanding.