I recently relocated to the Boston area from Alexandria, Virginia where I taught music in the Fairfax County Public Schools for several years. I am currently the music specialist at Belmont Day School in Belmont, MA where I teach music to children in Pre-K through Grade 6. For the past two summers, I have been a participant in the PZ Summer Institutes, and have been a pilot tester for the ALPS site for the past year, providing feedback on site development and creating Teaching for Understanding (TfU) units online using the Collaborative Curriculum Design Tool (CCDT).

At the start of each new school year, I reflect upon the previous year, refining and revising existing units of study while exploring new ideas, questions, and GTs that are of interest to me and that I feel would be of interest to my students. Recently, as I reflected on the process I use to create units using the TfU framework, I came to realize that I don't always begin with the same component of the framework and that there are many factors that affect this process.

Last year, I began by planning Performances of Understanding (UPs) first. Because I was familiar with my district's required Program of Studies, Virginia's Standards of Learning, and the National Standards for Music Education, I already had an idea of what my GTs were. It was easier then, to start by planning UPs because I was familiar with my students' work, musical experiences, and backgrounds.

This year it seems a more logical approach to begin with GTs as I become familiar with the curriculum of my new school and begin to work with my new students and discover what they are passionate about, what their interests are, and what musical experience they have. An important aspect of the TfU framework is that it allows for this flexibility in planning and creating units of study. I find that working with the framework is also a somewhat circular process whereas I find myself identifying GTs, I'm also developing Understanding Goals (both unit-sized goals, and year-long goals or Throughlines) as well, and it becomes a back-and-forth sort of process between the planning of various framework components.

To make a generalization, we recognize understanding through a flexible performance criterion. Understanding shows its face when people can think and act flexibly around what they know. In contrast, when a learner cannot go beyond rote and routine thought and action, this signals lack of understanding.

To illustrate the process of creating a TfU unit of study, I’ve chosen The Jazz Unit that I'm currently exploring with my 5th grade students. Many of the GTs in this unit are the result of a brainstorming session around the topic of jazz carried out by my students. For a more complete description of this activity and to view some of the actual idea webs the students created, take a look at The Jazz Unit in the Pictures of Practice or take a look at the complete TfU framework for this unit.

Would you like to discuss Generative Topic development?

Choosing GTs is an extremely important and challenging task. Considering how much material is required and the small amount of time there is for planning and instruction, knowing what your students' interests are is a very important part of choosing your topics. What stategies do you use to identify your students’ interests? How do you talk with your students about GTs? Do you talk about GTs differently with different ages of students? How do you approach planning a new TfU unit? If any of these questions pique your interest, or if you have other questions or ideas you’d like to discuss, please join me in the Journal forum.

Supporting Materials

Find out more about

• The Teaching for Understanding Framework
• Generative Topics
• Performances of Understanding
• Throughlines
• The Jazz Unit Snaphot
• The Jazz Unit's TfU Framework

Use ALPS yourself:

• Lisa mentions using the Collaborative Curriculum Design Tool (CCDT) to help her create the units that she teaches. All registered members of ALPS can use this tool and the features it includes, such as: on-line help on ALPS frameworks, support for collaborative development with other ALPS members, and easy storage and retrieval in your ALPS backpack:

  find out more about the CCDT.