Few of us would set off on a trip without first having a sense of where we want to go. The idea of wandering aimlessly might sound adventuresome or blissfully unpressured, but the fact is, we usually don't have unlimited money and vacation time. Because our resources are limited, we want to use them wisely. So we think carefully about where we'd like to go, and we have that destination in mind when we set out. Knowing where we want to end up helps us gauge our progress as we travel. It helps us decide when to stop to rest, when to forge ahead, and when to modify our itinerary.

Simlarly, at the start of each unit we set off with our students on an intellectual journey, to explore the "territory" of a generative topic. Given that there are often lots of interesting points to explore, we might simply let our students follow their interests and roam where they will. But our time is very limited. We want to give our students time to explore what intrigues them, and we want to make sure they visit the important sites they might miss without guidance. Fortunately these territories are not wholly uncharted: experts in the various disciplines and domains we teach, our personal experiences, and our work with previous classes can help us to map out the landscape and pinpoint some of the most interesting and fruitful places to stop. So some parts of the journey we can leave to independent exploration, but in other parts we guide students to a few destinations that we want to make sure they reach.

In the Teaching for Understanding Framework, these destinations are known as understanding goals. They are the concepts, processes, and skills we most want our students to understand. They help to create focus by stating where students are going.

Key Features of Understanding Goals

Understanding goals identify the concepts, processes, and skills that we most want our students to understand. They are worded in two ways: as statements (in forms such as, "Students will understand ..." or "Students will appreciate ...") and as open-ended questions ("What are the important similarities and differences among different genres of literature?").

Unit-long understanding goals focus on the central aspects of a generative topic.

Examples of Unit-Long Understanding Goals

Following are some examples of unit-long understanding goals. Note that each unit could have other understanding goals as well; for the sake of brevity, only one goal is listed here for each unit.

• For a history unit with generative topic "Freedom at a Cost: Understanding the Bill of Rights": "Students will understand the relationship between rights and responsibilities in a democratic society."

• For a geometry unit with the generative topic "Finding Out What's True: Proofs in Mathematics": "Students will develop their understanding of both inductive and deductive approaches to proving various statements (for examples, that two triangles are congruent, that two lines are parallel, and so on)."

• For a literature unit with the generative topic "Whodunits and How They're Done": "Students will understand how authors create, develop, and sustain suspense in a plot."

• For a biology unit with the generative topic "The Meaning of 'Life'": "Students will understand how a biologist distinguishes between living and nonliving things."

Planning Unit-Long Understanding Goals

To begin planning your unit-long understanding goals, make a first pass at articulating those goals. Brainstorming is often a good way to do this. Ask yourself, "What understandings do I want my students to develop as a result of their work on this unit?" or "Why am I teaching this topic?" Write down whatever comes to mind. Many teachers find that working with a groups is often helpful here.

Try stating your understanding goals as both questions and statements. Going back and forth between the two forms seems to help teachers refine their intentions.

Remember, you do not have to start with understanding goals. For many teachers it is easier to begin with generative topics or performances of understanding, then try to identify understanding goals.

No matter where you start, once you have drafted a unit, check to make sure your unit-long understanding goals relate to:

• Your overarching goals:
  Ask yourself, "What do I want my students to get out of their year's worth of work with me?"

• The generative topic:
  Ask yourself, "What is most important for my students to understand about this topic?"

• The performances of understanding:
  Ask yourself, "What do I want students to understand about this topic?"

• Your ongoing assessments:
  Ask yourself, "What criteria will help me and my students figure out what they understand?"

If the answers to any of these questions don't match up closely to the understanding goals you've listed, revise either the understanding goals or the other parts of the framework until the "fit" is better.

Teaching with Understanding Goals

Tell your students about them! State your unit long understanding goals explicitly for your students at the start of each unit. State your overarching understanding goals (when you have drafted them) and talk about how the lists relate to each other. Post your understanding goals prominently in your classroom.

Allow your unit and overarching understanding goals to evolve during each unit and throughout the course. As you think of better ways to express the goals, alter their wording. If other important goals emerge from your students, add them to the list.

Let your students know (or ask them to identify) the unit and overarching goals they are working on as they carry out each performance of understanding. Refer to the goals often as you guide students through their performances. Making these connections will help your students understand the purposes underlying their daily work.

Use your understanding goals as a starting point for developing assessment criteria. The things you most want students to undertand should be the things you pay attention to in evaluating their work.

Common Questions About Understanding Goals

Aren't understanding goals a lot like behavioral objectives?

The statement form of understanding goals ("Students will understand ...") may remind you of the phrasing of behavioral objectives ("Students will be able to ..."), but there are important differences between the two. Behavioral objectives state what students will do; understanding goals, by contrast, tell what students should learn from what they are doing. Understanding goals tell why the learning activities are important. Behavioral objectives, with their focus on action, are more closely related to understanding performances (though they are still different from them in crucial ways).

If your approach to teaching is to individualize the curriculum for your students, or if you usually allow your students a large degree of autonomy in choosing and carrying out their work, then identifying understanding goals might seem limiting at first. However, you probably use an individualized approach to teaching because you feel that students learn some important things from it. Understanding goals can be adapted to make those things explicit for your students. Ask yourself what you want your students to learn from an individualized curriculum: perhaps how to generate questions based on their own interests and passions, or perhaps how to carry out projects in the way professionals in the discipline or domain do. These are important understanding goals. By making such goals explicit for students, you give them the opportunity to monitor their own growth and the power to separate the relevant from the irrelevant, the useful work from the interesting-but-distracting work.

Questions for Refining Understanding Goals

• Are the Understanding Goals clear?

• Is the number of Understanding Goals manageable to assess?

• Are they closely related to throughlines?

• Do they focus on central aspects of generative topics?

• Do they capture what you think is most important for students to understand about the generative topics?

• Do they take the form of a question and a statement?

© Tina Blythe and Associates, (1998). The Teaching for Understanding Guide. Jossey-Bass, San Fransisco.

• Throughlines
• Generative Topics
• Understanding Goals
• Performances of Understanding
• Ongoing Assessment

Information Contents Introduction What's Understanding?     - An Interactive Look at Understanding What's Teaching for Understanding?     - A Performance Criterion What's the TfU Framework     - Throughlines     - Generative Topics     - Understanding Goals     - Performances of Understanding     - Ongoing Assessment