ENT: Introduction to TfU

Introduction to Teaching for Understanding

The Teaching for Understanding (TFU) framework helps educators to:

formulate generative curriculum topics,

define specific educational goals,

design performances to help students develop and demonstrate understanding and,

integrate ongoing assessment of student performances to monitor and promote learning.

TFU emerged from a multi-year collaboration of school teachers and educational researchers. They distilled educational research and examples of effective classroom practices to develop a coherent set of principles about the nature and development of understanding.

Through the use of the TFU framework, educators report they are better able to design, enact and assess curriculum which fosters flexible, robust and lasting understanding in students.

More information about the roots, development, and applications of the Teaching for Understanding framework, is available in Teaching for Understanding: Linking Research with Practice, edited by Martha Stone Wiske, (Jossey-Bass, 1998). Practical examples and guidance in working with the TfU framework can be found in The Teaching for Understanding Guide by Tina Blythe and Associates, (Jossey-Bass, 1998).