In Nancy Kang's physics classrooms, there is a crackle to the air. This is not the result of experiments gone awry, but rather the charge of student energy. Suddenly, experiments have become hands-on and related to real-life, testing has lost its frightening face, and questions to the teacher are encouraged. Students are inventing new projects using physics principles and explaining their products to an audience of physics novices. All this, despite the challenges of an assessment-driven curriculum, large classes, and a low budget, is the result of Nancy's commitment to the Teaching for Understanding (TfU) Framework.

At the Teck Whye Secondary School in Singapore, Nancy is in charge of two Grade 10 classes: Secondary 4 Avicenna and Secondary 4 Da Vinci. Initially trained as an elementary teacher, Nancy took the Teaching for Understanding 1: Focus on Student Understanding course in the Summer of 2005 to help in her new position at her school.

"Through TfU I stumbled less in the classroom because TfU is the 'bingo' instructional framework most apt for teaching physics," Nancy said, noting that the method enabled her to students to "understand physics, and not to 'learn' it."

With the introduction of TfU into the classroom, Nancy saw changes in the way her students approached the subject. They began to move away from a strictly math-oriented physics approach to one that relies on reasoning.

"Their minds had already been conditioned to pass examinations through lots of teacher input, teacher's notes, drills, and pre-exam revision," Nancy noted. Once TfU was introduced, "It was such a gratification to see students explaining physics to support their answers and writing out their thinking process to show how they had arrived at their answers."

The next step was to find ways for students to take their reflective reasoning and begin actively applying it. As part of this process, Nancy designed a small- scale research project for members of her Secondary 4 Avicenna class after a student skills workshop, conducted by the National Library, in December 2005. (Pictured above are Chuah May Ching and Vineswaran.)

In this project, students had to formulate hypotheses and create experiments that focused on questions arising from their own reflective process. Why did a experimental class result differ from what the textbooks say? What is causing an inconsistency in current constancy?

Meanwhile, Nancy's Secondary 4 Da Vinci class was hard at work on various TfU units. During a unit on D.C. (direct current) electricity, students designed series circuits as part of their performance of understanding, investigating current and potential difference. They were also asked to discover whether any relationship exists between the current flowing in a series circuit, and the potential difference across (a) a resistor; and (b) a series of two resistors.

View a photo album of the Da Vinci class designing their circuits.

As part of her educational process, Nancy took the Teaching for Understanding 2: Understanding in Practice course this spring, looking to create a unit for Sec. 4 Avicenna on alternating currents.

Her curriculum-based design puts students in the shoes of Michael Faraday, whose experiments led to the discovery of the principle of electromagnetic induction. Performances of understanding in this unit included reconstructing Faraday's experiment, brainstorming with creative arts, and research work.

In the planned culminating performance, students are asked to invent a device that puts into practice Faraday's principle. Using layman's language to communicate the physics principles behind the devices, they will then explain their inventions to potential "buyers" of their products.

View a photo album of the Avicenna class at work on her TfU 2 unit.

For Nancy and her students, the Teaching for Understanding journey is always evolving. Her approach to education takes into account one of the key facets of the Teaching for Understanding experience - that what a student does with their knowledge is much more important than just the knowledge itself. We at WIDE World are very proud to count Nancy and her students as part of our international family.

The lion is roaring in Singapore, and its voice is thundering Understanding! In the April issue of The International Educator there's a new story on the success of Victoria School of Singapore, which is in the ongoing process of incorporating Teaching for Understanding principles into its classrooms.

Recently identified as a lead school in the use of innovative pedagogy by Singapore's Ministry of Education, the Victoria School is working to work with others to spread the TfU word.

Adrian Lim, Victoria School's Vice Principal, and his colleagues visited Cambridge during the week of March 13th-17th to observe a Cambridge TfU class in action and meet with WIDE World's Stone Wiske and WIDE World colleagues. They shared a number of wonderful insights into the process of school-wide change in a country with educational structures unlike the U.S.

"TfU plays a vital role in facilitating collegial sharing and professional development of teachers," Adrian noted. "It promotes a strong sense of ownership of the lesson plans, instructional strategies, and materials designed - an outcome of teachers? collaboration and hard work. TfU puts teachers in charge of their own teaching rather than follow a standardized and prescribed set of materials in which they are not involved in creating."

"Currently, teachers follow the prescribed syllabus, resources and schemes of work very closely," Adrian explained in an email. "Now with TfU, teachers consciously reflect on the crucial overarching and unit-long understanding goals that need to be delivered in the classroom. Much more effort and time is spent on selecting tasks that will enable students to demonstrate that they have understood concepts taught in class."

"A collaborative culture has also emerged as teachers spend more time together discussing their ideas and sharing or reflecting on their experience with TfU. Teachers have become more aware that as professionals they have to reflect actively at various stages of their teaching to assess if students have really understood what has been taught."

Look for Victoria's work on our website in the near future!

This month's tip comes to us from Mary McFarland, our instructor in the Teaching for Understanding 1: Focus on Student Understanding course:

"Teaching for Understanding is one of the most important commitments to students that an educator can make. But supporting students to understand well enough to apply learning in new contexts both within and beyond the classroom has to begin by getting instruction off to a good start.

Howard Gardner, in The Disciplined Mind, points out how important it is that we give much thought to inviting the widest range of students possible to engage with a topic in the early moments of study. He points out that students can decide in "quick order" whether or not they will engage in a topic and need a variety of ways to see the topic as meaningful to them.

Selecting a "starter" topic is helpful. The Teaching for Understanding Framework calls on unit designers to select a Generative Topic ? a topic that is broad in nature, central to your discipline and related in important ways to what students will be studying in the unit. Examples of Generative Topics might be "power," "leadership," "beauty," "conservation," "balance," etc.

The purpose of the Generative Topic is for students to be able to find a way to connect personally, to know they have something to contribute, to draw on their experience, and to become interested enough to pursue the learning further. Often taking the time to provide a brisk, "low-risk" learning experience such as brainstorming, or creating a word-web, or making a visual based around a Generative Topic can be just what is needed to get students off to a good start!"

Here's what a TfU learner and now TfU coach said:

"I used my students as guinea pigs to help me evolve my unit. They gave me insights into their own areas of understanding at the beginning of the course and I used those as starting points for my unit. Just talking about areas of understanding with students heightened their awareness of their own learning experience."

Kristina Kostopoulos, High School Teacher, Lincoln Park High School, Chicago, IL

You can lead a teacher to professional development, but they need administrative support and more focus on instructional strategies to quench a thirst, a new professional development report suggests. Supported by the National Science Foundation, the report discovered that positive, if not stunning, results can be achieved through large-scale, sustained professional development efforts in math and science.

Lessons from a Decade of Mathematics and Science Reform, a report from Horizon Research, analyzed the effects of the Local Systemic Change Through Teacher Enhancement program (LSC). The program, training approximately 70,000 American science and math teachers in primarily the K-8 level, developed local projects in partnership with higher education institutions, businesses, and non-profits around the country. The aim was to enlist whole districts in long-term (130 hours per teacher) professional development (PD) initiatives.

During the projects, teachers spent approximately 1/3 of their PD time deepening their knowledge of pedagogy, 1/3 on deepening their skills in teaching content, and 1/3 on better understanding and using instructional materials (view the handy summary chart).

The report details a number of general improvements in teaching practice, such as the use of interactive lesson plans, time spent teaching, and teacher and student enthusiasm. In Teacher Interviews, conducted as part of the study's assessment, teachers who participated in more than 100 hours of professional development reported more positive student impact than those who had completed fewer than 100 hours.

An article in Education Week (free registration required), however, notes that the program had some difficulties in areas such as understanding content (due to the focus on instructional materials), principal interest, and teacher completion rates.

School administrators appeared to play a key role in the success of the PD plan: "Principals need to have an understanding of what teachers are learning in professional development. Without principal support, teachers are not as likely to avail themselves of high quality professional development," the report authors noted.

Notably, the report's research suggests that "focusing on key aspects of what it means to teach for understanding will help current and prospective teachers see how instructional activities are tied to learning goals, and understand how a sequence of activities can be implemented to build student understanding of content in mathematics and science.

In the most recent edition of Educational Leadership, legendary scholar Roland Barth writes an admirable article on "Improving Relationships Within the Schoolhouse." A number of practical steps can be taken, he says, to encourage discussions about school improvement.

Here is an excerpt:

"In one school I know, the principal and a few teachers wanted to do away with the taboo against observing in one another's workspaces. They decided to hold each faculty meeting in the classroom of a different teacher. The host teacher devoted the first 10 minutes to a show-and-tell: 'Here is my reading area. Here is my science corner, and these are student projects on the weather.'

In two years' time, everyone had observed the sacred space of everyone else and had in turn been observed in their own space. Follow-up conversations often ensued: 'When I was in your classroom last week, you mentioned your work with cooperative learning. Can you tell me more?' Such mild observations reduce the anxiety surrounding visits that probe a teacher's practices."

Email: wideeditor@gse.harvard.edu