Am I the last teacher on the planet to read this book? First printed in 1998, this redefinition of the priorities in lesson-planning took ten years to reach my desk. I am a late bloomer, alas...but better now than next year.
Wiggins and McTighe suggest that knowledge (regurgitation of facts) is distinct from understanding which requires an ability to manipulate information under various circumstances. To set up students for understanding, a teacher ready to lesson-plan must shy away from the temptation to leap for activities and first ask herself:
1. What essential questions does my class attempt to answer?
2. What smaller, more palatable, unit-sized questions can I ask to engage my students into the topic?
3. What kinds of activities will allow students to grapple with various answers to those questions?
4. How will I assess a genuine understanding of those concepts?
5. Will this assessment overly-reward students for 'plugging away' at assignments rather than demonstrating true understanding?
Old-hat to many in the education world, but this really rocked my socks off. This is the scaffolding behind the student-led projects, the reason to the action, the supportive branch to the entertaining tire-swing of a class, the ying to my yang!
Do any of you lesson plan in this way?
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