What should learners

understand?

Defining Understanding

Goalsfor

DisciplinedInquiry

Goals for today• Understand how to use T527 readings to

clarify understanding goals as part of the design and assessment of curriculum

• Appreciate dimensions of goals and how to enrich and focus goals for your project

• Understand how to address technology-related goals

• Understand how to use the CCDT to support collaborative curriculum design

Questions about goals• Must we focus on understanding?• How do basic knowledge and skills relate to

higher order goals?• What categories help us consider dimensions

and levels of goals?• How can we surface ideas about the purposes of

learning to clarify understanding goals?• Must goals be defined in measurable,

observable terms to guide instruction and assessment?

• How do new technologies relate to goals?• How do we connect lesson goals, unit goals, and

overarching “throughline” goals?

What learning do today’s students need for tomorrow’s workplace?

Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane.

Princeton University Press and Russell Sage Foundation, June 2004

Four Kinds of Workplace Tasks

• Routine Cognitive (filing, bookkeeping)

• Routine Manual (assembly line work)

• Expert Thinking (identifying and solving new problems)

• Complex Communication (eliciting critical information and conveying a convincing interpretation of it to others)

Based on Levy, F. & Murnane, R. The New Division of Labor: How Computers are Creating the Next Job Market. Princeton University Press, 2004.

Table 3.5: Economy-Wide Measures of Routine and Non-Routine Task Input: 1969 - 1998 (1969 = 0)

-8

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

1969 1979 1989 1999

ComplexCommunication

Expert Thinking

Routine Cognitive

Routine Manual

Based on Levy, F. & Murnane, R. The New Division of Labor: How Computers are Creating the Next Job Market. Princeton University Press, 2004.

Key Elements of Expert Thinking

• A great deal of well organized knowledge about the problem (not memorized facts, but well understood relationships

• Skill at pattern recognition

• Initiative

• Metacognition

Based on Levy, F. & Murnane, R. The New Division of Labor: How Computers are Creating the Next Job Market. Princeton University Press, 2004.

Key Elements of Complex Communication

• Observing and listening

• Eliciting critical information

• Interpreting the information

• Conveying the interpretation to others

Based on Levy, F. & Murnane, R. The New Division of Labor: How Computers are Creating the Next Job Market. Princeton University Press, 2004.

Implications for Education

• The three Rs are not less important, but they need to be tools for knowledge acquisition and communication.

• Expert Thinking and Complex Communication should not be new subjects added to the curriculum. They should be at the center of instruction in every one of existing subjects.

Based on Levy, F. & Murnane, R. The New Division of Labor: How Computers are Creating the Next Job Market. Princeton University Press, 2004.

Data Information Knowledge Understanding Wisdom

Educating for the 21st Century

How do we relate basic skills to higher order goals?

What exactly do we want students to come to understand?

Understanding Goals

• Connect with standards or required curriculum• Are made explicit and public• Focus on big ideas in the discipline or topic, not

only recall of facts and routine skills• Address multiple dimensions: knowledge,

methods, purposes, and forms• Are connected coherently: from lesson goals, to

unit goals to overarching goals and purposes• Align with performances and assessment

What categories help us consider dimensions

and levels of goals? Dimensions of Understanding:

A way to look at the topics we teach (WHAT) to uncover their full potential for developing disciplinary understanding.

Subject MatterOr Discipline

Topic

Dimensions of Understanding (DoU):

Why learn about them?Understanding is more than

just learning facts. DoU helps us open out topics (WHAT we teach) and clarify goals so that we can plan HOW to teach…

Knowledge

Methods

Purposes

Formsbalance and enrich instructional goalspoint instruction directly at essential

ideas in the subject or disciplinetailor planning to particular students

Topic

How can we surface the purposes of learning

to clarify understanding goals?

1. What are the essential questions that drive people to dedicate their lives to inquiry in the discipline?

2. How can knowledge about these questions solve problems, create products, propose policy?

3. How do these questions and applications connect with my learners’ interests?

4. What might be overarching goals for my learners? (think about dimensions)

Knowledge

Methods

Purposes

Forms

Is it possible, effective, necessary to define goals in advance?

• Goals focus instruction, motivate learning, and guide assessment to inform next steps and evaluate curriculum, teaching, and learning

BUT….• Not all goals can be pre-determined: we know

more than we can say, goals emerge during learning

• Effective teaching includes the flexibility to respond to unpredicted teachable moments

Must goals be defined in measurable, observable terms to guide instruction

and assessment? • Goals should be defined in terms of observable

outcomes even if they cannot be measured in quantifiable terms

• When important outcomes cannot be assessed with traditional tools, teachers should work with students to define criteria of high quality work

• Criteria related to goals can then guide teaching, learning, and assessment

How do new technologies relate to

goals?Focus or means?

Focus of students’ learning:Creativity and innovationCommunication and collaborationResearch and information fluencyCritical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making Digital citizenshipTechnology operations and conceptsMeans to enhance understanding goals:Make goals more public and understandableSupport integration of multiple dimensions of goalsConnect short-term to long-term goals

T-527 Fall 2007

Learning Technologies

T527 Course Web site: http://icommons.harvard.edu/~gse-t527/

Education with New Technologies Web site: http://learnweb.harvard.edu/ent/

Collaborative Curriculum Design Tool http://learnweb.harvard.edu/ccdt/

CCDT Multimedia Tutorialhttp://www.markmillar.info/ccdt

Case Study: Dynamic Earth:http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k12563&pageid=icb.page51520

Analyzing Goals in Shamsa’s Case

• Explore the following segments of the Dynamic Earth case – Design Process Close-Up- Understanding Goals– Links & Resources CCDT—Understanding Goals– Design Big Picture Challenges and Dilemmas: 1 – Design Process Highlights: 1

• Make sure to read accompanying documents (e.g., look at the evolution of Shamsa’s understanding goals).

• Consider what authors we have read and you might say about Shamsa’s learning goals.

• Think about what you learned in your review of the case that might be useful as you design your own understanding goals.

Project: Start a Design in the CCDT• Add Stone and Shane to your design team, along with

your teacher partner and classmates with whom you wish to consult

• Topic—what will learners study? What target of difficulty (important & difficult) might new technologies help to address?

• Goals—post your ideas about overarching throughlines and more specific unit & lesson goals

• Post a question, reflection, or puzzle in the message board on which you would like feedback