2 Understanding Understanding 

This is a chapter that excites my brain, right from the title. One of the hardest things about our profession, especially in the realm of the theoretical, is defining just what "knowing" and "learning" are. I have taken around four years of Education classes, and the only consist definition is "there is no consistent definition."

This is sort of the whole point of assessment: how do you graph/quantify/measure/assess/etc something immaterial and subjective? W hat the heck even IS "understanding" anyways?

I like the examples the books give:
One person can memorise a recipe, but a person who understands baking will be able to replace ingredients as necessary, change the amounts in the correct proportions, knows all the tricks of proper rack placement and timing, and all the other things that the recipe does not include. This backs up what, to me, is a larger educational truth: doing is better then talking. (Don't confuse this for "don't talk"; I'll get to that later.) In some dead words, "Facta Non Verba", Deeds, Not Words, which I would tattoo on my person.

It echoes the same things we've been talking about all dang semester.
 A valuable lesson needs to:
- Be student-centered, with students preforming the actions and uncovering knowledge
- Useful in real-life shit the students actually care about doing
- English must be authentic

The person who goes through 20 different attempts at making cookies probably has a better grasp of the baking process than the person who followed the recipe very exactly, the same way each time. In the same way, the student who's been hitting the gringo bars to chat up the patrons will speak better English than the kid who finished all his worksheets.
Whatever "understanding" is, it seems to come more fully when the learning process involves actually rolling up your sleeves and getting to it, especially when they're your linguistic sleeves.

This, also, I think, is far more observable: did the student understand what I said? Were they able to hold a conversation in English during discussion? Did they get the reading? I find that, a lot of times, we will have a sense of a definite yes or no: yeah, this one gets it. Or, no, this kid is lost. But how can record those results in a definitive, objective way?

Well I'm taking a course on it so I'm developing some ideas on that.


"Misunderstanding is not Ignorance"

Hey, there's another nice tattoo idea.

Here's what I immediately thought after I read that list of student misunderstandings. This is why we should teach what is "wrong" in language. (That is, things that obscure the intended meaning.)
For example, I once taught my students the difference between "pantis" here in Chile and "panties" in English. (If you say "I like your panties!" to someone, you better be sure you're saying what you mean.)

I'm sure we've all been affected by the Expert Blind Spot at one point or another. I've found that seeing things from a student's point of view is a skill that gets developed over time.