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How Students Transfer Knowledge To a Course Project: The Teaching for Understanding Project As a final project in the course, students designed a set of materials intended to teach a topic for understanding. The projects consisted of five parts: 1.a generative topic worth understanding 2. understanding goals that define the concepts, skills or processes the unit is intended to develop. 3. performances of understanding or activities that help students build and develop understanding of the topic. 4.assessment that provides feedback and guidance intended to help students advance their understanding. 5. a rationale or explanation about why the project would enhance understanding of the topic. Students selected the subject area and grade level for the project. In preparation, they read The teaching for understanding guide, a book that examines how to develop materials for teaching for understanding. They worked on the project intermittently for about 6 weeks, first developing a project proposal and then a final version of the project due at the end of the semester. I critiqued all of the project proposals and also consulted with some of the students before the final projects were due. I assigned the Teaching for Understanding project for the first time in spring 1999. I have used many different types of projects in the course but decided to require the TfU approach because it involves the integration of learning theory and teaching practices. I wanted to see how my students would incorporate ideas from the class into the TfU framework, and how well students could explain or justify their design decisions.
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