Assessing understanding

Hello everyone,

The six facets of understanding are explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge.

If a student truly understands a concept, the student should be able to explain it, interpret it, and apply it, as well as put it into perspective with other things the student knows. To understand another human being is to have empathy; to understand oneself is to have self-knowledge.

Each of these eight facets is independent of the others, and not all function equally in all situations.

It is up to the teacher to decide which facet of understanding is important for the concept being taught, then how to assess that understanding. Once the teacher has made those decisions, it's relatively easy to plan backward to the current starting point and work toward that understanding.

Keep in mind that, without one of these six facets, we are alleging that there is no real understanding. If a student can't explain, interpret, apply, or see perspective, then the student doesn't really understand the concept. If there is no empathy, there is no human understanding. If self-knowledge is inaccurate, there is little or no self-understanding.

If the demonstrations of the facets are superficial or unsophisticated, then there is limited or no understanding.

I mean, for example, that if a student undertakes to explain something, but the explanation is wrong, inadequate, or simplistic, then the student probably has not understood that thing.

Of course, there is always the problem of communication interfering with an assessment of understanding. If a student could give a good spoken explanation of American democracy, but could not coherently put that in writing, then my assessment will be faulty. It is sometimes necessary to try multiple modalities in assessment to avoid this. All students may have to give oral presentations and write essays so that a failure in communication is not perceived as a failure in understanding.

By the same token, much of what we want our students to understand is HOW to communicate their understanding to others. Students show an understanding of expository writing by applying that understanding to coherent expository essays, for example. Or students may show self understanding, empathy, and interpretation by writing poems. Perspective may be shown in public debates as well as persuasive essays, which would require the teacher to teach certain skills. Lab skills will be used to show application, and the ability to apply lab skills shows understanding of the skills.

There is an interlocking sort of understanding that we work with--concepts and skills reinforcing each other--and we may test one or more facets of understanding when we are simultaneously testing for understanding of concepts and skills.

Whatever we're testing for, whatever end we want, we must begin at the end and plan backwards, all the time knowing what understanding looks like, and always working toward it.

Jeff Combe