Comments on chapter 4: The Six Facets of Understanding

"Teach students that their job is not merely to learn facts and skills but also to question them for their meaning" (Wiggins, 2005, p.104) I think this quote summarizes the position of the author in front ofunderstanding and also our role as teachers to promote understading through the tasks, activities and assessments we prepare.

What I liked the most about the six facets is that they give us ideas about what types of things we can require our students to do. The definition of these six facets let us plan what we want our students to do and have clearer objectives when preparing a unit and an assessment.

I think it is important to train our students in doing all of these things because most of them are not easy to do. But I also think that these abilities are essential in order to become a critical thinker.

I would like to mention also that one of the most difficult ones for me at least is to help students acquire self-knowledge. I would like to hear some of your experiences regarding this area.

Comments on Chapter III: Gaining clarity on our goals

I would like to organize this text talking about the most important concepts that were discussed in this chapter:

1. Exit level objectives: Importance of long term priorities in planning. I truly believe that without these objectives clear in mind it is impossible to organize yourself and plan for the year. But I also think that you are able to identify or establish exit level objectives when you have been teaching in the same place for a few years, because you need to know the whole curriculum (not just the curriculum of the years you teach), you need to know the students and their reality, you need to be aware of the resources at hand, etc. It is also necessary to have a good coordination among teachers in order to define common goals and that is most of the times the biggest difficulty I would say.

2. Big ideas: These are closely connected to the previous concept because in order to establish level objectives, you need to define the big ideas that will lead your plan. Big ideas, as the author mentions, are necessary to connect the dots for the learner by establishing learning priorities. As the author mentions as well, the challenge is to identify a few big ideas and carefully design around them. Another difficulty that it is not mentioned there is that big ideas would not be the same regarding the context. That is why I believe it is difficult to follow the national standards without adapting them to your own reality. Moreover, I think it is a must that teachers defined their own priorities based on the ones proposed by the government.

3. Core task: The author defines them as the most important demands in any field. Authentic challenges involve realistic situations where the context of the task it is as faithful as possible to real-world opportunities and difficulties. I consider it is extremely relevant to define the types of tasks your students need to master when you plan evaluations and activities because you can organize your planning around them. Again, it is crucial to be constantly reflecting about them because there are certain needs that will appear regarding the generation or resources that will come at hand. For example, we cannot deny the need to provide our students with knowledge on technologies or incorporate technologies in the classroom that will make the tasks more meaningful to students. 

There are also other concepts that are important such as essential questions, understandings and knowledge that you need to think about when planning but you could not do without the first three I mentioned earlier.