What Exactly Is "Understanding?" And How Do We Assess It

Blogger Terry Heick looks at the nebulous term “understanding” and how its many interpretations can make student assessment so difficult.

My own two sense is that knowledge should be learned, developed, and internalized by students through the use of communication and “gap analysis”. They should develop their understanding by elaborating the information in their own words first on paper, and then by talking it out to someone else. This will force them to think through the concepts from start to finish, like a story. A student’s understanding can then be assessed through a discussion with a teacher who has deeper knowledge and intuition on the subject.