ABSTRACT
Teachers who teach for understanding aim for the meaningful kind of learning that drives learners to apply what they have learned to solve problems. Teachers who teach for understanding information, model skill applications, and structure a great deal of discourse surrounding the content. Teaching for understanding includes providing ample opportunity to learn key facts and skills, but embedding as much of the needed practice as is feasible within the context of applying networks of related knowledge. Knowledge networks also include conceptual knowledge. Students might begin with distinct facts and then connect these facts as they build conceptual knowledge within their knowledge networks. Designing classrooms for knowledge integration requires teachers to make science accessible, make science thinking visible, help students learn from one another, and support students in lifelong learning. Traditional curriculum development assumed that instructional strands are hierarchies of knowledge that teachers must proceed through linearly.
