Chapter 4: The 6 Facets of Understanding
Different aspects of understanding:
Can explain
Can interpret
Can apply
Have perspective
Can empathise
Have self-knowledge – meta cognitive awareness.

Facet 1: Explanation
Look for good explanations by getting students to: support, justify, generalise, predict, verify, prove and substantiate.

Use assessments (e.g., performance tasks, projects, prompts and tests) that ask students to provide an explanation on their own, not simply recall; to link specific facts with larger ideas and justify connections; to show their work, not just give an answer; and to support their conclusions.

Facet 2: Interpretation
Students must have activities and assessments that ask them to interpret inherently ambiguous matters- far different than typical “right answer” testing.

Facet 3: Application
Real life, problem solving approaches are required to see if students can apply their learning. Performance based learning, authentic tasks.

Facet 4: Perspective
Instruction should provide explicit opportunity for students to see alternative theories and diverse points of view. Same important ideas from different perspectives.

Facet 5: Empathy
Look to have students stand in someone else’s shoes to come to a deeper level of understanding.

Facet 6: Self-knowledge
Encourage self reflection, identifying blind spots, seeking to question and explore.