Conceptual Understanding in Mathematics PDF

Granted, and… ~ thoughts on education by Grant Search… Go
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23
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Conceptual Understanding
in Mathematics
♣ A BOUT THE A UTHOR
Grant Wiggins is the co-author

of Understanding by Design and
the author of Educative
APR 2014 Assessment and numerous
articles on education. He is the
P O ST E D BY G RA N T WI G G I N S I N GE N E RA L ≈ 54 COMMENTS President of Authentic Education
in Hopewell NJ. You can read
more about him and his work at
the AE site (click here)
The Common Core Standards in Mathematics stress the importance of
conceptual understanding as a key component of mathematical expertise. Alas, ♣ EMA IL SUBSCRIPTION
in my experience, many math teachers do not understand conceptual Ente r your e m ail addre ss to
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understanding. Far too many think that if students know all the definitions and notifications of ne w posts by
rules, then they possess such understanding. e m ail.
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The Standards themselves arguably offer too little for confused educators. The Ente r your e m ail addre ss
document merely states that “understanding” means being able to justify

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procedures used or state why a process works:
♣ PA GES
But what does mathematical understanding look like? One hallmark of
mathematical understanding is the ability to justify, in a way appropriate All the posts on literacy
research and its implications
to the student’s mathematical maturity, why a particular mathematical
statement is true or where a mathematical rule comes from. There is a
♣ RECENT POSTS
world of difference between a student who can summon a mnemonic
device to expand a product such as (a + b)(x + y) and a student who can My reply to Willingham, Part 2
explain where the mnemonic comes from. Part 1 of a reply to Willingham

on reading strategies
A few of the “understanding” standards provide further insight: Some excerpts from PISA
Math Results – 15 year olds
Students understand connections between counting and addition and My mother’s puzzlement
subtraction (e.g., adding two is the same as counting on two). They use
A brief post on NAEP C ivics
properties of addition to add whole numbers and to create and use and History Test Results
increasingly sophisticated strategies based on these properties (e.g.,
A guest post on (too much)
“making tens”) to solve addition and subtraction problems within 20. By Lecturing in HS History
comparing a variety of solution strategies, children build their
An Open Letter to Governor
understanding of the relationship between addition and subtraction. C uomo: Re-think the Regs
[emphasis added]. of APPR
Why do so many HS history

Note what I highlighted: understanding requires focused inferential work. Being teachers lecture so much?
helped to generalize from one’s specific knowledge is key to genuine

open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com
helped to generalize from one’s specific knowledge is key to genuine On wise text selection for
understanding. developing comprehension: Post
#8 in a series
Daniel Willingham, the cognitive scientist who often writes on education, offers On transfer as the goal in
literacy (7th in a series)
a more detailed account of the nature and importance of conceptual
understanding in math (along with the other two pillars of mastery, factual Another shadowing report
knowledge and procedural skill) in his article from a few years ago in the AFT 8 Reasons that today’s high
journal American Educator. school is poor preparation for
today’s college
A procedure is a sequence of steps by which a frequently encountered On literacy and strategy, part
6: my first cut
problem may be solved. For example, many children learn a routine of at recommendations
“borrow and regroup” for multi-digit subtraction problems. Conceptual
On Reading, Part 5: A key
knowledge refers to an understanding of meaning; knowing that multiplying flaw in using the Gradual
two negative numbers yields a positive result is not the same thing as Release of Responsibility model
understanding why it is true. On reading, Part 4: research

on the comprehension strategies
– a closer look
…knowledge of procedures is no guarantee of conceptual understanding;
for example, many children can execute a procedure to divide fractions My 200th Post – On Literacy
Part 3
without understanding why the procedure works. Most observers agree
that knowledge of procedures and concepts is desirable. On reading, Part 2: what the
research REALLY reveals
Willingham discusses the poor results for basic content and procedural Teacher Effectiveness Ratings
– Part 2
knowledge, as revealed by trends in testing. However, he also notes –
Teacher Effectiveness Ratings
– Part 1
More troubling is American students’ lack of conceptual understanding.
Several studies have found that many students don’t fully understand the 5 unfortunate
misunderstandings that almost
base-10 number system. A colleague recently brought this to my attention
all educators have about
with a vivid anecdote. She mentioned that one of her students (a Bloom’s Taxonomy.
freshman at a competitive university) argued that 0.015 was a larger

number than 0.05 because “15 is more than 5.” The student could not be ♣ USEFUL SITES
persuaded otherwise.
Authentic Education – home
page
Another common conceptual problem is understanding that an equal sign (

Models by Design – Alexis
= ) refers to equality—that is, mathematical equivalence. By some Wiggins
estimates, as few as 25 percent of American sixth- graders have a deep

Washington Post Education
understanding of this concept. Students often think it signifies “put the Page
answer here.”
♣ A UTHENTIC EDUCA TION
Here is a lovely paper expanding upon the issue of misconceptions in
Here is a lovely paper expanding upon the issue of misconceptions in
arithmetic, from a British article for teachers (hence the word “maths” and the
spelling of “recognise”):
1. A number with three digits is always bigger than one with two 
. Some children will swear blind that 3.24 is bigger than 4.6 because it’s
got more digits. Why? Because for the first few years of learning, they
only came across whole numbers, where the ‘digits’ rule does work.
2. When you multiply two numbers together, the answer is always

Box 148
bigger than both the original numbers  . Another seductive ‘rule’ that Hopewell NJ 08525
609-466-8080
works for whole numbers, but falls to pieces when one or both of the
numbers is less than one. Remember that, instead of the word ‘times’ we
♣ RECENT TWEETS
can always substitute the word ‘of.’ So, 1/2 times 1/4 is the same as a
Yes. Grant is gone, suddenly
half of a quarter. That immediately demolishes the expectation that the and unexpectedly. We are
product is going to be bigger than both original numbers. bereft. 1 year ago
Grant Wiggins, of brilliant

3. Which fraction is bigger: 1/3 or 1/6?  How many pupils will say 1/6 mind and dearest heart, died
yesterday. The world has lost a
because they know that 6 is bigger than 3? This reveals a gap in true champion of learning.C arry
on the work.-Denise 1 year ago
knowledge about what the bottom number, the denominator, of a fraction
does. It divides the top number, the numerator, of course. Practical work, A poster child for C ommon
C ore wapo.st/1RabJpc A blunt
such as cutting pre-divided circles into thirds and sixths, and comparing
defense of C C ore in OK by a
the shapes, helps cement understanding of fractions. conservative WaPo writer:
1 year ago
4. Common regular shapes aren’t recognised for what they are Everyone Failed To Ride This
Bicycle. Know ≠ Understand!
unless they’re upright  . Teachers can, inadvertently, feed this dailyliked.net/backwards-brai…
misconception if they always draw a square, right-angled or isosceles 1 year ago
triangle in the ‘usual’ position. Why not draw them occasionally upside Part 2 is now up:
grantwiggins.wordpress.com/20
down, facing a different direction, or just tilted over, to force pupils to
15/05/25/my-…
look at the essential properties? And, by the way, in maths, there’s no twitter.com/wijola/status/…
1 year ago
such thing as a diamond! It’s either a square or a rhombus.
5. The diagonal of a square is the same length as the side?  Not true, ♣ CURRICULUM MA TTERS
BLOG
but tempting for many young minds. So, how about challenging the class
What Will It Take to Get More
to investigate this by drawing and measuring. Once the top table have STEM Teachers in the
mastered this, why not ask them to estimate the dimensions of a square C lassroom?
A new special section from by
whose diagonal is exactly 5cm. Then draw it and see how close their guess
Education Week's commentary
was. editors seeks to answer this
question and come up with some
possible solutions.
6. To multiply by 10, just add a zero  . Not always! What about 23.7 x Marva Hinton
10, 0.35 x 10, or 2/3 x 10? Try to spot, and unpick, the ‘just add zero’ rule
C alifornia Adopts Framework
wherever it rears its head. for Teaching Science
The new framework aligns with
the Next Generation Science
7. Proportion: three red sweets and two blue  . Asked what proportion Standards, which encourage
of the sweets is blue, how many kids will say 2/3 rather than 2/5? Why? more hands-on learning.
Marva Hinton
Because they’re comparing blue to red, not blue to all the sweets. Always
stress that proportion is ‘part to whole’. Project-Based Learning Tied to
Improved Problem-Solving Skills
There are more resources for
8. Perimeter and area confuse many kids  . A common mistake, when teachers hoping to explore
project-based learning than ever
measuring the perimeter of a rectangle, is to count the squares
before. Research on one such
surrounding the shape, in the same way as counting those inside for area. program suggests it might help
Now you can see why some would give the perimeter of a two-by-three with problem-solving.
Jackie Zubrzycki
rectangle as 14 units rather than 10.
New Survey Focuses on Best
Practices in STEM Teacher
9. Misreading scales.   Still identified as a weakness in Key Stage test Training, Retention
papers. The most common misunderstanding is that any interval on a scale Teacher training programs that
focused on content like
must correspond to one unit. (Think of 30 to 40 split into five intervals.) common-core math were
Frequent handling of different scales, divided up into twos, fives, 10s, deemed to be the most
successful, according to the
tenths etc. will help to banish this idea.
survey by 100Kin10.
Marva Hinton
From Teachers: January 2006 Issue 42 UK (alas, the link no longer

How Much Time Should
works) Schools Spend on Social
Studies?
A group in Tennessee is
concerned that proposed
changes to the state's standards
might lead teachers to spend
A definition of conceptual understanding. In light of the confusion about even less time on social studies.
conceptual understanding and the pressing problem of student Jackie Zubrzycki
misunderstanding, I think a slightly more robust definition of conceptual Nine States Have Rewritten or
understanding is wanted. I prefer to define it this way: Replaced C ommon C ore
Politics K-12 takes a look at
what's happened to the
Conceptual understanding in mathematics means that students understand C ommon C ore State Standards
around the country.
which ideas are key (by being helped to draw inferences about those ideas)
Jackie Zubrzycki
and that they grasp the heuristic value of those ideas. They are thus better
able to use them strategically to solve problems – especially non-routine
♣ NY TIMES ON EDUCA TION
problems – and avoid common misunderstandings as well as inflexible
knowledge and skill. Plight of the Public U: How the
University of Alabama Became a
National Player
In other words, students demonstrate understanding of – State schools like Alabama are
following a new survival
strategy: lure top students,
1) which mathematical ideas are key, and why they are important boost reputation, raise tuition,
go big.
LAURA PAPPANO
2) which ideas are useful in a particular context for problem solving
Plight of the Public U: Bottom
Line: How State Budget C uts
3) why and how key ideas aid in problem solving, by reminding us of the Affect Your Education
systematic nature of mathematics (and the need to work on a higher Doing more with less is the new
norm. Some public universities
logical plane in problem solving situations) are even finding fresh ways to
ease students’ burden.
SARAH BROWN
4) how an idea or procedure is mathematically defensible – why we and
they are justified in using it Notebook: Remembering
Nohemi Gonzalez, a Year Later
Ms. Gonzalez, a first-generation
5) how to flexibly adapt previous experience to new transfer problems. Mexican-American student on a
semester abroad in Paris, was
undoubtedly special. Even in
A test for conceptual understanding. Rather than explain my definition death.
further here, I will operationalize it in a little test of 13 questions, to be given BARBARA E. MURPHY
to 10th , 11th , and 12th graders who have passed all traditional math courses
through algebra and geometry. (Middle school students can be given the first 7
questions.)
Math teachers, give it to your students; tell us the results.
I will make a friendly wager: I predict that no student will get all the questions
correct. Prove me wrong and I’ll give the teacher and student(s) a big shout-
out. Teach.com
♣ GOODREA DS
1) “You can’t divide by zero.” Explain why not, (even though, of course,
you can multiply by zero.) Educative Assessment:
Designing
Assessments to Inform
2) “Solving problems typically requires finding equivalent statements that and Improve Student
Performance
simplify the problem” Explain – and in so doing, define the meaning of the =
by Grant P. W iggins
sign.
The Understanding by
Design Guide to
3) You are told to “invert and multiply” to solve division problems with Advanced C oncepts in
C reating and
fractions. But why does it work? Prove it. Reviewing Units
by Grant P. W iggins
4) Place these numbers in order of largest to smallest: .00156, 1/60, Essential Questions:
.0015, .001, .002 Opening Doors to
Student Understanding
by Jay McTighe
5) “Multiplication is just repeated addition.” Explain why this statement is

The Understanding by
false, giving examples. Design Guide to
C reating High-Quality
Units
6) A catering company rents out tables for big parties. 8 people can sit by Grant P. W iggins
around a table. A school is giving a party for parents, siblings, students

and teachers. The guest list totals 243. How many tables should the
school rent?
♣ RECENT COMMENTS
7) Most teachers assign final grades by using the mathematical mean
grantwiggins on My
(the “average”) to determine them. Give at least 2 reasons why the mean
reply to Willingham,
may not be the best measure of achievement by explaining what the mean Part…
hides. Dan Willingham on My

reply to Willingham,
Part…
8) Construct a mathematical equation that describes the mathematical grantwiggins on My
relationship between feet and yards. HINT: all you need as parts of the reply to Willingham,
Part…
equation are F, Y, =, and 3.
ghewgley
(@ghewgley) on My
9) As you know, PEMDAS is shorthand for the order of operations for reply to Willingham,
Part…
evaluating complex expressions (Parentheses, then Exponents, etc.). The grantwiggins on My
order of operations is a convention. X(A + B) = XA + XB is the distributive reply to Willingham,
Part…
Part…
property. It is a law. What is the difference between a convention and a
law, then? Give another example of each.
10) Why were imaginary numbers invented? [EXTRA CREDIT for 12th
graders: Why was the calculus invented?]
11) What’s the difference between an “accurate” answer and “an

appropriately precise” answer? (HINT: when is the answer on your
calculator inappropriate?)
12) “In geometry, we begin with undefined terms.” Here’s what’s odd,
though: every Geometry textbook always draw points, lines, and planes in
exactly the same familiar and obvious way – as if we CAN define them, at
least visually. So: define “undefined term” and explain why it doesn’t mean
that points and lines have to be drawn the way we draw them; nor does it
mean, on the other hand, that math chaos will ensue if there are no
definitions or familiar images for the basic elements.
13) “In geometry we assume many axioms.” What’s the difference between
valid and goofy axioms – in other words, what gives us the right to assume
the axioms we do in Euclidean geometry?
Let us know how your kids did – and which questions tripped up the most kids
– and why, if you discussed it with them.
(SPOILER ALERT!!!!)
Thanks to reader Max Ray for pointing out a few TEACHER answers to the test!
A handful of math teachers & mathematicians (so far) have taken up the
challenge posed by your 13 questions, answering them for ourselves before
asking students to dive in, so that we have a sense of what we might
want to hear from kids.
Here are the ones I know of so far:

http://mathforum.org/blogs/max/in-which-i-take-the-grant-wiggins-
challenge/
http://step1trysomething.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/answering-the-
conceptual-questions/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FK8m_oVaS_UWS4grETMAfAhByN_vrQC0TR85ld5FXj8/edit
And here is a nice commentary from one of our AE math consultants, Rita
Atienza: Atienza math comment.
And here is a great summary as to the ability to use the lack of definition of
points, lines, and plane to make valid hyperbolic proofs that reflect Euclidean
assumptions (hence, the validity of
hyperbolic geometry: http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/Winter2009/Mihai/section4.html
PS: I also had a nice phone conversation with friend and former HS student(!)
Steve Strogatz, the celebrated mathematician-author about the test. He
reminded me of two test questions that I should have asked (and that he and I
have previously discussed):
True or false: .999999… = 1
Explain why a negative times a negative = a positive.
Steve also pointed me to a cool example of the value of undefined terms

(beyond the one I taught him years ago by Poincare, in which a plane is
imagined as an enclosed circle, used to prove the relative validity of one
branch of non-Euclidean geometry) using the children’s’ game Spot It.
A postscript for geeky readers of my blog, and for fans of E D Hirsch’s work
who have been critics of mine in the past re: Knowledge:
I have been surprised to discover that there are a whole bunch of smart,
literate, and learned teachers who seem to deny that (conceptual)
understanding even exists as a goal separate from knowledge – and by
extension that my work and the work of many others is without merit. To them
– as to E D Hirsch, it seems – there is only “Knowledge.” This, despite the fact
that the distinction between knowledge and understanding is embedded in all
indo-European languages, has a pedigree that goes back to Plato and runs
through Bloom’s Taxonomy; the National Academy of Science publication How
People Learn; and is the basis of decades of successful work in understanding
by Perkins, Gardner, the research in student misconceptions in science, and
the research on transfer of learning.
Some of my critics regularly cite Willingham’s summary of educational research,

and a paper by Clark, Kirschner, and Sweller (discussed below; Dan Meyer has
a link to all the key papers and rebuttals here. And thanks to a blog reader, I
was led to the articles related to the debate on the USC web page (Clark’s
University); scroll to the bottom) to make clear that direct instruction leading
to knowledge is the only way to frame the challenge of both aim and means in
effective education. As I will show, I believe they overstate what the research
actually says and have little ground for suggesting that there is no meaningful
difference between knowledge and understanding.
Wilingham on conceptual understanding in math. First, let’s look more
closely at what researcher Daniel Willingham has to say about conceptual
understanding in mathematics. His article is based on the idea that successful
mathematics learning – presumably generalizable to all learning – requires three
different abilities that must be developed and woven together: control of facts,
control of processes, and conceptual understanding. And throughout the article
he discusses not only the importance of understanding – and how it is difficult
to obtain – but also notes that instruction for it has to be different than the
learning of basic skills and facts. I quote him at length below:
Unfortunately, of the three varieties of knowledge that students need,

conceptual knowledge is the most difficult to acquire. It’s difficult because
knowledge is never acquired de novo; a teacher cannot pour concepts
directly into students’ heads. Rather, new concepts must build upon
something that students already know. That’s why examples are so useful
when introducing a new concept. Indeed, when someone provides an
abstract definition (e.g., “The standard deviation is a measure of the
dispersion of a distribution.”), we usually ask for an example (such as,
“Two groups of people might have the same average height, but one group
has many tall and many short people, and thus has a large standard
deviation, whereas the other group mostly has people right around the
average, and thus has a small standard deviation.”). [emphasis added]
This is also why conceptual knowledge is so important as students

advance. Learning new concepts depends on what you already know, and
as students advance, new concepts will increasingly depend on old
conceptual knowledge. For example, understanding algebraic equations
depends on the right conceptual understanding of the equal sign. If
students fail to gain conceptual understanding, it will become harder and
harder to catch up, as new conceptual knowledge depends on the old.
Students will become more and more likely to simply memorize algorithms
and apply them without understanding.
Yet, for some reason, critics fail to accept this distinction – or see the inherent
paradox, therefore, in education (discussed below). Novices need clear
instruction and simplified/scaffolded learning, for sure. But such early
simplification will likely come back to inhibit later nuanced and deeper learning –
not as a function of “bad” direct teaching but because of the inherent
challenge of unfixing earlier, simpler knowledge.
Perhaps part of the problem are the either-or terms that some researchers
have used to frame this discussion. The essence of the false dichotomy is
contained in Clark, Kirschner, and Sweller. Here is the introduction to the
paper:
The goal of this article is to suggest that based on our current knowledge
of human cognitive architecture, minimally guided instruction is likely to be
ineffective. The past half-century of empirical research on this issue has
provided overwhelming and unambiguous evidence that minimal guidance
during instruction is significantly less effective and efficient than guidance
specifically designed to support the cognitive processing necessary for
learning.
The authors suggest, in other words, that evidence-based research shows that
so-called “constructivist” i.e. “discovery” views of teaching are wrong on two
counts:
1. The authors claim that those who use discovery/problem-based/project-

based learning – all unhelpfully lumped together as one thing by the authors
– have confused the cognitive meaning “constructivism” (a correct
psychology theory of how minds make sense of data) with “constructivist
teaching” (an unsubstantiated theory of how people best learn).
2. The authors claim that this inappropriate view of inductive pedagogy
confuses the needs and traits of the expert with that of the novice:
Another consequence of attempts to implement constructivist theory is a

shift of emphasis away from teaching a discipline as a body of knowledge
toward an exclusive emphasis on learning a discipline by experiencing the
processes and procedures of the discipline (Handelsman et. al., 2004;
Hodson, 1988). This change in focus was accompanied by an assumption
shared by many leading educators and discipline specialists that knowledge
can best be learned or only learned through experience that is based
primarily on the procedures of the discipline. This point of view led to a
commitment by educators to extensive practical or project work, and the
rejection of instruction based on the facts, laws, principles and theories
that make up a discipline’s content accompanied by the use of discovery
and inquiry methods of instruction. The addition of a more vigorous
emphasis on the practical application of inquiry and problem-solving skills
seems very positive. Yet it may be a fundamental error to assume that the
pedagogic content of the learning experience is identical to the methods
and processes (i.e., the epistemology) of the discipline being studied and a
mistake to assume that instruction should exclusively focus on methods
and processes.
In sum, those who promote “discovery” or “unguided” learning make two big
mistakes, unsupported by research, say the authors: effective learning requires
direct, not indirect instruction. And the needs of the novice are far different
than the needs of the expert, so it makes little sense to treat novice students
as real scientists who focus on inquiry. (Even though the authors offer the
aside that “a more vigorous emphasis on the practical application of inquiry and
problem-solving skills” is a good thing.)
But: huh? In 30 years of working with teachers I know of no teacher –
secondary school or college – who rejects the teaching of “scientific facts,
laws, and principles.” Indeed, science classes in HS and college universally are
loaded with instruction, textbook learning, and testing on such knowledge.
Here is what the Clark et al. say in a follow-up article in American Educator:
Our goal is to put an end to the debate (about direct vs discovery

learning). Decades of research clearly demonstrate that for novices
(comprising virtually all students) direct, explicit instruction is more
effective and more efficient than partial guidance. So, when teaching new
content and skills to novices, teachers are more effective when they
provide explicit guidance accompanied by practice and feedback, not when
they require students to discover many aspects of what they must learn.
[emphasis in the original]
What a curious definition of “novice”! The “novice” category is stretched to

include “virtually all students.” This is surely a sweeping overstatement – much
like the sweeping categorization of all non direct-instruction pedagogies as
“discovery” that has been so criticized by others. We quite properly expect
older middle and high school students, never mind college students, to do
extensive self-directed and inductive work in reading, writing, problem solving,
and research because they are no longer novices at core academic skills.
Indeed, here is research with college science students that counter their
argument.
Indeed, later in the article, the authors strike a somewhat different pose about
the complete repertoire of pedagogies needed by good teachers:
…[T]his does not mean direct, expository instruction every day. Small
group work and independent problems and projects can be effective – not
as vehicles for making discoveries but as a means of practicing recently
learned skills. [emphasis in the original]
Though this properly expands the list of effective instructional moves, their
framing is odd – and telling. The purpose of non-routine problem-solving,
making meaning of a new text, doing original research, or engaging in Socratic
Seminar they say is to “practice” recently learned “skills.” Hardly. These
approaches have different aims, understanding-related aims, that are never
addressed in their paper.
Indeed, this is just how conceptual and strategic thinking for transfer must be
developed to achieve understanding: through carefully designed experiences
that ask students to bring to bear past experience on present work, to
connect their experiences into understanding. As Eva Brann famously said
about the seminar at St. John’s College, the point of student-led discussion is
“not to learn new things but to think things anew.” Indeed, Willingham’s
warning about “not pouring concepts into a student’s head” when
understanding is the goal is the important advice that is constantly overlooked
by the authors and their supporters as the focus is overly-narrowed to
teaching skill via direct instruction.
The authors even tacitly acknowledge this later in the article, in discussing
why what works for novices doesn’t work for “experienced learners” in a
subject – and vice versa:
In general, the expertise reversal effect states that “instructional

techniques that are highly effective with inexperienced learners can lose
their effectiveness and even have negative consequences when used with
more experienced learners.” This is why, from the very beginning of this
article, we have emphasized that guidance is best for teaching novel
information and skills. This shows the wisdom of instructional techniques
that begin with lots of guidance and then fade that guidance as students
gain mastery. It also shows the wisdom of using minimal guidance
techniques to reinforce or practice previously learned material.
Well, which is it, then? Are “virtually all” students “novices” or not? When does
a gradual-release-of-responsibility kick in? Just when is a student “gaining
mastery” enough to use more inferential methods? We know the answer in
reading: in middle school, based on the “gold standard” controlled research of
Palinscar and Brown – that the authors mention in the citations!
Willingham in fact concludes his article by questioning the very novice-expert

sequence laid out by Clark, Kirschner, and Sweller when the goal is conceptual
understanding. After describing the “caricatures” in the math-wars debate of
“process” vs. “conceptual” knowledge, he says:
Somewhat more controversial is the relative emphasis that should be given

to these two types of knowledge, and the order in which students should
learn them.
Perhaps with sufficient practice and automaticity of algorithms, students

will, with just a little support, gain a conceptual understanding of the
procedures they have been executing. Or perhaps with a solid conceptual
understanding, the procedures necessary to solve a problem will seem
self-evident.
There is some evidence to support both views. Conceptual knowledge

sometimes seems to precede procedural knowledge or to influence its
development. Then too, procedural knowledge can precede conceptual
knowledge. For example, children can often count successfully before they
understand all of counting’s properties, such as the irrelevance of order.
A third point of view (and today perhaps the most commonly accepted) is
that for most topics, it does not make sense to teach concepts first or to
teach procedures first; both should be taught in concert. As students
incrementally gain knowledge and understanding of one, that knowledge
supports comprehension of the other. Indeed, this stance seems like
common sense. Since neither procedures nor concepts arise quickly and
reliably in most students’ minds without significant prompting, why wouldn’t
one teach them in concert?
Indeed. Sequence in learning is not at all settled, as Clark et al profess, when

the aim is understanding as opposed to basic skills to be learned the first time.
The key to understanding understanding: the ubiquity of persistent

misunderstanding. Ultimately, a key lacuna in the everything-is-knowledge-
through-direct-instruction view is its inability to adequately explain student
misconceptions and transfer deficits that persist in the face of conventional
direct teaching in science and mathematics. A glaring weakness in the Clark,
Kirschner, and Sweller paper is their one-sentence treatment of student
misconceptions: they suggest that misconceptions are the likely result of
allowing students to discover concepts and facts for themselves!
This is surely a slanted view. There is a 30-year history of research in science

and math misconceptions that shows conclusively that traditional high school
and college direct instruction leads unwittingly to persistent misconceptions,
and that a more interactive concept-attainment approach works to overcome
them.
Multiplication is not repeated addition. The equal sign does not mean “find the
answer.” Then, why is this a near-universal misunderstanding of these ideas?
Presumably as a result of teachers not teaching for conceptual understanding
and failing to think through the predictable misunderstandings that will
inevitably arise when teaching novices the basics in simplified ways. Teaching a
concept as a fact simply does not work, as Willingham notes.
The paradox of education. What these examples beautifully indicate is the

paradox of teaching novices that so many knowledge-centric educators seem
to overlook. Yes, we must simplify and scaffold the work for the novice and
make direct instruction clear and enabling – but in so doing we invariably sow
the seeds of misconceptions and inflexible knowledge if we do not also work to
attain genuine understanding of what the basics do and do not mean.
Indeed, the success of Eric Mazur’s work at Harvard and with other college
faculties, and the Arizona State Modeling project in physics, both backed by
more than a decade of research in college and high school science, cannot be
understood unless one sees the connection between conceptual understanding
and transfer, and the failure of transfer to occur when there is just factual and
procedural instruction.
In fact, a telling comment made by Barak Rosenshine, a leader in direct

instruction, that DI has a more limited use than Clark et al acknowledge:
Rosenshine and Stevens concluded that across a number of studies, when

effective teachers taught well-structured topics (e.g., arithmetic
computation, map skills), the teachers used the following pattern:
Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning.
Begin a lesson with a short statement of goals.

Present new material in small steps, providing for student practice after
each step.
Give clear and detailed instructions and explanations.
Provide a high level of active practice for all students.
Ask a large number of questions, check for student understanding, and
obtain responses from all students.
Guide students during initial practice.
Provide systematic feedback and corrections.
Provide explicit instruction and practice for seatwork exercises and
monitor students during seatwork.
[emphasis added]
Rosenshine is far more careful than Clark et al to clarify the meaning of the
term “direct instruction” which he claims has five different meanings that need
to be sorted out. In fact, he notes that reading comprehension is a different
kind of learning task than developing straightforward skills, and thus requires a
different kind of direct instruction – instruction in cognitive strategies:
Even though the teacher effectiveness meaning was derived from research
on the teaching of “well-structured” tasks such as arithmetic computation
and the cognitive strategy meaning was derived from research on the
teaching of “less-structured” tasks such as reading comprehension, there
are many common instructional elements in the two approaches.
In most of these studies students who received “direct instruction” in

cognitive strategies significantly outperformed students in the control
group comprehension as assessed by experimenter-developed short answer
tests, summarization tests, and/or recall tests.
(Note, therefore, that DI offers no justification for the kind of “direct

instruction” done by ineffective high school and college teachers – i.e. too
much teacher talk. DI is a method for learning and applying skills.)
Here we see the paradox, more clearly: no one can directly teach you to
understand the meaning of a text any more than a concept can be taught as a
fact. The teacher can only provide models, think-alouds, and scaffolding
strategies that are practiced and debriefed, to help each learner make sense of
text. Otherwise we are left with the silly view that English is merely the
learning of facts about each text taught by the teacher or that science labs
are simply experiences designed to reinforce the lectures. As I noted here,
Willingham argues that teaching cognitive strategies are beneficial in literacy –
in contrast to Hirsch’s constant and sweeping complaints about the lack of
value in teaching such strategies and asking students to use them.
Interestingly, in an interview Rosenshine seems a bit insensitive to the problem

of inflexible knowledge in less able students who need to rely on initial scaffolds
for a long time:
Rosenshine: “Cognitive strategies” refers to specific strategies students

can use to provide a support in their initial learning. For example, in
teaching writing there is a cognitive strategy called the five-paragraph
essay. The format for this essay suggests that students begin with an
introductory paragraph containing a main idea supported by three points.
These points are elaborated in the next three paragraphs, and then
everything is summarized in the final paragraph.
After describing a lesson on Macbeth in which the essay template and DI are
used, Rosenshine says:
The teacher told me he used this same approach with classes of varying
abilities and had found that the students in the slower classes hung on to
the five-step method and used it all the time. Students in the middle used
the method some of the time and not others, while the brighter students
expanded on it and went off on their own. But in all cases, the five-step
method served as a scaffold, as a temporary support while the students
were developing their abilities. [emphasis added]
I find this an ironic comment since I have often written about the English test
item in Massachusetts in which 2/3 of all 10th graders could not identify a
reading as an essay because “it didn’t have 5 paragraphs.” It is precisely the
paradox of the inflexibility and over-simplification of well-scaffolded novice
knowledge that has to be aggressively addressed if understanding (what an
essay is as a concept) and transfer (recognizing that this is an essay, even
though its surface features are unfamiliar) are to occur.
How hard would it be to show weaker students a 3- and a 9-paragraph “essay”

as well as a 5-paragraph essay, all on the same topic; and then ask them to
explain what makes an essay an essay, regardless of surface structure?
Indeed, this is just the kind of scaffold for inferring a concept that lies at the
heart of teaching for understanding: concept attainment and meaning-making
via examples, non-examples, and guided inferences – mindful of prior learning
experience (and likely misunderstanding). Not at all the same as “discovery
learning” and hit or miss “projects.”
Yes, the research is clear: direct instruction is better than “discovery learning”
when the aim is brand new unproblematic knowledge and skill and when
contrasted with “students discovering for themselves core facts and skills.” But
this is a very cramped argument. And it simply does not follow from it that all
important learning occurs through direct instruction or that knowledge =
understanding. Indeed, as Plato said 200 years ago, learning for understanding
is “not what is proponents often say it is, that is the putting of sight into blind
eyes. Rather, it is more like turning the head from the dark to the light…”
PS: Rosenshine offers a very different take on the issue that so motivated
Clark, Kirschner, and Sweller, i.e. the link between the practice of experts and
the pedagogy that supports developing expertise. He laments our failure to
pursue the pedagogical question of how novices become experts:
Rosenshine: One very promising area of teaching research has been to

compare the knowledge structures of experts and novices. For example,
the experts might be professors of physiology and the novices might be
interns or graduate students. Or the experts could be experienced lawyers
and the novices were first-year lawyers.
What the researchers consistently found was that the experts had more
and better constructed knowledge structures and they had faster access
to their background knowledge. These findings occurred in diverse areas
such as in chess, in cardiology, chemistry, and law. They also compared
expert readers with poor readers and found that the expert readers used
better strategies when they were given confusing passages to read.
A lot of expert-novice research was done from the mid-1980s until about
1992, but then it stopped. I would have hoped they would have gone on
to ask questions such as, “What sort of education should novices go
through in order to become like experts?” and “What does creating expert
knowledge mean for classroom instruction?”
But, unfortunately, the research was never used to develop an

instructional package for training experts. It was never used to establish
instructional goals for classes to teach all children to be like the experts.
Our goal should be to develop experts, and we’re not doing it.
A postscript to the initial critics of the post. No, I have NOT made a
category mistake. Knowledge is necessary but not sufficient for understanding;
understanding is not a direct function of knowledge. Understanding is the result
of a deliberate attempt to make meaning of and connect one’s discrete
experiences, effects, as well as knowledge and skill. Similarly, performance is
more than the sum of skill; it requires judgment and strategy. That’s why there
are three types of performance achievement, not two – declarative,
procedural, and conditional. Some students (and players), with limited
knowledge, have great understanding; some students (and players) with
extensive knowledge and skill have little understanding (as reflected in
questions/tasks that demand transfer). All of us have experienced such
contrasts. You explain them, then. And also please explain the transfer deficit
and misconception literature while you’re at it. Then we’ll talk further.
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54 THO UGHTS O N “C O N C EPTUAL UN D ERS TAN D IN G IN MATHEMATIC S ”
Susan said: March 25, 2015 at 7:09 pm
Our school has recently embraced the AIW framework to looking at teacher tasks,
instruction and student work. Much of our interdisciplinary conversations involve
talking about teaching about concepts, not topics. It appears that a subject like
math can easily overlap those 2 words.
Any suggetions on what true math concepts might be 7-12?
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grantwiggins said: March 26, 2015 at 8:04 am
A concept is a model, theory, general principle – an idea, an inference

that is used to explain and connect facts. Mathematics contains many,
some of which are crucial for understanding: congruence, equality,
linear or non-linear relationship, function, derivative, imaginary number,
etc. 2 more complex concepts: internal consistency (which is why you
can’t divide by zero but you can multiply by zero, etc.) A key concept in
problem-solving: finding simpler equivalences. In short, many core
concepts that kids often do not understand. So, the question becomes:
what must be understood about these concepts for understanding to
advance (vs. just calling them topics to be covered)? What is often
misunderstood about these concepts that impedes understanding? You
might also want to check out the article that Randy Charles wrote for
the NCSM journal on big ideas in math about 5 years ago.
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Epigami said: March 20, 2015 at 5:13 am
Interesting article! It is indeed quite difficult to get concepts through to the

younger minds, and educators need to find original ways to reach out to them.
The issue is that many academic systems around world will focus on pure
theoretical exercise, which might attract some pupils, but others will be much less
able to follow. We interviewed Kalid Azad (http://www.epigami.sg/blog/better-
explained-interview-kalid-azad/), a math enthusiast who loves to create
‘simplified’ (again depending on the target) explanations. Conceptual
understanding has to do with intrinsic interest of the subject, not just the work
put into it.
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Keith said: April 27, 2014 at 12:53 pm
Again, thanks for the post. Since your post on “It’s time to retire E D Hirsch’s tired
refrains” my colleagues and I have been discussing this rather ironic controversy
and the hurdles involved for both students as well as teachers. I’ve found that
there are two main disconnects for teachers who advocate knowledge and
understanding are one in the same. Either they have the same misconceptions as
our students due to their own learning experiences, or they have understanding,
but have not reflected on how they have may arrived at this point, and so they
have what you have called “the expert blind spot” in UBD. To be honest, I was
one of the former before I became involved with the ASU modeling program where
they gave me the FCI and exploited my own misconceptions. From there, I was
able to build a new framework that relied less on schema, and more on
experience; “to see how it operates or functions, what consequences follow from
it, what causes it, what uses it can be put to” (Dewey) It was only then that I was
able to move forward and advocate for my students understanding. I have found
that those teachers in the latter category that have been closed to understanding
can be opened when they see the impact of strategies that elicit understanding
from their students.
To this end, I have also been trying to figure out how to elicit students
understanding to a higher degree. Of course, student discourse will naturally bring
it out effectively. But on an independent level it was the use of your
understanding rubric that really helped me clarify my expectations to students
when they were writing independently. Although knowledge and understanding
are two different things, the knowledge piece, I’ve found, can actually be a
hindrance. Because so much emphasis has been placed on content acquisition
students have been programed in schools to give vague, procedural descriptions
based on content because that is all what knowing content requires. Once I used
an explanation rubric (from the six facets of understanding) that was framed in
the context of a content based question, but with understanding expectations for
their explanation, I was able to get the responses from students that showed
understanding of concepts. Showing these off a bit has, in turn, helped me
advocate for the very point you are making in your blog to teachers in that latter
group. I’m still honing this practice, but I wish to thank you for all your insights
which have helped get me and my students here.
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grantwiggins said: April 27, 2014 at 5:23 pm
I’m grateful for your taking the time to leave this comment – thank you.
Your policy is the best: do by modeling (ironically).
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Atlas Educational said: April 28, 2014 at 9:43 am
Keith, like you, have a description rubric really helped me clarify how to
assess understanding. Knowledge and understanding are both
necessary and with the dawn of the age of the internet, hopefully
people will gain greater insight as to the differences between
knowledge and understanding. Let’s hope that metacognition will
increase and we will all realize how to dig deeper.
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Susan Clayton said: April 26, 2014 at 3:09 pm
Have you seen the journal “Mind, Brain, and Education” from imbes – vol 6, #3,
September 2012? The articles in this volume on math support your claims
regarding teaching math for conceptual understanding. Good examples for the
concept of fractions and variables.
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Mr. Coverstone said: April 26, 2014 at 3:06 pm
Here is my best first attempt at writing a test that attempts to address the
conceptual understanding of a topic. Comments are appreciated.
http://zachtheriah.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/a-conceptual-understanding-of-
addition-of-fractions-an-assessment/
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grantwiggins said: April 27, 2014 at 7:18 am
Great! I’ll check it out and offer any comments that seem helpful. I
agree that making it practical and more test-like is the next step (just
from having read your intro to your attempt). As I noted in other
comments, my examples were meant to be suggestive of issues – why
does seomtthing work? What are common misconceptions? What
assumptions need to be explained/justified in the system? etc.
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Max Ray (@maxmathforum) said: April 25, 2014 at 6:06 pm
A handful of math teachers & mathematicians (so far) have taken up the challenge
posed by your 13 questions, answering them for ourselves before asking students
to dive in, so that we have a sense of what we might want to hear from kids.
Here are the ones I know of so far:
http://mathforum.org/blogs/max/in-which-i-take-the-grant-wiggins-challenge/
http://step1trysomething.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/answering-the-conceptual-
questions/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FK8m_oVaS_UWS4grETMAfAhByN_vrQC0TR85ld5FXj8/edit
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Thanks! I was unaware of this.
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principalaim said: April 24, 2014 at 10:38 pm
Reblogged this on principalaim and commented:

If you are following principalaim, I have shared some of my favorite educators,
innovators, and creative thinkers. Among my favorites is Grant Wiggins, co-author
of Understanding by Design. Wiggins, an authority on subjects dealing with
assessment, student engagement, and the Common Core, he is constantly being
sought out to answer many of the toughest question concerning the best
practices in education. In Wiggin’s latest blog, he asked us to think about “what
conceptual understanding in mathematics means and how best to use it to help
students understand which ideas are key (relevant). Ultimately, it is critical that
we understand how best to prepare our students to become mathematical
thinkers, independent, and innovative creators.
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Kevin Hall said: April 24, 2014 at 9:55 pm
Interesting that you think their novice point is ludicrous, because I see it as self-
evident, which again makes me think you’re not interpreting their statement
correctly. You ask, “Are ‘virtually all’ students ‘novices’ or not? When does a
gradual-release-of-responsibility kick in? Just when is a student “gaining mastery”
enough to use more inferential methods?” In cognitive load theory, the answer is
biological: you are no longer a novice when the information you’re processing has
made its way from your working memory to your long-term memory. Humans have
very high limits on how much information they can process simultaneously from
their long-term memory, and very low limits for how much they can process from
working memory. As Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006) say, we lose what’s in
our working memory after about 30 seconds of inactivity, and we can only hold
between 4-7 pieces of information there (like the 7 digits of a phone number).
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But by hs every student should be able to read and write, so the

cognitive load is diminished on those core skills.The 7-item rule about
memory is also being misused. We have learned to chunk those items
in reading and writing after many years of doing it. By your argument,
no one should be bale to understand complex text when they read
independently. Again, their argument is surely a stretch. An experience
HS and college student is not a novice except if you think of the
‘content’ – which, ironically, is not the focus of their argument; their
argument is based on research involving skills.
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Kevin Hall said: April 25, 2014 at 8:57 am
Ah, well in my reading, they ARE talking about ‘content’, not

reading complex texts. For example, the biggest example
they describe in the 2006 paper is medical students being
trained to make diagnoses in a lab setting with minimal
guidance–a task with little reading involved.
Their argument is that the costs of inquiry instruction come

from the way the student must search the scenario for the
relevant information while simultaneously figuring out how
to put that information together. It’s not about the
demands that core academic processes like reading or
listening impose on a student; it’s about the demands
involved in asking, “What information here is relevant?
What information is extraneous? What do I still need to find
out?”.
Here is the central quotation of their paper as I understand

it: “Inquiry-based instruction requires the learner to search
a problem space for problem-relevant information. All
problem-based searching makes heavy demands on
working memory. Furthermore, that working memory load
does not contribute to the accumulation of knowledge in
long-term memory because while working memory is being
used to search for problem solutions, it is not available and
cannot be used to learn. Indeed, it is possible to search for
extended periods of time with quite minimal alterations to
long-term memory (e.g., see Sweller, Mawer, & Howe,
1982)” (p. 77).
If you’re interested, last night I wrote up up how I think

Clark/Kirschner/Sweller 2006 can be applied to improve Dan
Meyer’s Shipping Routes lesson on least common multiples.
I think the post lays out why I think Sweller et al have
made a useful contribution. My blog post is here:
http://wp.me/p3OXcS-2q
If you don’t have time to read it, I’ll just say here that my
conclusion isn’t that inquiry is always bad, but that cognitive
load theory helps us make inquiry lessons like Dan’s more
effective.
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grantwiggins said:
April 26, 2014 at 5:51 am
I appreciate your comments and the citations.

But cognitive load is not the issue; engaged,
focused, and quality learning is the issue. I
have worked with 4th graders who can answer
the questions you pose. Nothing about the
brain mechanics addresses the fundamental
question: what is a good education?
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Kevin Hall said:
April 26, 2014 at 10:54 pm
When you say “I have worked with

4th graders who can answer the
questions you pose”, I assume you’re
talking about the questions, “What
information here is relevant? What
information is extraneous? What do I
still need to find out?” If so, please let
me clarify…those were just examples.
Other similar questions include
“Where am I right now in the
problem-solving process? If I take this
step, will I get closer to a solution?”
Even when these are easy questions,
the point is just that considering them
takes up working memory, which
inhibits the formation of long-term
memories related to the content
you’re studying. It has nothing to do
with how easy the questions are.
I get that you’re saying education is

terrible when it’s reduced to
accumulating skills. And that’s true:
lessons that teach students to master
a procedure don’t even expose
students meaningfully to the
conceptual understanding your blog
post is about. So if your learning
objective is deeper understanding,
you have to do something richer. But
within the universe of possible richer
tasks that *do* engage students in
conceptual thinking, being vigilant
about cognitive load means your
students will develop that
understanding more successfully.
Cognitive Load Theory is not just for
skill development. For conceptual
learning, it says that you have to stop
students frequently along the way to
help them make meaning out of what
they’re doing and help them encode
that meaning into their long-term
memories. Being dismissive about
cognitive load theory tends to
produce inquiry activities in which
students are either don’t make the
desired discovery or do make it but
are unable to remember it (or the
logic underlying it) by the next class.
The blog post I linked to above gives
an example of restructuring an inquiry
activity in light of cognitive load, not (I
hope) turning it into crappy drill
practice.
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Kevin Hall said: April 24, 2014 at 3:29 pm
Grant, a few disagreements:
1). Regarding your “but, huh?”: some teachers think the primary evidence of
learning is not in the knowledge obtained, but in, for example, the <a
href=http://christopherdanielson.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/what-did-you-learn/
questions generated.
2). Regarding your incredulity that the “novice” category is stretched to include
“virtually all students”: I think the author’s intent is much more limited than how
you’ve read it. They’re simply saying that almost all students are novices in what
you’re currently teaching, though hopefully not in what you’ve already taught.
They’re not saying that most students are novices for their entire lives. Would you
disagree?
3). I’m unconvinced by your test of conceptual learning. The division-by-zero

question is a good example. Even if a student can state a good reason that
division by zero is impossible, that doesn’t mean the student understands it. They
could simply be paraphrasing what they’ve been told. Isn’t it easy to imagine a
student who correctly explains why you can’t divide by zero, but is not able to tell
you a number that makes y=3/(x +1) come out as undefined…or even, a student
who gives a good explanation and then says that 3/0=0 a few days later? The
only observable behavior that will show us whether the student understands it is
whether the student transfers that knowledge correctly or efficiently in new
situations. If transfer is the measure, then conceptual understanding gets
entangled with memory, because a student’s probability of correctly transferring a
concept is partly determined by her ease of recalling it.
Similarly, to test whether Eric Mazur’s techniques are working, wouldn’t it be

better to give students the Force Concepts Inventory test, rather than ask them
to explain Newton’s laws? This doesn’t mean that asking students to explain
things isn’t a good idea–generating explanations is great for learning, because
the Generation Effect seems to be a valid cognitive principle.
I realize I’m making a pretty sweeping claim here, but let me make it explicitly:
asking students to explain things is great for their learning, but it doesn’t provide
much evidence of their level of conceptual understanding. Please note that I’m not
saying that conceptual understanding doesn’t exist.
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Fair enough on the test – it was merely suggestive. Obviously, to take

the Mazur example, the FCI makes good sense. But my demand for
explanation was to link it to the C Core and to do what far too many
math teachers do – use non-multuple-chcoei questions. But I wasn’t
trying to design a valid & reliable test, just a suggestive one.
As for the ‘novice’ point, I think their argument is ludicrous – so

ludicrous they back off it later in the article.
Something got lost in #1…
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Ann Casebier said: April 24, 2014 at 9:01 am
This blog really hit “close to home.” We have just recently had this very
conversation in my school district. Early primary teachers think the math curriculum
is “too easy” and does not offer a “challenge” for their little guys. We are having a
very difficult time convincing these teachers how important it is to engineer many
learning opportunities for these young learners in order to build lifelong
conceptual understandings around foundational number patterns and the
intricacies of how numbers work together. Teachers are still in the mindset that
they need to “cover” lots of ground in early math or parents think their children
are not learning anything new. This blog made me realize the importance of
educating both teachers AND parents about math being more than just
memorizing formulas and rules.
Thank you!
Ann
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Indeed, Ann. I would be startled to hear any teacher say these

standards are “too easy”to “cover”. Show them my little “test” and ask
them to ponder it… Better yet, come up with one for your folks, based
on early-math misconceptions (e.g. the equal sign question).
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educationrealist said: April 24, 2014 at 7:00 pm
I don’t know if you know of Michael Pershan, but he recently

was griping about why he needed to waste his time on
place value, which his kids already knew solid. You may be
pleased to know that me and a couple other teachers told
him look, they don’t really understand it. He’s teaching very
advanced fourth graders, exactly the sort who need to
really be pushed to think conceptually. We convinced him:
http://rationalexpressions.blogspot.com/2014/01/help-
rookie-elementary-math-teacher.html
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grantwiggins said:
April 24, 2014 at 8:28 pm
I have followed his postings – good for you.
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nainibasu said: April 24, 2014 at 4:53 am
Thank you for the list of misconceptions. I am happy to learn that I teach
“conceptually” as I anticipate possible misconceptions prior to teaching a new
concept and then ask plenty of questions. However, I realized I had a
misconception such as the the diagonal of a square not being the same size as its
size! Oops I also liked the step by step procedure of how to go about having a
productive maths class. Excellent resource which I have shared with our maths
teachers.
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logicalincrementalism said: April 24, 2014 at 1:58 am
Came across this post via http://websofsubstance.wordpress.com/
More discussion, over several posts, on the Kirschner, Sweller & Clark (2006)
paper on my blog here http://logicalincrementalism.wordpress.com/
My main problems with the KSC paper are that they over-extrapolate the
conclusions that can be drawn from the data, overlook the reasons why some
students fail to learn even with direct instruction, and, as Grant points out above,
make sweeping generalisations about the nature of both direct instruction and
‘minimal guidance’ pedagogies.
They also, for reasons I haven’t yet fathomed, omit any reference to the Baddeley
and Hitch model of working memory that’s dominated the field for 4 decades.
Harry Webb doesn’t think that matters, but I do – even if only on the basis of
good scholarship.
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I’m a bit confused, although flattered to be called “learned”. I do not reject your
work at all. I may have confused things by getting into the middle of the
discussion. And certainly, I conflate the difference between “constructivist
teaching” and “constructivism” in my writing, because I’m lazy, but not in my head,
because my head’s better at keeping things straight.
I do not in any sense think that conceptual understanding exists as a goal

separate from knowledge. In my experience, kids forget most of what they are
taught no matter the method, so I want them to have the sense of
understanding, which can only come if they engage with the concept and tasks
directly, not just because I told them.
Perhaps this is unnecessary, but I’m bothered enough that you think I don’t
respect your work that I’ll try to explain my pov:
1. Picture a debate between Jo Boaler and Harry Webb. I’d be on Harry’s side all
the way, even though we don’t have similar teaching styles or values.
2. In a discussion between, say, Dan Meyer and Harry Webb, I’d come down in the
middle but nearer Harry than Dan. Dan’s lessons are far too open-ended for my
tastes, and if you examine the reasons why, I’ll sound a lot like Harry. But I
actually have a lot in common with Dan. I just don’t think he’s spent enough time
with low ability kids to understand their issues, and isn’t (in my view) cognizant
that his lack of experience is relevant.
3. In a debate between you and Harry, I’d come down much nearer you. My big
issue with you, as I’ve written, is that your examples are all very Jo Boaler squish,
but your reasoning is all very solid. So I have to ignore your examples and just
focus on the substance. It took me several years to figure this out.
I think conceptual understanding is essential to my teaching. However, for many

of my students, remembering the procedures is *not* the simplistic task that
many portray it. For example, multi-step equations–many of my algebra I kids can
explain and understand distribution, combining like terms, and isolation with a fair
degree of conceptual knowledge. But put all the steps together and they become
disoriented. Focusing on procedure to help them put the concepts in action is
essential. So yes, as you say, both are needed. But worked examples and lots of
practice doesn’t mean that teachers are overly focused on procedures, nor does it
mean they’ve ignored concepts.
As for your test, my kids would do pretty well. We go through division by 0, I teach
proofs through algebra, not geometry, I don’t even know the answer to the 13th
one, though. But then, I’m an English major. I’ll give it to them and report back.
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Thanks for this. I appreciate your candor and clarity. I’ll have more to
say, i think, when the dust settles. First, I want to see some test
results!
PS: The answer to the 13th question – and that was a VERY inside joke
to those who have played music with me (Seatrain, 70s) -runs
something like this: we have the axioms we do in order to prove the
theorems we want. Famously, the parallel postulate had to be added
to make all the key theorems work. Then, it was discovered that if we
try out alternative postulates of parallelism, we get VALID non-
Euclidean geometries….
It’s like baseball. Once we decide how the game should be played, we
make the rules fit the “spirit” of the game. Hence, the famous pine-tar
bat ruling by the AL Commissioner, overturning the umpires’ decision
against George Brett’s home run….
It’s like the first 10 Amendments to the US Constitution…
A goofy axiom would lead to nonsense or internal contradictions.

Famously, mathematicians who denied the parallel postulate as part of
investigating its validity decided prematurely to end their investigations
because they thought the new theorems were absurd (e.g. no similar
figures, only congruent; no 180 degrees in all triangles, etc.) But it took
Gauss, Bolyai, and Lobascevsky to say: hey just ’cause the results are
weird doesn’t mean they are nonsense – and so, non-Euclidean
geometry was born.
Great history of this and the importance of this line of argument in

Morris Kline’s book on the Loss of Mathemtical Certainty about 30 years
ago.
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Oh, I talk about the fifth postulate and undefined terms in

my first geometry lecture. I usually come back to it in
precalc, too. I didn’t realize that’s what you meant. I
actually blogged about the lecture:
http://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/geometry-
starting-off/ Let me know if I said anything actively wrong.
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grantwiggins said:
April 24, 2014 at 6:50 pm
I’ll check out the blog post!
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Mārtiņš Kālis said: April 23, 2014 at 8:06 am
By the way, the link to the paper on teachernet.gov.uk does not work, but thank
you for the list of misconceptions! It’s not that easy to find good resources on this.
This is another one that I like:
http://www.counton.org/resources/misconceptions/pdfs/misconceptions1~22.pdf
But I’d be happy for any other leads as well!
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I’ll check the link – thanks!
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markliddell said: April 23, 2014 at 7:06 am
Hattie makes mention of the seven characteristics of experts vs novices in Visible

Learning and the Science of How We Learn. He also notes that students can
spend years performing activities successfully without increasing their skills to
expert levels.
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Doug Holton said: April 23, 2014 at 6:57 am
The citing of the 2006 Kirshner, Sweller, Clark article has become a good
barometer for identifying folks with naive understandings of educational research
and learning theories. They may not even be aware that several rebuttals were
published in the very same journal, or that the same authors are also against the
use of videogames in education, too:
http://edtechdev.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/problem-based-learning-
videogames-inquiry-learning-constructivism-pedagogical-agents-all-bad/
Unfortunately one of those folks was very active on Wikipedia, biasing several
educational articles:
http://edtechdev.wordpress.com/2007/12/26/an-argument-for-knols-over-
wikipedia-and-citizendium/
Interpreting educational research and critiques is itself a difficult skill to learn. I’ve
noticed grad students tend go through phases, first believing anything they read,
then rejecting everything else, and finally trying to take a more balanced point of
view and look for the advantages and limitations of different research findings and
theoretical frameworks. If you’re not aware of ANY criticisms or limitations of
something or any positives, then maybe you don’t have a good conceptual
understanding, then maybe you don’t understand it well yet:
Doug Holton
Shared publicly - Apr 18, 2014 Follow
I tend to see 3 phases graduate students (and increasingly, the public)

go through when reading and interpreting educational research or
opinions. In the first phase, they believe everything they read, they
drink the koolaid, etc. In the second phase, as they inevitably come
across
Read differing
more opinions, they start rejecting that which is different, or
(147 lines)
even going so far as to reject everything, even what they originally
believed in. And finally in the third phase I guess I hope that folks start
to take things with a grain of salt and try to understand the pros and
Problem-Based Learning,
cons of what they are reading - and more importantly, read a variety of
things on the matter. ToVideogames, Inquiry
me, if you can't think Learning,
of any criticisms of
Constructivism,
something or you can't think of any positivesPedagogical
whatsoever, you may not
really understand it. That's why I think itBad?
Agents...All is good to see criticisms of
even seemingly non-controversial ideas, like TPACK (technological,
pedagogical content edtechdev.wordpress.com
knowledge): http://jperk30.edublogs.org/2009/09/06/where-is-the-
learner-a-tpack-framework-critique/comment-page-1/
& http://www.richardolsen.me/b/2012/01/the-tpack-framework-is-
fundamentally-flawed/
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Thanks for the heads-up on this. I was unaware of the back and forth.
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Do you have the rebuttal articles?
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Mārtiņš Kālis said: April 23, 2014 at 7:59 am
Dan Meyer has links to a couple more of the articles

(towards the end of the blog post):
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/2011/winter-quarter-wrap-up-
spring-quarter-kick-off/
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grantwiggins said:
April 23, 2014 at 9:58 am
Thanks for this and your other citations! I

updated the piece, accordingly.
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Matt said: April 23, 2014 at 8:12 am
The original article, rebuttals and response frpm the original

authors are on the bottom of this page:
http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/recent_publications.php
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Harry Webb said: April 23, 2014 at 10:33 pm
Taking a view does not necessarily make one naïve unless, of course,
you assume that all those who disagree with you are naïve. I, for one,
am familiar with the responses to the Kirschner, Sweller and Clark
paper. And I am also familiar with their response to these responses. I
posted about this a while back:
http://websofsubstance.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/the-kirschner-
sweller-clark-2006-cycle-of-papers/
You made a similar comment to this on my own blog where you

assumed that I did not know about these responses.
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Matt Metzgar said: April 24, 2014 at 1:20 pm
“that the same authors are also against the use of videogames in
education, too”
Off-topic, but I didn’t know anyone credible was actually FOR video
games in education.
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Obviously you haven’t been following the minecraft story…

Read this: http://www.gamesforchange.org/ and the recent
NYT article on this.
And I have helped 2 groups develop some very cool history-

based games….
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Matt Metzgar said:
April 24, 2014 at 8:24 pm
I have not been following this, and I remain

skeptical of it. But it is off-topic, so I will leave it
be. Might make an interesting future post for
your blog.
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David Wees said: April 23, 2014 at 6:55 am
Can I offer an example of evidence that conceptual understanding exists?
My son, who is 7, with no formal procedural instruction in fractions, is able to add

familiar fractions with a like denominator together, and decompose those fractions
into components. He understands what it means to add together objects, and so
is able to generalize his understanding of addition to adding fractions together.
See this transcript of a conversation he and I had together a year ago when he
was 6. http://maththinking.org/2013/03/27/decomposing-fractions/
One thought I have after reading your post is that in my work with teachers I
need to check for understanding of the phrase “conceptual understanding.” I’m
curious about what works to build a different model of what it means to know
something for teachers who are fixated on a ‘there is only procedural knowledge’
mindset.
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Totally agree – I think ‘conceptual understanding’ is a bit of a litmus

test for – well, understanding!
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Cool example of your kid’s thinking. Alas, very few teachers (or
parents) encourage this sort of generalization as a major goal of the
coursework.
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Atlas Educational said: April 27, 2014 at 9:57 am
David, in my experience, much of the conceptual understanding model

prevalent throughout much of Common Core is intimidating to many
teachers. After all, it means admitting that they have not been teaching
with the best approach and will probably need further support in
reaching the conceptual level themselves using their own content.
In short, depth is tough.
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Harry Webb said: April 23, 2014 at 6:06 am
Hi Grant
Thanks for linking to my blog. However, the post that you are most directly
refuting is probably this one:
http://websofsubstance.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/the-superior-nature-of-
understanding/
I will respond to the points that you raise in a post of my own – it probably
deserves extended attention.
All the best
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Right you are – I’ll fix. PS: I am not making a category mistake.
Knowledge is necessary but not sufficient for understanding – period.
And since it is possible to have great understanding with limited
knowledge and no understanding with great knowledge, we are
talking about two different cognitive processes and outcomes.
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Harry Webb said: April 23, 2014 at 10:25 pm
I would reject the notion that you can have great

understanding with limited knowledge. There is a strong
argument against this proposition in chapter 2 of “Why
don’t students like school,” by Dan Willingham.
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grantwiggins said:
April 26, 2014 at 6:06 am
Frank Sulloway famously said: Darwin who

knew less, understood more – in response to
his limited knowledge of geology. A perfect
example.
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Harry Webb said:
April 26, 2014 at 7:21 pm
I suspect that Darwin’s knowledge of

geography was better than most,
given that he travelled around the
world by boat.
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grantwiggins said:
April 27, 2014 at 7:12 am
geology, though, was the

quote. And if you read the
chapter it’s clear what he
meant and it relates to Kuhn’s
paradigm. The geologists
could not/would not see the
implications of their own
knowledge in terms of
developmentalism.
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Harry Webb
said:
April 28, 2014 at 5:46 am
Fair enough. I stand

corrected. However, I
also suspect that
Darwin’s knowledge of
geology was better than
most too. He probably
had a good idea of the
different rock types and
and what the word
‘strata’ means etc.
whilst not being a world
expert. It is exactly
these sorts of facts that
are required to think
within a discipline and it
is just these sorts of
facts that are often
disparaged. We expect
children to somehow
think deeply without
them. It is surprising
just how keen
educators are to
diminish the role of
knowledge. I see
endless quotes
misattributed to Einstein
on similar lines.
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Harry Webb
said:
April 28, 2014 at 5:53 am
Indeed, a little
investigation seems to
show that Darwin knew
certainly more than a
little geology. He
appears to have won a
medal from the
Geological Society of
London for, “‘for his
numerous contributions
to Geological Science.”
http://darwin200.christs.cam.ac.uk/pages/index.php?
page_id=c3
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Granted, and… ~ thoughts on education by Grant Search… Go

Grant Wiggins is the co-author

Join 6,656 othe r followe rs

document merely states that “understanding” means being able to justify

explain where the mnemonic comes from. Part 1 of a reply to Willingham

Why do so many HS history

helped to generalize from one’s specific knowledge is key to genuine

understanding why it is true. On reading, Part 4: research

freshman at a competitive university) argued that 0.015 was a larger

Another common conceptual problem is understanding that an equal sign (

estimates, as few as 25 percent of American sixth- graders have a deep

Here is a lovely paper expanding upon the issue of misconceptions in

2. When you multiply two numbers together, the answer is always

Grant Wiggins, of brilliant

From Teachers: January 2006 Issue 42 UK (alas, the link no longer

Math teachers, give it to your students; tell us the results.

5) “Multiplication is just repeated addition.” Explain why this statement is

around a table. A school is giving a party for parents, siblings, students

hides. Dan Willingham on My

11) What’s the difference between an “accurate” answer and “an

Here are the ones I know of so far:

True or false: .999999… = 1

Explain why a negative times a negative = a positive.

Steve also pointed me to a cool example of the value of undefined terms

Some of my critics regularly cite Willingham’s summary of educational research,

Unfortunately, of the three varieties of knowledge that students need,

This is also why conceptual knowledge is so important as students

1. The authors claim that those who use discovery/problem-based/project-

Another consequence of attempts to implement constructivist theory is a

Our goal is to put an end to the debate (about direct vs discovery

What a curious definition of “novice”! The “novice” category is stretched to

In general, the expertise reversal effect states that “instructional

Willingham in fact concludes his article by questioning the very novice-expert

Somewhat more controversial is the relative emphasis that should be given

Perhaps with sufficient practice and automaticity of algorithms, students

There is some evidence to support both views. Conceptual knowledge

Indeed. Sequence in learning is not at all settled, as Clark et al profess, when

The key to understanding understanding: the ubiquity of persistent

This is surely a slanted view. There is a 30-year history of research in science

The paradox of education. What these examples beautifully indicate is the

In fact, a telling comment made by Barak Rosenshine, a leader in direct

Rosenshine and Stevens concluded that across a number of studies, when

Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning.

Begin a lesson with a short statement of goals.

In most of these studies students who received “direct instruction” in

(Note, therefore, that DI offers no justification for the kind of “direct

Interestingly, in an interview Rosenshine seems a bit insensitive to the problem

Rosenshine: “Cognitive strategies” refers to specific strategies students

How hard would it be to show weaker students a 3- and a 9-paragraph “essay”

Rosenshine: One very promising area of teaching research has been to

But, unfortunately, the research was never used to develop an

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Some excerpts from Just back from a The dismal state of

54 THO UGHTS O N “C O N C EPTUAL UN D ERS TAN D IN G IN MATHEMATIC S ”

Susan said: March 25, 2015 at 7:09 pm

Any suggetions on what true math concepts might be 7-12?

grantwiggins said: March 26, 2015 at 8:04 am

A concept is a model, theory, general principle – an idea, an inference

Epigami said: March 20, 2015 at 5:13 am

Interesting article! It is indeed quite difficult to get concepts through to the

grantwiggins said: April 27, 2014 at 5:23 pm

Atlas Educational said: April 28, 2014 at 9:43 am