What approaches to composing texts – spoken, written, visual, performance and multimedia – work best for me?
Performances of understanding are learning activities that require students to use knowledge in new ways or situations and which help them to build as well as demonstrate understanding. They are always connected to one or more of the understanding goals and require students to show their understanding in an observable way. Performances of understanding should be sequenced appropriately throughout a well-constructed unit. In the ‘Teaching for Understanding Framework’ performances of understanding are sequenced as follows: • Introductory performances. These are performances designed to allow students to explore and engage with the generative topic and to help the teacher gauge students’ current understanding of the topic. • Guided inquiry performances. In these performances students use an inquiry approach to develop their understanding of key aspects of the generative topic. The inquiry is usually based around an open-ended question. For example, ‘Who will survive?’ or ‘What makes good
