How to Teach Big Ideas

Teaching big ideas may help students retain valuable information.

Teaching big ideas, also called teaching for meaning, guides students to learn the core value(s) of course material. Based on brain science and learning, teaching big ideas helps students retain the point of lessons long after they have forgotten supporting details, according to the Kentucky Department of Education. Teach big ideas by chunking information around major concepts, which helps learners pull on information learned prior to current course content.

Instructions

1. Teach generalizations to help students connect information from other course contents and from information across the curriculum. Focus, for example, on science lessons about how living organisms adapt to radically shifting environments so students learn principles of interdependence. Use related activities to provide supporting details.

2. Develop curriculum according to the backward design instructional design process. Plan classroom activities after presenting goals and designing assessments, recommends Understanding by Design creator, Grant Wiggins. Acquaint students, for example, with the goals for lessons about the Founding Fathers of the United States, which might include big ideas such as democracy, freedom and responsibility as well as commitment to ideals.

3. Implement student and peer feedback reviews. Adjust course and teaching design according to feedback and according to student and school performance. Coordinate with faculty to reinforce concepts if big ideas, such as interdependence, for example, do not translate across the curriculum.

References

• Kentucky Department of Education: Teaching With the "Big Ideas"
• Authentic Education: What Is Understanding by Design?

Resources

• Indiana Wesleyan University: Understanding by Design
• State University of New York at Albany; Teaching Big Ideas; Sean Walmsley