Uncoverage vs Coverage

The Foundation of a Structured Course

The foundation of a structured course should be enduring understanding. In other words, rather than stressing what students are expected to read, teachers should focus more on what students need to understand. In the book Understanding by Design, Wiggins and McTigher discuss uncoverage as digging up information to help students learn something new (Rubio, 2017). It places a strong emphasis on disclosing ideas, information, experiences, and presumptions that can prevent pupils from comprehending subjects in the classroom. As contrast to coverage, which primarily focuses on the breadth of knowledge a class covers. In a classroom, uncoverage mostly entails delving further into the lessons that are being taught and the teacher’s directives. The steps towards discovering depth in the material used for teaching involves unearthing, analyzing, and questioning. Afterward, the material needs to be proven and taken the level of generalization. The first part, unearthing, matters a lot in an efficient learning environment. Here, the teacher needs to bring to light the missing, misunderstood, and controversial concept to connect the ideas in the material with the topic being studied. Uncoverage further focuses on learning of ideas through testing them in various scenarios. Besides, it requires the students to learn ideas by using them to organize other ideas, data, and experiences which are incompatible to coverage that treats all facts as distinct parts of equal value.

Formative Assignments and Clear Objectives

I agree with you that formative assignments during the lesson are necessary to know whether the set objectives are being met. But before this, curriculum design should be in a position to state clear and reachable objectives (Rubio, 2017). Stating of objectives will help in avoiding overloading teachers or omitting some necessary concepts in the course. Otherwise, projects and group assignments should be included in the curriculum to engage learners and make them think critically. An example of uncoverage is map exercise which allows students to identify locations using the geographical characteristics knowledge they learned earlier.

Reference

Rubio, A. M. D. (2017). Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J.(2005) Understanding by design . Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development ASCD. Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, 19(1).