7. Students learn better when they gain understanding, not just knowledge acquisition.

Conventional teaching introduces students to plenty of facts, concepts, and routines from a discipline such as History. But it typically does much less to awaken students to the way the discipline works-how one justifies, explains, solves problems, and manages inquiry within the discipline.

Yet in just such patterns of thinking lie the performances of understanding that make up what it is to understand those facts, concepts, and routines in a rich and generative way. Accordingly, the teacher teaching for understanding needs to undertake an extended mission of explicit consciousness raising about the structure and logic of the disciplines taught.
"How Students Learn", George Brown, Key Guides for Effective Teaching in Higher Education, RoutledgeFalmer (2004)
"How Students Learn History in the Classroom", M. Suzanne Donovan, John D. Bransford, National Academies Press, National Research Council ( 2005)

Students can repeat facts that are meaningless to them, but the chances are they will forget them quickly, because the information serves no clearly useful purpose. When a student goes from knowing facts, to understanding them, far more learning is taking place. Understanding means that information, concepts or skills are so well known that the student can apply them to new situations and make new connections they have not previously learned.

Students learn better when they understand "Historical Thinking". Historical thinking is an "unnatural act ". It's not everyday thinking. It has to be explicitly taught and practiced.

Conventional teaching introduces students to plenty of facts, concepts, and routines from a discipline such as history. But it typically does much less to awaken students to the way the discipline works-how one justifies, explains, solves problems, and manages inquiry within the discipline.

Yet in just such patterns of thinking lie the performances of understanding that make up what it is to understand those facts, concepts, and routines in a rich and generative way. Accordingly, the teacher teaching for understanding needs to undertake an extended mission of explicit consciousness raising about the structure and logic of the disciplines taught.
"Teaching for Understanding", David Perkins, 2010