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Signature Assignment

Melinda M Ekstrand

Colorado Christian University

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In today’s day and age, teaching strategies are more numerous and easier to access than

ever before. While this seems ideal, it can be difficult to sort through which strategies are

actually worth the time and effort. One must be careful to research teaching strategies before

trying them in the classroom. This helps a teacher find which strategies will work best for their

classroom, and show them how to use them in the most effective way. Especially when teaching

out of a love for Christ, it is important to treat our students with intentionality and care. There is

so much accessible information available to us now, so we should be using it to create the best

classroom environments possible. However, this can become overwhelming when faced with too

many options. The best way to do this is to start with the more basic teaching strategies that can

be used on a daily basis, instead of the more elaborate strategies that can be difficult to start out

one’s teaching career with.

Chunking is a teaching strategy that has been used for many years, and in many academic

contexts. Chunking is the idea of separating content into sections and teaching them gradually.

Teaching material in small amounts and assisting students while they practice each chunk is a

great way to make sure that all students not only know the material, but feel comfortable enough

to add more material on. In a math class setting, this is crucial for building foundational

knowledge with students before moving on to complex mathematical concepts. This strategy can

be extremely beneficial to all kinds of learning, as most teachers’ unit plans revolve around

building some form of foundational knowledge and adding material on top of that. However,

chunking can be more specific by allowing students to practice their knowledge before moving

on to the next level of material.

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Since chunking has been a teaching strategy for many years now, there is an abundance

of research on its benefits and challenges. At first glance, it seems that there are many

psychological benefits to chunking. According to the Malaysian Online Journal of Educational

Science, “the chunking strategy reduces cognitive overload therefore increasing the learner’s

mentalstorage capacity.” This means that because this strategy reduces the amount of

information learned at a particular time, the information becomes easier to grasp. This is due to

the fact that “schematic chunks denote patterns, schemes, or sophisticated rules and knowledge

stored in the long-term memory in the form of chunks,” (Sage Journals). Chunking is

scientifically proven to increase brain function by reducing information into bite-sized pieces

that are easier to associate with each other, which makes these easier to recall in our short and

long term memory as well.

The idea of chunking is one of the older teaching strategies that we have extensive

research on. “George A. Miller formulated the chunk concept in 1956, as he presented evidence

that working memory is limited in capacity,” (The Learning Coach). This idea was based on the

functionality of the human brain, and was most likely developed as a result of the study of

psychology growing in popularity during this time in history. It is no surprise that the teaching

strategy of chunking has remained a staple for teachers everywhere since then. It has become a

basic part of most unit plans, and even some lesson plans. However, taking a closer look at one’s

teaching strategies instead of simply going with the status quo is always a great way to care for

one’s students.

Although chunking is a fabulous teaching strategy that has kept its ground for half a

century, this does not mean that it does not have any flaws. Chunking can quickly become time
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consuming when planning a unit. When faced with limited meeting times, it can be difficult for a

teacher to separate content into digestible chunks. For example, a blocked class that only meets

once a week might become a challenge for the chunking strategy. Since the teacher is responsible

for covering all content in a unit, with limited meeting dates, this can become extremely difficult

to section out content over a longer period of time. The teacher’s options in this instance is either

to teach more material at once and assign practice that separates it out over the days that students

are not meeting in class, or sectioning out given class time to differentiate the chunks of learning.

Both of these options are not always ideal, and chunking may not always be realistic for any

given lesson plan depending on classroom circumstances. However, there are great ways to

incorporate this teaching strategy whenever applicable to a given lesson plan.

Teaching is quite possibly the oldest and most natural occupation of all humanity. The act

of teaching is not reserved to those in a school’s payroll. We are all teachers every time we

instruct our children, or even our peers. Jesus was the best teacher of all, but his occupation was

technically a carpenter. However, for those of us who do call ourselves professional teachers, the

best way to use our job to serve Christ is to make Jesus our role model of the perfect teacher. In

the gospels, Jesus instructed his disciples intimately, and taught the crowds that surrounded him

in Holy and perfect ways. Although he never wrote down a specific lesson plan of the teaching

strategies that he used to reach these people during his lifetime, we can use our research today to

compare our own teaching to his and, hopefully, see some similarities between the two.

Regarding the strategy of chunking, we can see Jesus’ model of teaching in the gospels.

He teaches His disciples about the Lord’s plan for His life slowly. The first time Jesus introduced

the idea was in Matthew 16:21. He tells his disciples that “he must go into Jerusalem and suffer
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many things… and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” He prepared the

disciples for his death a second time in Matthew 17:22 by stating that “the Son of Man is going

to be delivered into the hands of men. 23 they will kill him and on the third day he will be raised

back to life.” He introduced the idea again by hinting towards it during the last supper in Luke

22. He tells the disciples that this will be the last time he enjoys the Passover, as he will suffer

very soon. Each time Jesus teaches his disciples about the Lord’s Holy plan, he adds a little bit

more information and allows a little bit more questioning. He also did this slowly as a way to let

the disciples learn about His plans in a more digestible way. This is the same system that we use

with the chunking teaching strategy. It includes teaching students in small fragments, and

reminding students of what they have already learned when adding on new information. This

makes our lessons more digestible and easier to understand. Jesus used this when teaching his

disciples about one of the hardest plans to understand in all human history. For a group of people

who loved Christ, this could not have been easy to learn. However, the way that Jesus taught

them gradually helped them understand His plans more fully. Jesus also did this in many other

places in the Bible by teaching his people gradually, and repeating Himself often. However, the

introduction of his sacrifice was the most tangible way this was modeled in the gospels.

The idea of the check for understanding teaching strategy is very similar to the idea of

chunking. Its essential goal is to make sure students are not getting lost in the material being

taught. However, checking for understanding is a bit different in that the teacher creates ways to

assess student progress regularly. This can be done through quizzing, asking students to raise

their hand if they understand, asking students to repeat instruction back to the teacher, or

assigning an exit slip at the end of class to check student understanding. This makes this strategy
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a bit more difficult to pull off in some contexts, as it can add much more time to a lesson or

cause backtracking within a lesson. However, I believe that its benefits outweigh its possible

challenges. Checking for understanding can ensure that the teacher is not only aware of student

progress, but is able to plan their lesson around their students’ current level of knowledge. I also

believe that this teaching strategy is one of the more basic teaching strategies because it is

essential for learning. In fact, the idea of formative assessments is a form of checking for

understanding itself. Teaching without checking your students’ progress could feel aimless and

confusing. This method not only helps students stay on track, but helps teachers plan their

lessons. It can be easy to lose teaching motivation when lessons don’t seem to be landing and

students don’t seem to be progressing.

Student progress can be difficult to map, but when done well, it can improve the

effectiveness of a lesson tremendously. In order to promote true learning, “a student must oneself

be an active thinker and processor, and construct new information on top of old information.”

This means that students cannot be uninvolved in their own learning. They must take an active

role in the process along with their teachers, and in order to do this, they must be aware of the

full learning process and know how to take a big role in it. Duncan from InterPrep Inc. says that

“involved students are engaged students, and engaged students are learners,” and “engaged

learners are also empowered learners.” Simply put, the more active students are in their learning,

the more they will actually learn. Lecturing at students without any checks for understanding

may get some information across to some students, but leaves room for students who have no

idea what is being taught to float through a class period, uninvolved, and unimproved in their

learning. A lesson like this can become a waste of time in the student’s life. “Students must
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experience learning that involves them, is worthy of their time, and captures their commitment,

energy and enthusiasm. And that takes teachers who intentionally and skillfully plan to make

such learning happen,” (Duncan, 2015). Involving students in the process of learning is essential

to their progress. Checking for understanding is one of the best ways to involve students in their

own learning by planning lessons around the students’ current knowledge and allowing them to

take more responsibility in their own progress as well. Students simply cannot track their own

progress or know if they are on the right track if their teacher never even asks.

Checking for understanding is one of the more broad teaching strategies, resulting in

confusion of where this idea began or how it developed. However, formative assessments are one

of the most tangible ways we see this practice in teaching today. The most essential function of

formative assessments is to guide future teaching based on students’ current knowledge, which is

what the function of checking for understanding is. However, formative assessments are not the

only way teachers can check understanding. As previously stated, this can be done in a plethora

of ways, such as asking students to raise their hand if they understand, asking students to repeat

instruction back to the teacher, or assigning an exit slip at the end of class. New technology has

also created more opportunities for checks outside of the classroom as well, through online

discussion boards, and even email, where students can ask questions, or teachers can ask what

information they need to review in the next class period. This teaching strategy is extremely

versatile and useful for every kind of class and subject. For example, in my own college level

math class, my professor asks us to fill out an exit slip where we can let her know that we

understand the lesson, or write down some things we had trouble with. She goes over these

anonymous slips the next class period in order to make sure everyone is on the same page.
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However, this is not exclusive to math classes. It can easily be transferred to any subject in the

form of exit slips and in every other form as well.

It is no secret that checking for understanding is an extremely versatile teaching strategy,

but this does not mean that it comes without challenges. Constant checks before moving forward

with a lesson can not only be time-consuming, but can even become frustrating to students.

When they have to keep proving their understanding while attempting to learn at the same time,

it can become exhausting and repetitive. Not only this, but teachers must also be wary of the

ways that they are checking for understanding in certain contexts as well. Some students may use

these checks for understanding as a grounds for competition with each other if it is made too

public, such as the teacher asking students to raise their hands if they understand. This could

potentially embarrass the students that do not understand the material, creating an unsafe

learning environment within the classroom. However, this is not to say that these challenges

cannot be avoided. A teacher simply needs to be aware of potential problems that could arise

from the specific ways that they are using checks for understanding within their own classroom,

as each group of students is different and unique. The best way to work through this as an

educator is to make a flexible plan that can be changed according to the specific needs of the

class and students at hand.

Teaching would feel pointless if the teacher was unaware of student progress. Checking

that one’s students understand the material being taught is a great way to not only keep teaching

motivation, but serve students well by allowing them to become a part of their own learning.

Students are more likely to stay motivated in school when they believe that they hold some

power over their own educational journey. Allowing students to check in on their own progress
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while letting their teacher know where they’re at as well empowers students to not only keep

learning, but even make their learning their own. When students become accustomed to checks

for understanding, they can have more freedom with their learning, as teachers can learn to trust

their own learning process that may be unique to them. At the end of the day, a teacher’s goal is

not to simply get a group of students to behave. Nor is it their goal to get students to do well on a

test. A teacher’s goal is instead to administer real learning in their students’ lives. This can only

be done by checking in on their real progress, instead of simply giving a grade. Learning that is

administered this way is much more beneficial to students as it goes along with their own

progress and is flexible to their own needs. This can only be done successfully if the teacher is

not only aware of their students’ progress but also uses that information to guide their future

teaching as well. This is the main idea of a formative assessment, and of checking for

understanding as a teaching strategy as a whole.

Checking for understanding is very similar to the chunking strategy in that they are both

nearly as ancient as teaching itself. Jesus modelled the checking for understanding teaching

strategy during His own life. Multiple times throughout the gospels, Jesus used probing

questions in order to get people to tell him what they know. Despite the fact that God knows all

and probably didn’t need people to tell Him how they felt, this was still an essential part of their

learning, as it made people aware of their own progress as students of Jesus and encouraged in

their current understanding of his teachings. In Luke 24:17, just after Jesus had resurrected and

the disciples had seen the empty tomb, Jesus ran into two of the disciples talking about it and

“asked them, ‘What are you discussing together as you walk along?’” These men were clearly

discussing his own resurrection, but Jesus asked the question anyway. This is because his goal
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was not to hear the answer, his goal was to hear their version of the answer, and get a better look

at their understanding of his resurrection. He used a probing question to hear what they think

about his resurrection because he cares about their understanding of it more than the actual event

itself. One of the most powerful ways that Jesus used the checking for understanding technique

in the gospels was in Matthew 16, where He asks his disciples first “Who do people say the Son

of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13). This encouraged them to think deeper about what the Son of Man

actually means. Then, he asked the more important question, “‘But what about you? Who do you

say I am?’” (Matthew 16:15). This was a direct question that Jesus was using to get a better

understanding of who his disciples see Him as. “Simon Peter answered ‘You are the Messiah, the

Son of the living God.’ Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not

revealed to you by flesh and blood, but my Father in Heaven.’” (Matthew 16:16-17). Peter’s

answer was far more valuable than any lesson Jesus could have directly taught, because it

showed a deeper understanding of who Jesus is through Peter’s own words. He showed Jesus

that he truly understood His lessons by coming to this grand conclusion on his own. Jesus

pointed out that this is much more valuable than simply regurgitating back information that he

taught, because he knew Peter truly understood who He was and what He taught when he put the

pieces of the puzzle together to say that He was the Messiah. Jesus did not need to ask Peter who

he was, this was for the purpose of checking his knowledge.

Jesus checked his understanding and was met with an awesome display of Peter’s knowledge of

who He was.

The teaching strategies of chunking and checking for understanding are not new. They

have been used in some form or fashion as long as teaching has been an occupation. However,
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they are still essential to teaching as we know it today, simply because of how fundamental they

are for successful student learning. Chunking material to make learning more digestible and less

overwhelming helps students by allowing them to master a subtopic before moving on to the

next, and checking for understanding regularly helps teachers plan their lessons to be more

effective. Teachers have used these strategies for ages without ever knowing the names, and most

likely will continue to use these strategies after extensive research as well.
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References

Che La, Norma. Cognitive Strategy in Learning Chemistry: How Chunking and ... - Ed.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1086202.pdf.

Duncan, Greg. Nurturing Engaged and Empowered Learners. 2015,

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1090960.pdf.

Learning Forward https://learningforward.org/author/learning-forward/. “Shift the Thinking

Load to Students.” Learning Forward, Feb. 2020,

https://learningforward.org/journal/student-voice/shift-the-thinking-load-to-students/.

Merritt, Eileen G. “Teaching Practices in Grade 5 Mathematics Classrooms with High-Achieving

English Learner Students.” Taylor & Francis, 26 July 2016,

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220671.2015.1034352.