Abstract Despite significant similarities, knowledge and understanding are two completely different categories. In education, proper categorization of knowledge and understanding provides teachers with extensive tools needed for organizing curriculum content around the key concepts, and developing meaningful connections between the curriculum content and students’ real world experiences.
Knowledge vs. Understanding Despite significant similarities, knowledge and understanding are two completely different categories. In education, proper categorization of knowledge and understanding provide teachers with the extensive tools for organizing curriculum content around the key concepts, and developing meaningful connections between the curriculum content and students’ real world experiences. Knowledge is usually referred to as “a set of established facts” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005); in other words, knowledge is a body of coherent facts, or verifiable claims, which are necessarily right or wrong, but which are not necessarily understood by people. In other words, understanding “is an unobvious and important inference, needing uncoverage” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Knowledge requires understanding, and understanding is impossible without knowledge. Understanding makes sense of facts, ideas, and skills that form the foundation of knowledge. Understanding tells us what these facts, ideas, and skills mean; and while knowledge is an objective category (facts and ideas are either correct or incorrect), understanding is totally subjective. Any understanding is a fallible theory in itself (Bergeron, 2003). The difference between “I know” and “I understand” may be dramatic at times; that is why it is critical that teachers possess sufficient skills, experience, and sound criteria for evaluating the extent to which students understand the facts and ideas, which they learn in