The 6 Facets Of Understanding: A Definition For Teachers

What are the 6 Facets of Understanding?

Definition: The 6 Facets of Understanding is a non-hierarchical framework for understanding. It

is made up of 6 ‘domains’ or ‘facets’ that are useful as indicators of understanding

The framework was created by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe to work with and through their
Understanding by Design model. Because it is intended to, in part, support teachers in
evaluating and assessing student understanding, it can not only be used to design assessments
but also create the activities and lessons designed to lead to that understanding. (Think
backward design.)

The six facets appear in the bulleted list below.

The 6 Facets of Understanding

All summaries and definitions (italicized) are taken from Understanding by Design,
Expanded 2nd Edition.

Explanation
Explanation asks students to tell the ‘big idea’ in their own words, make connections, show their
work, explain their reaosning, and induce a theory from data.
Interpretation
Interpretation requires the student to make sense of stories, art works, data, situations, or
claims. Intepretation also involves translating ideas, feelings, or work done in one medium into
another.
Application
Students who understand can use their knowledge and skill in new situations (and) place
emphasis on application in authentic contexts with a real or simulated audience, purpose,
settings, constraints, and background noise.
Perspective
Perspective is demonstrated when the student can see things from different points of view,
articulate the other side of the case, see the big picture, recognize underlying assumptions, and
take a critical stance.
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Empathy
Intellectual imagination is essential to understanding and it manifests itself not only in the arts
and literature but more generally through the ability to appreciate people who think and act
differently than us.
Self-Knowledge
…through self-assessment we gain complete insight into how sophisticated and accurate
students’ views are of the tasks, crieria, and standards they are to master.

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Using The 6 Facets of Understanding In Your Classroom
Unlike Bloom’s Taxonomy (and Bloom’s Taxonomy power verbs), the 6 Facets of Understanding
is a non-hierarchical framework–meaning that there are not ‘lower levels’ and ‘higher levels’ of
thinking. ‘Self-Knowledge’ isn’t prioritized over ‘Explanation,’ for example. Nor is one facet
‘superior’ over another.
Rather, Grant and Jay intended for the ‘facets’ to be used to support teachers and students by
providing strategies to help assess understanding. And since traditional content areas range so
dramatically–from arts and literature to language and math–the idea is to create a framework
flexible enough to work in variety of contexts and needs.

In a 2014 white paper published by ASCD, Grant and Jay offered some background on the 6
Facets of Understanding.

The Six Facets of Understanding were conceived as six equal and suggestive indicators of
understanding, and thus are used to develop, select, or critique assessment tasks and prompts.
They were never intended to be a hierarchy. Rather, one selects the appropriate facet(s)
depending on the nature of the content and the desired understandings about it…We have never
suggested that a teacher must use all of the facets when assessing students’ understanding. For
example, an assessment in mathematics might ask students to apply their understanding of an
algorithm to a real-world problem and explain their reasoning. In history, we might ask learners
to explain a historical event from different perspectives. In sum, we recommend that teachers use
only the facet or facets that will provide appropriate evidence of the targeted understanding.

Contributing Factors: the diverse assessment needs across different content areas, culture,
technology access levels, etc; Grant and Jay’s excellent Ubd work over the years; a
combination of standardized test pressure narrowing our view of ‘understanding’ and the
expanding view of learning models above and beyond textbook work and pencil-and-paper
assessment, the ‘Whole Child‘ approach to teaching and learning

Related Educational Concepts: Understanding by Design, Instructional Design, Bloom’s

Taxonomy, Assessment, Critical Thinking, Project-Based Learning, Student-centered learning

Six Facets of Understanding: Grant Wiggins

To construct assessments that are valid, reliable and performance based, we need to define
understanding in terms of the 6 facets of understanding. Wiggins says if you ask students to do
any of these 6, you will be asking them to create a product that demonstrates understanding. In
groups, suggest an example of how you would have students explain their understanding based
on the facet of understanding assigned to your group.

1. Empathy: Not the same as sympathy (feel sorry). Rather you have to understand their
feelings.
2. Self-knowledge: builds on empathy. In latter you put yourself into someone else's
perspective. Self-knowledge is taking understanding of others and using it to understand
yourself. You can see your ignorance, and reflect on those. You see the difference
between your perspective and others.
3. Perspective: critical and insightful points of view. You need to understand other people's
point of view and opinions. Need to understand something from more than you own

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 view. Broad point of view. In debate, you can assign which side kids take, so it forces
them to research others' points of view.
4. Interpretation: Using big words doesn't mean you understand. To interpret you need to
be able to relate it to your life and things going on around you.
5. Application: ability to use knowledge in diverse situations and new contexts. Take what
you know and use it in your everyday life. Reciting doesn't show applications.
6. Explain: the how and why of topics, events and actions. Just because you get the
answer correct doesn't mean you understand it. Also, just because you can't write an
explain.

For educators to seek to assess student learning in a universal way, it is helpful to apply these
six facets of understanding, as identified by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe:

1. Explanation – Students can provide sophisticated and meaningful explanations or

theories to expand upon events, actions, and ideas.

2. Interpretation – Students can identify meaning in what they’ve learned.

3. Application – Students can demonstrate the ability to adapt what they’ve learned for a

variety of situations.

4. Perspective – Students can identify a variety of insightful views.

5. Empathy – Students show an ability to position themselves within another person’s

worldview.

6. Self-Knowledge – Students can demonstrate a wisdom in knowing their own

background and thought pattern and how these individual characteristics might prejudice

their own understanding.

https://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/thinking/blooms-taxonomy/learning-
taxonomies/six-facets-understanding/

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