ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS Opening Doors to Student Understanding Based on the text Essential Questions:...

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

Opening Doors to Student Understanding

Based on the text Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding by Jay

McTighe and Grant Wiggins

WHAT MAKES A QUESTION ESSENTIAL?

Seven Defining Characteristics• Is open-ended• Is thought provoking & intellectually engaging• Calls for higher-order thinking• Points toward important, transferable ideas• Raises additional questions• Requires support and justification• Recurs over time

THREE CONNOTATIONS OF ESSENTIAL

Important and Timeless: arise naturally and

recur throughout life, are common and arguable

Elemental and Foundational:

Vital or Necessary for personal understanding

WHY USE ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS?

Essential questions make our

unit plans more likely to yield

focused and thoughtful learning

and learners


Essential questions:

Signal that inquiry is a key goal of education

Make it more likely that the unit will be intellectually engaging

Help to clarify and prioritize standards for teachers.

Provide transparency for students

Encourage and model metacognition for students

Provide opportunities for intra- and interdisciplinary connections

Support meaningful differentiation


Essential questions provide transparency for

students.

The right questions, made transparent from the

start of a unit, help students’ ability to make

meaning, learn effectively, and create worthy

products and performances based on their

inquiries.


Essential questions can provide opportunities for

intra- and interdisciplinary connections.• To what extent do the arts and sciences reflect an

era?• What can we learn from studying the past?• The connecting power of essential questions

becomes even greater if the units are also framed by process-focused questions.• What information will address this question?• How do I find out what I don’t know?• How will I know what to believe in the information I

find?• Is there another perspective I should consider?• What is the best way to show what I have learned?


Carol Ann Tomlinson recommends that teachers

show all of their students respect for their

capacity to learn.

A practical way to do this is through the regular

use of EQs.

By posing the same essential questions for a

class, we signal to students that we respect their

intelligence and capacity to think.


Yes, but……what about PASS testing?• An educator’s job is not to simply cover content. • Our role is to cause learning, not merely to mention

things.• Our task is to uncover the important ideas and

processes of the content so that students are able to make helpful connections and are equipped to transfer learning in meaningful ways.

• If we wish to engage learners in making meaning of the learning so that they come to understand it, then essential questions will serve the cause of mastery of content.


Research shows that increasing the number of higher order

questions in classrooms and on local assessments significantly

improves student achievement on standardized tests.

Because understanding and transfer demand active

construction of meaning by the learner, and because long-

term and flexible recall requires an intellectual framework of

ideas in which to place content knowledge, only students who

have learned for understanding can perform well on rigorous

tests.


Discuss page 27 of Essential Questions: Opening

Doors to Student Understanding by Jay McTighe

and Grant Wiggins

HOW DO WE DESIGN ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS?

Text-based discussion protocol using Tool 36

from Quality Performance Assessments: A Guide

for Schools and Districts by the Center for

Collaborative Education

Chps. 1 and 3

HOW DO WE USE ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS?

Teachers must build a culture in their classroom

that supports intellectual risk taking.

Teachers should value thoughtful, not

thoughtless, responses to questions


Read paragraph on page 43 beginning with

Teachers ask questions.

How do you feel about the differences between

Japan and the United States? Discuss


Successful implementation of EQ starts with

clear and explicit goals.

Essential questions should be used to spark

discussions, not a hunt for the right answer.

KEY IDEAS TO COMMUNICATE

TO STUDENTS

There’s not a single correct answer

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion

Everyone in the class is fair game…(the teacher

doesn’t just call on students with their hand

raised)

It is ok to challenge someone else’s opinion

Making mistakes is ok and a part of learning

FOUR PHASES FOR IMPLEMENTING

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

Phase 1: Introduce a question designed to cause

inquiry.

Goal: Make sure the EQ is thought provoking and

relevant to the student and the course content.

Phase 2: Elicit various responses and question them.

Goal: Use questioning strategies to gather many different,

yet plausible answers from your students.

FOUR PHASES FOR IMPLEMENTING

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

Phase 3: Introduce and explore new perspectives.

Goal: Bring new text, data, or phenomena to the inquiry,

designed to deliberately extend inquiry or call into

question tentative conclusions.

Phase 4: Reach tentative closure.

Goal: Ask students to generalize their findings and new

learning in the context of the course content.

A CLOSER LOOK AT ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

1)Pre-instructional planning and design

2)Initial posing of the question

3)Eliciting of varied student responses

4)Probing those responses

5)Introduction of new information and perspectives

6)In-depth and sustained inquiry culminating in products or

performance

7) Tentative closure

8) Assessment of individual student inquiry and answers

RESPONSE STRATEGIES TO ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

Wait Time

Think-Pair-Share

Random Calling

Class Survey

More Than One Answer

Probes for Thinking and Support

Devil’s Advocate

HOW DO WE ESTABLISH A CULTURE OF INQUIRY IN CLASSROOMS?

Eight elements within our control that underlie and

support a classroom culture of inquiry

Element 1: Nature of Learning Goals• If understanding and critical thinking are among

the desired outcomes, do our curriculum and assessments reflect these goals?

• In depth thinking is required for success• Higher order questions are essential

HOW DO WE ESTABLISH A CULTURE OF INQUIRY IN

CLASSROOMS?

3 types of learning goals (Page 84)• Acquisition—Acquire factual information• Meaning Making—Construct meaning(Come to an

understanding)• Transfer****

Read paragraph 1 on pages 84 to 85


CLASSROOMS?

Tips to making learning goals explicit and clear

(page 85)• Post EQs prominently around the room, refer to

regularly• Write out learning goals for the year• Plan units, separate goals into the 3 groups• Post different types of EQs and discuss with students• Discussion rubrics for EQs


CLASSROOMS?

Element 2: The Roles of Questions, Teachers, &

Students• The question has to become more important that the

answer• The teacher must become a facilitator and co-

inquirer• Students must become their own teachers,

increasingly responsible for their own progress


CLASSROOMS?

Element #3: Explicit Protocols and Codes of Conduct

Element #4: Safe and Supportive Environment• Tone of voice• Wait time• # higher order ?s vs lower level ?s• Reactions to student comments

Element #5: Use of Space and Physical Resources• Circles facilitate conversations

Element #6: Use of Time in and out of Class• Plan time in your lessons

Element #7: Use of Texts and Other Learning Resources

Element #8: Assessment practices


CLASSROOMS?

Element #7: Use of Texts and Other Learning

Resources• Read top of page 96

Element #8: Assessment practices• What gets measured get done.• Must assess students’ ability to question, probe and

to respond to higher level questions with evidence and argument.

• Read page 97… A truly hardworking, analytical discussion….

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS Opening Doors to Student Understanding Based on the text Essential Questions:...

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