Week 6

Questions to reflect on for Week 6 (Using Articles from Class)

Blog Questions: 
What are some challenges to writing and implementing effective essential questions? Use these two excerpts (Chapter 1) and (Chapter 4) and class discussion as background.

How do you engage students deeply in the content of the curriculum? How do you make them hungry for knowledge? How do you keep them coming back for more? By asking essential questions. Questions that probe for deeper meaning and set the stage for further questioning foster the development of critical thinking skills,   

In order to do this, teachers need to determine the "big idea". The Big Ideas are core concepts, principles, theories and processes that serve as the focal point of curriculum, instruction and assessment. Teachers will need to look at the standards and the key words (nouns, adjectives, and verbs) in the Standards or work "backwards" from the curriculum.  The best essential questions center on major issues, problems, concerns, interests, or themes relevant to students’ lives and to their communities.  They are open-ended, non-judgmental, meaningful and purposeful, inviting the exploration of ideas. 

Teaching for understanding should include key questions when planning any learning activity.  Using the acryonym WHERETO recommended by Wiggins and McTighe will help teachers in their planning.

• W = How will you help your students to know where they are headed, why they are going there, and what ways they will be evaluated along the way?

• H = How will you hook and engage students' interest and enthusiasm through thought-provoking experiences at the beginning of each instructional episode?

• E = What experiences will you provide to help students make their understandings real and to equip all learners for success throughout your unit or course?

• R = How will you cause students to reflect, revisit, revise, and rethink?

• E = How will students express their understandings and engage in meaningful self-evaluation?

• T = How will you tailor (differentiate) your instruction to address the unique strengths and needs of every learner?

• O = How will you organize learning experiences so that students move from teacher-guided and concrete activities to independent applications that emphasize growing conceptual understandings?

It is stated that "the ability to ask great questions often separates great teachers from good ones."  It is difficult for a teacher to ask questions that are powerful, directive and commit students to the process of critical thinking through inquiry.  Implementing effective essential questions can be challenging.  The teacher will need to make sure that every students understands the questions and sees their value.  She will need to implement activities and inquiries for each question. Questions should be sequential and naturally lead from one to another.  Classrooms should have essential questions posted and have students personalize them with their owns examples and stories.  Teachers will need to make sure students are given the right amount of time to examine the question using content maps to relate them all. 

Answer three of the four following essential questions for school reform

• Professional development: How does our staff really view professional development?
• I believe staff values professional developmental especially if it meets their professional goals or interests. Teachers want direction, ideas for activities and programs that support their students' learning. I believe many teachers want what is best for their students.
• Instruction: Are we effectively reaching all students, especially low achievers?
• Assessment: Are we assessing everything we value or only those things that are most easily tested and graded?
• The Common Core Standards ensure that students have the skills and knowledge students need to be successful by providing clear goals for student learning. If teachers are implementing the standards, then they should be evaluating these standards with formative and common assessments. Many teachers are still assessing using multiple choice questions and need to switch to more critical thinking skills that analyze and synthesis.
• Curriculum: For what do we need textbooks? Why? If so, how should they be used?
• The traditional approach is costly. Districts need to look into digital textbooks, tailored teacher-training videos and free curricula available online. There are over 45 states that have adopted the Common Core and cities like New York are forerunners. Nashua is using information available online to shape our expectations locally. Because it is the "Common" Core, it is likely others have faced a common challenge. With all the open source information that different people/districts have put together, do we really need textbooks?