REFLECTION ZONE: Understanding By Design



Chapter 5

Essential Questions: Doorways to Understanding

This chapter focused on the importance of essential questions, what makes a question essential, and topical and overarching essential questions.

Essential Questions pg. 105-108

• aim to stimulate thought, provoke inquiry, spark more questions
• are not answerable with finality in a brief response
• are broad
• uncover the real riches of a topic
• create deep and transferable understandings
• serve as a launchpad for examining big ideas
• elicit alternative views
• cause students to focus on their reasoning, not just if their answer is “right” or “wrong”
• spark meaningful connections from prior life experiences
• lead to more questions
• open up thinking and possibilities for everyone - experts and novices

Four Connotations for Essential Questions pg. 108-109

1. includes important questions that recur throughout our lives (perpetually arguable)
2. point to core ideas and inquiries within a discipline
3. help students effectively inquire and make sense of important but complicated ideas
4. will engage a specific and diverse set of learners (need to hook and hold attention of your students)

Essential Aspects of Essential Questions pg. 1109

1. cause genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas
2. provoke deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, new understandings, and new questions
3. require students to consider alternatives, support ideas, justify answers
4. stimulate vital ongoing re-thinking of big ideas
5. spark meaningful connections with prior learning and experiences
6. create opportunities for transfer to other situations or subjects

One cannot tell if a question is essential by just looking at the wording, out of context.
One needs to look at the whole design, especially the assessments, in order to determine if the question is essential or not.

Topical Essential Questions pg. 113-117

• about a specific topic
• lead to specific topical understanding
• stimulate inquiry and deep understanding of important ideas
• can seem to seek a “right” answer, but not expected the will be answered by the end of a unit

Overarching Essential Questions pg. 113 - 117

• broad, deep, more general questions
• remain open and alive... maybe forever
• create broader, transferable understanding that cut across the unit
• frame courses around the big ideas

It is recommended to include sets of both types of these questions. Both types should be matched or related to each other. Teachers sometimes ask how many essential questions they should have for a unit.  It is recommended to follow a variation of the Marine Corps recruiting slogan: “We’re looking for a few good questions.  If they are truly essential, they can (and should) establish priorities and help uncover all key ideas.  Do no state questions that you do not intend to activley investigate through discussion, research, problem solving, and other means.”  pg. 119