A2+Teaching+With+Essential+Questions

=Teaching With Essential Questions=

Constructing powerful essential questions can be a challenge on its own, but how we engage our students around these questions every day determines whether or not they will truly effect performance. Consider some of the strategies listed below, compiled from my own classroom experiences and those of teachers that I've worked with. As you continue teaching with essential questions, please share your most effective strategies here, and let me know what else you would like to see included on this page! Thanks-- Angela

= Posting Essential Questions for Consistent Reference =

On the Board or On the Wall:
When essential questions are posted in key areas within the classroom, it is easier to **//reference them during instruction//**. More importantly, students are better able to sustain focus on these questions as learning progresses. Consider posting questions on your board, in strategic places within your word walls, or on the wall that students face most often during instruction. Essential questions that are developed collaboratively between teachers from different content areas may be cross-posted in different classrooms or in the halls.

Bulletin Boards
Placing essential questions on bulletin boards offers students an infinite number of ways to engage with them:
 * Invite students to attach media articles, photographs, poems, and other types of text to the bulletin board if they inform the identified question well.
 * Ask students to journal informally in response to questions over time. Then, ask them to refine one entry to post to the board.
 * Challenge students to exchange responses. Teach them the strategies included in the Session A text protocol to interpret, question, or challenge each other's thinking.
 * Allow students to use the board as a grafitti wall, devoted ONLY to exploration of the essential question.

= Pre-Teaching With Essential Questions =

Anticipation Guides
Many teachers use [|anticipation guides] and self-rating activities as a way to [|activate background knowledge and determine what students may already know]. Offering students the opportunity to explore essential questions prior to learning allows them move beyond the content of the unit and begin thinking critically about the most important aspects of the learning that is to follow.

Student-Generated Essential Questions
Alternatively, students can play a role in generating essential questions for group or individual exploration.

=  Assessing With Essential Questio n   s =

Formative Assessment
As a means of informing your own instruction, consider frequent checks for growth around enduring understandings by asking students to reflect and respond to essential questions via journaling, ticket out the door, think/pair/share, or through more formal constructed responses. Shift instruction in response to what you learn from these assessments.

Summative Assessment
Use essential questions to frame constructed responses on your unit tests and final exams. Work with students prior to the assessment to design rubrics that effectively measure response quality.