The Power of Essential Questions

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Chapter 1

• The Power of Essential Questions

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• Pressures teachers feel to cover the
  curriculum.
• The goal is efficiency.
• Learning is a journey is reminded when teachers
  ask essential questions to students.
• Essential questions raise the level of discourse
  in a classroom.

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• Essential questions provide the glue for a unit,
  and are respectful of the many new tests mandated
  as a result from the more demanding standards.

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What Do Essential Questions Look Like?

• Are we really free?
• What is the meaning of life?
• Does history repeat itself?
• How far is far?
• Is time an absolute thing?
• What makes writing worth reading?

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• What is essential?
• Can be used to hook students.
• Lend themselves to specific units of study.

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How Can Essential Questions Be Used in Assessment?

• Teachers can use them (EQ) as a diagnostic
  assessment if they ask the question before
  beginning a specific unit.
• And, they can use them (EQ) as a summative
  assessment if they ask students the same question
  at the end of the unit or if they have students
  review and revise the answer they gave to the
  question at the beginning of the unit.

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How Do Essential Questions Differ from Guiding
Questions?

• Essential questions are not a means to elicit a
  right or wrong answer.
• Guiding questions stem from a specific
  curriculum, whereas only one essential question
  drives a unit, and many guiding questions support
  it.

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When Are Essential Questions Appropriate?

• They should be used to launch an inquiry-based
  unit in which they do not feel compelled to
  provide students with the one right answer.
• They work best when supporting a unit based on
  broad concepts.
• Harder to develop, but just as important for
  units driven by narrower topics.
• Essential questions should not be asked when a
  unit involves no inquiry.

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When Are Essential Questions Appropriate? (cont.)

• Teachers should be comfortable with not answering
  the question.
• Everyone should relate to the question.
• The question should be congruent with the unit
  content.
• The question should be realistic and teachable in
  the context of the time and the course or grade
  taught.

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When Are Essential Questions Appropriate? (cont.)

• The question should elicit multiple perspectives.
• The question should generate as many questions as
  it answers.