Unlock the big ideas in your curriculum and unleash your students' thinking skills with essential questions. Authors of the popular Understanding by Design® framework explain why essential questions help you
- “Unpack” standards and organize your curriculum around big ideas and core processes.
- Engage more students in thoughtful inquiry and discussion to promote deeper understanding of content and a culture of inquiry.
- Signal to students that deep thinking about content is required, not optional.
- Develop independent learners and foster 21st century skills.
Offering dozens of examples, the authors explore the usefulness of essential questions in all K–12 content areas, including skill-based areas such as math, PE, language instruction, and arts education. Their guidance and strategies ensure you know how to
- Identify characteristics that make a question "essential."
- Use essential questions to “unpack” standards.
- Design effective essential questions working from many sources, including standards, desired understandings, and potential student misconceptions.
- Use essential questions as a focus for daily classroom instruction.
- Support respectful and meaningful differentiation.
(ASCD Premium, Select, and Institutional Plus Member book, April 2013) 8 1/2" x 11", 120 pages.
Related resources:
Book Review for Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding
“You need it for your instruction and teachers will love it as well.”
—Hilda Weisburg
Reprinted with permission from School Librarian’s Workshop (August/September 2013)