Question Driven Teaching in Language Arts

How did you go about reading and thinking about this play?

How do the relationships in our lives shape our values and actions?

How do the relationships in our lives shape our values and actions? How would this question change the way a class would read and think about Romeo and Juliet? How would it change what a teacher does? How does it change a student’s experience?

What is question driven teaching? The use of questions as a curricular framework Instruction that... focuses on big ideas and enduring questions over extended periods of time to add depth and rigor to the curriculum. is organized around “essential” higher-level questions that provoke multiple perspectives to help students understand “big ideas” and to help them shape the way they think critically for themselves

Using questions to... Prepare and help students in effective classroom discussion Connect what they learn themselves, the world, and other texts Clarify, extend, assess, and deepen understanding Organize instruction (p. 18)

Pick one: Consider what it would require to fully answer it.

“Teachers must switch their instruction from what must be taught to what kinds of teaching will maximize learning.” Why organize instruction in this way?

Why? (con’t) “Weaving in a critical approach to teaching” (Wilson and Alvermann) Ms. Thompson “wanted her students to develop a critical awareness...and involve them in activities that demonstrate how interpretations of multimodal texts are ‘part and parcel of...specific social, cultural, institutional, and political practices.

Why? (con’t) Provides opportunities to have learners “move across sign systems...invent connections between them...and have richer and more complex understandings” (Alvermann and Wilson, p. 4)

How do the relationships in our lives shape our values and actions?

“I have concluded that in a flat world, IQ- Intelligence Quotient – still matters, but CQ and PQ – Curioity Quotient and Passion Quotient – matter even more. I live by the equation CQ+PQ>IQ. Give me a kid with a passion to learn and a curiosity to discover and I will take him or her over a less passionate kid with a high IQ every day of the week” (p.304)

Sir Ken Robinson

“Questions are the Swiss Army Knife of an active, disciplined mind trying to understand texts or concepts and communicate that understanding to others.” Exhibit Curiosity 80% See other points of view 77% Challenge their own beliefs 77% Engage in intellectual discussions 74% Generate hypotheses 72%

Darling-Hammond’s principles of learning: 1.) Prior knowledge of students must be addressed 2.) Students need to organize and use knowledge conceptually if they are to apply beyond the classroom. 3.) Students need to understand how they learn and how to manage their own learning. How do the relationships in our lives shape our values and actions?