1. WELCOME! PLEASE WRITE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON YOUR CARD: - NAME - SCHOOL - YOUR LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING OF ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS ( use a scale of 1 – 5, 1 being novice and 5 being expert)

2. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS WHAT MAKES ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS “ESSENTIAL” TO LEARNING? WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS?

3. Essential Questions… Go to heart of discipline Recur naturally throughout ones learning and in the history of the field Raise further questions into the unit’s “Big Idea” Have no one right answer (debatable) Are deliberately framed to provoke and sustain student interest and engage the students in attempting to answer the questions Come from enduring understanding

4. Tips: Organize units around questions Design assessment tasks that are explicitly linked to the questions Frame questions in “kid language” to make them more accessible Sequence the questions so that they naturally lead to one another Post the essential questions in the classroom and refer back to them throughout the unit Allot sufficient time for discussion of questions with students Through a survey or informal checks, ensure that every child understands

5. Examples of good ones..... Can everything be quantified? How can a diet be healthy for one person and not another? Why do people move? How does where we live influence how we live? What makes places unique and different?

6. Not so good ones… How many legs does a spider have? How does an elephant use its trunk? How do you measure 3-D objects? Is the weatherman always right? How are fractions and percentages related? Is Huck Finn a hero?

7. Yes or No? When is an equation linear? Which president of the United States has the most disappointing legacy? What is healthful living? Should everyone be expected to work? What is “foreshadowing”? What is the moral of the story of the Holocaust?

8. Get into groups of four ………. Take out unit Discuss your essential questions Consider….. Are the questions provocative/debatable? Can the questions be explored again and again? Do your questions engage students?

9. WALL WALK ACTIVITY Choose one person’s essential questions to post Write the enduring understanding and the essential questions on poster paper Read and discuss each set of questions and write constructive comments