1. 4 Steps to identify the essentials of what students learn in our rooms Yes, essential questions are one of those steps!

2. Why Differentiate Activity

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4. How many are submitting lesson/unit plans and how closely aligned to our planning form?

5. THE POWER OF ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS 21 ST CENTURY CURRICULUM MODEL

6. 4 STEPS TO DEFINING THE ESSENTIALS OF CURRICULUM 1.Define the Key Components of Curriculum 2.Form Objectives for What Students Will Know, Be Able to Do, and Understand

7. LOOK FOR THE CONCEPTUAL LEARNING

8. 4 STEPS TO DEFINING THE ESSENTIALS OF CURRICULUM 3. Create Essential Questions What are the concepts embedded in the curriculum? These form the journey through the curriculum These should cause students to generate more questions than answers They should engage students in higher levels of thinking and conversation, decision making, and problem solving Answering an essential question is a process, not an end product! They should be open-ended and written in ways that challenge and intrigue the students in discourse They should spark curiosity, provoke wonder, and use the skills of inference and interpretation. 4. Create unit questions that break down the essential question

9. SOME EXAMPLES USING SSSS When is it ok to cause others misfortune for the benefit of our nation? Can we learn from our past? Are there always two sides to an issue? Can old wounds really be healed? When is the use of power justifiable? Why are ethics overlooked by nations? How long does memory last? When is a democracy no longer a democracy? When does the power of a nation outweigh the needs of a few? What is worth fighting for? How should governments balance the rights of individuals with the common good? Why do people move?

10. SO THE BIG QUESTION Are the complex texts I’m selecting (or really everything I’m having students do in class) helping students gain better understandings around the essential question(s)? Is the text helping them formulate their own answers? Teachers ask questions for different reasons in the U.S. and in Japan. In the U.S., the purpose of a question is to get an answer. In Japan, teachers pose questions to stimulate thought. A Japanese teacher considers a questions a poor one if it elicits an immediate answer, for this indicates that students were not challenged to think.

11. The differentiator