Hi

I read Wiggins and McTighe new book on the weekend called “Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding”

Wiggins and McTighe are famous of their Understanding by Design/Backwards Design books.

Lots of the themes related to 4S questions in TBL

Here are some highlights

Disciplinary Thinking

 

“Essential questions (EQ) … reflect the key inquires within a discipline” (p6)

 

“The intent is for students to “play the game” of expert inquirer – that is to improve at asking and answering important questions, make defensible and systematic interpretations, supported by logic and evidence” (p62)

 

“Essential questions are linked to the important big ideas we want students to come to understand. These ideas reside at the heart of all disciplines” (p30)

 

Meaning Making and Inquiry

 

“By actively exploring such questions, learners are helped to connect disparate and confusing information and arrive at important understanding as well as a more effective (transfer) applications of their knowledge” (p6)

 

“Our goal is for students to become active, probing, and determined inquirers, continually considering important questions and possible meanings” (p17)

 

“ We seek questions that are likely to make students want to do 2 things: (1) actively pursue an inquiry and not be satisfied with glib, superficial answers, and (2) willingly learn content along the way in service of inquiry” (p19)

 

Dealing with Abstractions

 

“Because understandings are abstractions, not facts, they are not “teachable” in the conventional sense. An understanding can be gained only through guided inference whereby the learner is helped to make, recognize, or verify a conclusion” (p31)

 

Finding Good Questions

 

“Given particular subject matter or a particular concept, it is easy to ask trivial questions…It is also easy to ask impossibly difficult questions. The trick is to find medium questions that can be answered and take you somewhere” (Jerome Bruner quote p37)

 

“The absence of different plausible responses or perspectives can be a telltale sign the your EQ is too narrow or so abstract or vague that students are unable to offer differing points of view” (p55)

 

Facilitating Discussion

 

Eight Phase Questioning Process

 

1.     Pre-instructional planning and design

2.     Initial posing of question

3.     Eliciting varied student responses

4.     Probing those responses

5.     Introduction of new information or perspectives

6.     In-depth and sustained inquiry culminating in a product of performance

7.     Tentative closure

8.     Assessment of inquiry and answers

(p49)

 

Jim