Essential Questions Book Study, Part 2

“Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding” by McTighe and Wiggins goes on to tell how to design essential questions so that students begin to really think critically about the concepts being taught.  They must cause students to think about their own thinking as well as the thinking of others.  Through this process they question current assumptions and make changes and adjustments as their knowledge grows.  Teaching becomes not a destination of learning but a starting point. 

Here are some thoughts from chapter 3 and part of chapter 4:

How do we design essential questions (EQs)?  This chapter has many very helpful suggestions on how to begin to design and implement EQs.  I really like what the author says about unpacking the standard; looking for verbs and nouns, especially repeated nouns.  When we have unpacked standards in the past, we have paid more attention to the verbs, but looking at the reoccurring nouns helps to identify important concepts that we need students to be questioning and exploring. 

The author also tells us to look at what the desired understandings are and then consider certain categories like: concepts, themes, issues and debates, paradox, etc.  These understandings need to become the basis of our EQs. The author suggests using the writing process to refine our EQs.  The power of peer feedback and revision is just as important for teachers as we have seen it with our students in their own writing.

The beginning of chapter 4 gives several extremely useful models of how to implement and use EQs in a variety of contents and grade levels.  A 4-phase process is outlined and an 8-phase process is also outlined with examples of each.  This helped me to see how EQs should be introduced to students and how to get the most out of their use.

Essential Questions Book Study, Part 1

I’m facilitating a blog book study this summer on “Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding” by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins.  This book has opened my eyes to the power of essential questions.  Not only are they a crucial part of any unit of instruction, but they are an integral part of creating collaborative inquiry in your classroom.

Here are some thoughts on the first two chapters of the book:

Chapter 1 and 2

These first two chapters are packed full of exciting information. It has really added to my thinking of what questions should we be asking in class as well as on assessments.  But more importantly, what is the intent behind my questions.  Thinking about my intent in asking a question is something I think I have given a little bit of thought, but it has not been something I have done explicitly when planning which questions I will ask in a lesson.  Having the characteristics of EQs (essential questions) will help me to make sure I actually have EQs.  The information on the various types of nonessential questions also helped to identify questions that I thought were essential but are in reality a leading, guiding, or a question that hooks the students.

The reasons the author gives to use essential questions were very thought provoking for me.  The big take aways for me were using EQs to make a unit intellectually engaging and providing transparency for students.  I completely agree that we have to make sure to structure our units so students will find them interesting, thought provoking, and worth their time.  It really struck a chord with me that we as adults sit in PD or a class and want to know why is this important to me, will I be able to take this and use it in my classroom right now, and is this worth my time.  Our students want to know the same things.  

Endings and Beginnings

An end to another school year, this time of year always causes me to reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and what I want to be sure to find time for next year.  When I think back during this time of year, I realize that the list of things I wanted to accomplish is sometimes longer than the list of things I actually accomplished.  This is not a failure.  In fact, I see it as an opportunity.  It is an opportunity to pick up the torch again next year and get ready to accomplish all of those things left on my list and much more.  The thing about teaching is that every day is an opportunity to start fresh.  It is a fresh start for the students and it is a fresh start for us as well.  So, reflect on the accomplishments of this year, plan for next year, and get plenty of rest so you can come back renewed. 

I have enjoyed being a small part of your accomplishments this year and I also look forward to helping you start fresh next year!!  There’s no telling what we can achieve!!

To Do List for the Summer:

• Read many good books (and even some not so good ones).
• Sleep, sleep, sleep (too bad we can’t store it up for next year).
• Reconnect with yourself, your family, your friends, and with your dreams.
• Check your perspective; acquire a new one, make an adjustment to your old one, or just remember what the current one is.
• Work on adding to your list of accomplishments for next year.
• ??? What else is on your list?

Visual Note Taking

Make note taking more meaningful and interactive.  Have students work together to make sense of what they have read and what they discuss.  Visual note taking can take many forms, like the mind map shown below.  There is a great article on the blog The Cool Cat Teacher titled: "Note Taking Skills for 21st Century Students."  It has great ideas and several videos about visual note taking.  Let your students draw their way into deep comprehension and understanding of the content you want them to learn.

This is the link to the blog and search for the article listed above: The Cool Cat Teacher

You can also view the videos at my YouTube channel on the Note Taking playlist: ELA Instructional Coach YouTube Channel

Have Students Begin Their Year with a Goal in Mind: Make Their Goals SMART!

To help make this year great, have students set a specific goal they will continue to build on throughout the year.  Unless goal setting is intentional and students spend some time really thinking about what they want, it can become busy work.  I think that's the real key to student goal setting; students must have the opportunity and encouragement to really think about what they want out of the course, class, subject, etc.  This is the chance for them to put aside what others (teachers, parents, friends, coaches, etc.) want for them and really take some time to discern what it is that they ultimately want for themselves.

Setting SMART goals takes some time and must be well thought out, but is definitely worth the class time to get students thinking and planning for the rest of the year.  What makes a SMART goal?  It must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.  Edutopia presents a great way to teach this to students, allowing them to begin setting SMART goals with a character education slant.  This lesson will get them started setting SMART goals for their learning and will have a positive impact on classroom management.

Follow the link below to read the Edutopia article:

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/smart-goal-setting-with-students-maurice-elias

Things to Look Forward to Next Year: Anchor Charts are Important at All Grade Levels

The importance of anchor charts is sometimes overlooked in our hurry to teach concepts to the mastery level.  Anchor charts help students process their thinking while helping ensure buy-in through collectively creating their own understanding. Anchor charts continue to aid in student understanding by being present through the learning process. Students are able to consult anchor charts while adjusting their thinking and processing, adding new information to the chart as they go. Anchor charts allow you to display a variety of necessary information, from specific concepts to classroom policies and procedures. The use of anchor charts by teachers and students alike provides depth and complexity to student knowledge, more than what is possible without them.

Some example and further explanation of anchor charts' value can be found in these two blog posts:

Middle School Teacher to Literacy Coach - 5th Through 8th Grade Anchor Charts http://middleschoolteachertoliteracycoach.blogspot.com/2013/04/take-little-walk-with-me.html#

New Perspective: which talks about anchor charts from an elementary perspective
http://middleschoolteachertoliteracycoach.blogspot.com/2014/06/new-perspective.html

These two blog posts have great ideas regarding anchor charts as well as pictures of well thought out examples of anchor charts from both an elementary and a middle school perspective.

Vickie

Add Variety to Your Students' Writing

According to Amiee Buckner in Nonfiction Notebooks, you can help student writers add some variety to their writing by using Topic Change-Up. When using this strategy, students will be able to add various writing formats to their collection of writing tools. Use this strategy after your students have decided on a topic. First, you choose five or six formats they are familiar with, such as a newspaper article, advice column, annotated top-ten list, picture book (either narrative or informational), poem, journal entry, etc.  This is like a quick write where students start writing and have to keep writing until the time is up. Start them out by giving them a format to use and have them begin writing. As they are writing, you give them a different format and they have to keep writing (not start over), but switch to the new format. This will give them a better idea of how they may want to eventually complete their writing.   You can even add different text structures to the strategy in addition to different formats. If you try this strategy, please let us know how it went and if there is anything you would change for the next time.