Chapter 5: Essential Questions: Doorways to Understanding
In this chapter, the author makes us reflect about essential questions enhance better learning and real understanding.
Wiggins is very clear about the importance of questions, since they stimulate thought, spark more questions as they reach the big ideas, and offer real transfer possibilities. In addition, they present students the possibility of bridging a gap between the content and their reality, engaging them with the subjects.
Regarding the lessons, Wiggins suggests that teachers’ planning should start from the answers which want to be reached. Thus, a family of questions lead to the aimed answer and demand the building of the knowledge by the students themselves. The phrasing of essential questions is a complex process which has to consider the purpose of the questions, the audience and the impact which they aim at. Consequently, topical and overarching questions have to be phrased in such a way that critical thinking and inquiry are elicited.
Whilst motivated students are to learn how to formulate essential questions, their own questions reach different set of learners, and elicit different learner styles. Last, but not least, students perceive the building of their own knowledge. Regarding the latter, the teachers’ role is fundamental as the classroom is a space which provides the confidence to inquiry and phrase questions. As a consequence, the discussion is fruitful, and arrival to important understandings is reached.
As a reflection about teaching training, I can only recall a couple of teachers who were able to state essential questions and make the class an opportunity to inquire and develop critical thinking skills. It is certainly an issue which, if done, would entail learner centred lessons, students’ engagement, and better learning, which - at the end of the day - is the main goal everyone is looking for.
Wiggins is very clear about the importance of questions, since they stimulate thought, spark more questions as they reach the big ideas, and offer real transfer possibilities. In addition, they present students the possibility of bridging a gap between the content and their reality, engaging them with the subjects.
Regarding the lessons, Wiggins suggests that teachers’ planning should start from the answers which want to be reached. Thus, a family of questions lead to the aimed answer and demand the building of the knowledge by the students themselves. The phrasing of essential questions is a complex process which has to consider the purpose of the questions, the audience and the impact which they aim at. Consequently, topical and overarching questions have to be phrased in such a way that critical thinking and inquiry are elicited.
Whilst motivated students are to learn how to formulate essential questions, their own questions reach different set of learners, and elicit different learner styles. Last, but not least, students perceive the building of their own knowledge. Regarding the latter, the teachers’ role is fundamental as the classroom is a space which provides the confidence to inquiry and phrase questions. As a consequence, the discussion is fruitful, and arrival to important understandings is reached.
As a reflection about teaching training, I can only recall a couple of teachers who were able to state essential questions and make the class an opportunity to inquire and develop critical thinking skills. It is certainly an issue which, if done, would entail learner centred lessons, students’ engagement, and better learning, which - at the end of the day - is the main goal everyone is looking for.
8 comments:
Dear Loreto,
I think students' engagement, as you mention, is an important aspect when developing critical thinking or higher thinking skills in our students; because sometimes I feel as if some teachers underestimate their students, giving them always the same kind of tasks to do, which by the way are of easy completion, makig them lose interest in the lesson. The point is that students perceive everything and they know when a teacher is helping them to make connections or not. They immediately realize if they are building something, and therefore they feel the teacher is doing the right thing. As a result, commitment increases and they assume their responsibility in the classroom, which by the way facilitates the development of the lesson.
Hi Loreto!
You mentioned a very interesting point when it comes to asking qustions...How can I phrase my questions in such a way that my audience, capture exactly what I mean AND get engaged with my question.
Of course the factor age is a critical one, the language a 15 year old boy uses is not the same I use , although of course not THAT many generations divide us.Therefore I have to use a language that fits my students.
My body language will also play a role when asking essential questions, I have to show that I really care about what they think or feel.Even my voice, the tone I use has to be the right one....
Hmmm....It IS an art....
Thanks,Vicky
Loreto,
It is definitely vital to base our curriculum and everyday lessons on essential questions.
They can help us to make our lessons less teacher-centered. Unfortunately, I have no recollection, from my secondary education, about teachers asking essential questions who, by doing so, make the class an opportunity to develop critical thinking skills. It might a bit hard to get rid of a content-based or teacher-centered approach, but it is high tme we did it. The teacher, as you suggest, has
a key role in promoting inquiry which will result in future critical thinking students. Therefore, colleages, we have take a chance on essential questions or we will another generation!
Loreto
Bridging the gap between content and reality is the main goal of Essential questions. The balance between topical and overarching questions will enable students to understand and to do their learning more meaningful. Ideally, the classroom is the place which provides confidence to inquire and phrase questions. However, it seems to me that students fear to ask questions mainly because they lack confidence in teachers. Regarding this issue, students are not used to spark questions because they always expect to have the right answer from the teacher. In that way, students do not perceive the building of their own learning because it has been built by someone else.
Dear,
You put forward the following point:
"Regarding the lessons, Wiggins suggests that teachers’ planning should start from the answers which want to be reached. Thus, a family of questions lead to the aimed answer and demand the building of the knowledge by the students themselves."
I'm not quite clear about this point that you also came across. The fact that you already have answers for some questions is not truly essential I believe, since this would be absolutely biased and you would be leading them towards your answer and your points of view, and not theirs. Is this something legitimate? I have my questions about this point. I don't think it's very critical-thinking style to provide already-made-answers since what you will be doing is to project content and repetition of what somebody else already said. Besides, it's going to be very difficult to encourage justifications and arguments to defend points that are not even theirs. So what’s the final learning in the end?
xxx
Claudio
Lore:
After reading Wiggins' article I suffered from the same syndrome that affects me everytime I read 'revolutionary' texts: Practicability. Am I being too skeptical or negative? While I read I repeat to myself; Oh, this the key to solve educational issues. However, after reading I think these theories are too theoretical (redundant). How can we take all this into our classrooms? Is it going to work? Definitely, the more I learn, the more doubtful I become. I know it is time to change our and everybody's practices, but there is one thing in your post that called my attention and it supports my negativity; you said you remember a couple of teachers who had the skills to state overarching questions. What about the rest? As you can see, it is only a couple against a universe of teachers who do not even know about these matters. Are we fighting for a lost cause? I always tend to think of a whole instead of the form, i.e., the teacher community instead of myslef, because it is pointless to try to be a critical thinker or an essential-question "asker" when you know your students will not receive the same from the other teachers. I would not like to be that negative, but... Anyway, in the end, I will have to learn to think as Claudio does; he told me once it does not matter about the rest, it is us against the world... and as it happens to you, it is us the teachers to be remembered by our students in the future.
I salute you!
"Wiggins is very clear about the importance of questions, since they stimulate thought, spark more questions as they reach the big ideas, and offer real transfer possibilities".
I totally agree with this statement as the main objective of achieving learning results is developing skills in our students in order to reach transferability. With this I mean that teachers, as you said, should provide instances to relate knowledge, content and reality through provoking critical thinking and therefore understanding and learning for life. To aim this, "topical and overarching questions have to be phrased in such a way that critical thinking and inquiry are elicited".
So planning for formulating essential questions from my point of view it's essential and as you also mentioned taking into account the audience and the different learning styles.
Finally I think planning and learner-centred lessons are key issues.
Thx for your reflection
Loreto,
Regarding your reflection on teacher training, is certainly true that probably only few of them were able to make such an essential questions and leave room for inquiry and real learning. And they did it because they were born with that capacity, I think.
All this is absolutely new for me, maybe for our former teachers not, who really knows??? An important aspect of all this is that we have to know and understand one thing; what we want pupils to understand and learn???
From that starting point we can prepare ourselves to think of essential questions and what is their purpose, but we have to be guided in that task.
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