Sept. 26 – Essential Questions & Teaching for Understanding

1. Sept. 26 – Essential Questions & Teaching for Understanding Review/Continue Essential Questions Teaching for Understanding SAS Project team work

2. Essential Questions Exercise • Individually, think of a topic/unit you teach. (You can use examples from the text to assist you.) • Write 1-2 good essential questions to support teaching it. (5 min.) • When complete, I need 4-5 people to write one on the smart board. Note whether it is overarching or topical • We will review each as a whole…

3. Sample EQs

4. Big Ideas and Essential Questions • Essential questions LINK the big ideas to individual students through relevant, connected instruction • Big ideas = themes, topics, concepts, specific skills you want students to walk away with • Our teaching design should make sense to students • The design must focus on the big ideas that connect and bring meaning to facts and skills

5. REVIEW: Essential Question Characteristics • No single question is inherently essential • Must be tied to something larger • Must consider the audience, purpose and overall impact of questions • EQs may be recall in nature or inquiry-based; most are inquiry-based… • Is the universe expanding? (science) • Why might Beowulf be considered a tragedy instead of an epic? (English) • Are numbers real? (math) • What is the third world? (social studies)

6. What makes an Essential Question? • The best get at the essence of the big idea behind the topic • If you can’t see the essence, consider why you teach it altogether • Need not be so global/broad • Not a set number to be used in any unit/topic • Opens up thinking to children and adults • Good EQs challenge even our “fast runners” (as we should….) • EQs can be designed in every content area

7. 2 Types of EQs • EQs can vary in scope • Best units built around those that are balanced and varied • Topical = Specific EQs • Within units or lessons • Valuable for relevance to topic of the day/week • Overarching = More general EQs • Across a course of study • Transferable to other content areas • Transferable to life long-skills • Valuable for framing entire courses • Centered around the truly big ideas

8. EQ Examples • How do you extract useful information from massive amounts of data? (over-arching: math) • How is man’s inhumanity to man evident in today’s society? (over-arching: English) • How has the Jazz era influenced people’s lives today? (topical or over-arching: music, social studies) • Using the homicide rates for the past 10 years in Philadelphia, what types of societal issues are affecting the city of Philadelphia? (topical or over-arching: statistics(math), social studies)

9. Over arching Over arching Over arching OR Topical

10. After break, EQ Examples Exercise (20 min.) • Go to Computer lab…. • With a partner (or two), search the Internet for sites that contain examples of / ideas related to Essential Questions and/or Big Ideas. • Send the links to me so I can embed them in the Wiki (you can do this after class) • Here are my sites… • Example A • Example B • Example C

11. Break – After Break, go to computer lab and log on to our network…

12. Teaching for Understanding • “The act of teaching (direct instruction – talking, professing, informing, telling) is only one aspect of causing learning… The design…is as important and perhaps more important than any articulate sharing of our knowledge.” • Perhaps we need to consider how to re-invent good teaching and learning

13. Coverage vs. Uncoverage • Moving from coverage to uncoverage will continue to be a challenge for educators • Uncoverage is not a type of teaching • Uncoverage – method, model, experience, or idea that makes learning tangible, real, relevant, or prepared for future experiences • Socratic questioning 1 • Socratic questioning 2 • Litany of many other strategies to evoke student response and higher order thinking

14. Coverage vs. Uncoverage • In some respects, a coverage model has brainwashed our existing parents and students • Kids & parents have come to expect a coverage world in school • Remember! Parents experienced a coverage model too • Parents and kids believe this is the way to prepare kids for college and the world – NOT SO in many respects!

15. Coverage vs. Uncoverage • Breadth, not depth • Surface details • Leaner believes everything is of equal value (facts, with no hierarchy). • Recall and lower order thinking the norm. • Use rationalized by teachers • To meet standards • To use textbooks • Testing • “An understanding cannot be ‘covered’ if it is to be understood.” • Finding something important in what may be not obvious • To draw out child’s experiences through relevant examples • To allow students to uncover how they understand something that they previously didn’t know or agree on

16. Function of Textbooks • Historically, texts have driven much of what is taught • Many textbooks summarize and point to what is known • They can distort and narrow inquiry • A variety of reports have cautioned as to their use. Not much has changed… • 1983 Carnegie report informed the Nation at Risk report – said texts as a highly simplified view of reality, lacking richness and excitement… • AAAS looked at math and science texts – said texts were disconnected, not rigorous, cover too many topics for the course

17. Function of Textbooks • Texts not the syllabus for a course • Chapters are not units of a course • Textbooks are RESOURCES – guides and supplements to support learning • Did you know textbook companies have lobbyists in D.C. to advocate for them?

18. Designing the right experiences • Bringing big ideas to life in the classroom is goal everyday • Uncoverage is vital • Kids need to play, act, manipulate, research and interact if they are to understand and use at high levels • Technology may be a great way to accomplish this! • Teaching social studies exclusively through a blog • Smart board tools

19. Design and Planning are Crucial • Instructional design takes time and much effort • We must know ourselves (our strengths and areas of need) as we design in order to resist habits of conformity & laziness • Rely on structured graphic organizers to plan an entire lesson/period • Rely on resources available to vary your instruction • Lessons = balance of experiences and activities that uncover the material for and with kids

20. Relating type of teaching to type of content (Figure 10.3) Direct Instruction & Coaching Facilitation & guided inquiry • Discrete knowledge • Facts • Definitions • Obvious information • Concrete information • Predictable result • Discrete skills & technique • Rules & recipes • Literal information • Concepts & principles • Systemic connections • Connotations • Irony • Symbolism • Counterintuitive information • Anomaly • Strategy (using judgment) • Invention of rules & recipes

21. Pace of Lesson & Timing is Key • Timing is everything • Altering flow of lesson sometimes is necessary, and knowing when to alter it is equally key • Knowing your class helps –what types of learners you have • This allows you to decide when you should use direct instruction versus guided inquiry/facilitation • Consider using three roles each lesson (direct instruction, facilitation, coaching)

22. Need for formative assessment • We probably don’t formatively assess as much as we should • It is crucial to uncovering student understandings AND misunderstandings • Student answers to simple check for understanding questions DOES NOT necessarily mean they get the big ideas behind your instruction • Assessment techniques are NOT necessarily graded!

23. Using Coaching More Than Professing • Techniques should be used to teach a skill or retain knowledge (scaffolding) • Teaching a skill requires a constant revisiting of the skill and concepts together over time • Baseball – good coaches revisit the batting basics at every level (major leaguers use a batting tee) • Skill must then be APPLIED to the specific learning goals you have in your class with the content they learn • Really good coaches (teachers) find unique, fundamental, and fun ways of teaching skills

24. Remaining class time… • Meet in computer lab in established pairs to review SAS site and explore respective section

25. For next time… • Read Chapter 11 – The Design Process • Consider what the importance of homework is in today’s classroom