Session Two: Essential Questions

Answers to essential questions cannot be copied and pasted from the Internet.

Get an understanding of what an essential question is or should be:

bulletUsing the Internet to Promote Inquiry-based Learning - background for teachers
bulletAsking the Essential Question - geared toward students, this is a good, simple explanation of an essential question
bullet50 Ways to Leave Your... Project examples
bullet Bloom's Taxonomy - use verbs listed here to help you generate good essential questions

Look at some sample essential questions:

bulletBellingham School District Curriculum Essential Questions - essential questions/problems/scenarios to go with K-5 curriculum topics

Use the Question Brainstormer to generate essential questions as a group:

  1. Discuss the completed example Question Brainstormer (QB).
    bulletWhich question do you think will be most motivating to students?
    bulletWhich question do you think will elicit higher levels of thinking?
    bulletWhich question has the greatest potential to help students achieve the
    learning outcome?
  2. Continue to use the QB example and generate questions for topic two as a whole group to generate a set of questions using the Pacific Northwest as the topic. Discuss questions from step one.
  3. In small groups, take a topic and use the blank Question Brainstormer to generate a set of questions. Project finished questions to the whole group and discuss questions from step one. If time, do a second topic.

Use the Good Question Cubes to generate essential questions:

bulletGive partners a set of good question cubes (one red and one blue).
bulletDecide on a topic.
bulletRoll the cubes.
bulletRecord the words on the good question cube chart.
bulletGenerate a question for each roll, up to five per topic.
bulletIf time, do a second topic.
 


purchasing information

Activity/Assignment

bulletUsing the Good Question Cubes and/or the blank Question Brainstormer:
bulletGenerate several essential questions for your research report/project.
bulletMeet with your group to discuss and get feedback about your essential questions.
bulletDecide on the essential question you will use for your assignment and record it on your Unit Plan.
 

horizontal rule

Back Home Next