ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN
Grant Wiggins and Jay Mc Tighe

Chapter 5
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:
DOORWAYS TO UNDERSTANDING

“…through provocative questions, students deepen their understanding”

We teachers are always asking questions and looking for “the correct answer”. We always use factual questions where our students evince that they really know that important answer. Nevertheless, it is really important to consider that we are not only looking for the evidence of that “knowing”, but also we are looking for evidence of real “thinking”. Probably some questions are essential in my role as a teacher, but it must be clear that we teacher also have to provide essential questions to anyone as a “thinking person”. Therefore, through these essential questions we may help our students to stimulate their thinking. Asking essential questions as a way of organizing content also serves to strengthen students' sense of their own authority over the content and to deepen their real understanding on a specific content and to motivate and encourage students’ inquiry. And if we consider Bloom’s taxonomy, these essential questions reside at the top as the students not only have to understand, but also have to analyze, evaluate and create.

“What makes a question essential?”
But how we teachers can realize what makes essential one question; what makes the difference between one question to another. Well, there are some important clues we should consider when looking for these essential questions and when answering them. First of all, these questions should offer “transferability” across disciplines; they should cause genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content; they should provoke deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding; they must require students to consider options, concrete and/or real evidence; they must stimulate “rethinking”; they must spark connections between previous learning and personal experiences. Thus, the essential questions “frame the goals”.

“Overarching questions”
To round off, I can conclude that it is “essential” to use not only factual or “topical” questions which focus mainly on the content of a topic, but also overarching questions, which are framed around “truly big ideas”. These overarching and essential questions focus on learning content for understanding; therefore we teachers may clearly develop critical thinking on our students.

Understanding Understanding

UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN
Grant Wiggins and Jay Mc Tighe
Chapter 2
Understanding Understanding

“Doing something correctly is not, by itself, evidence of understanding”

I would like to start this comment on the text “Understanding by design” referring to the former quotation. We teachers aim for understanding. We are always looking for the students’ understanding and ironically maybe we do not have this concept completely clear. The meaning of understanding is not only “a mental act”, actually, according to the author’s definition, understanding is to make connections and tie our knowledge to something that makes sense of things. It is not only doing in the right way, but also is explaining why it is done or it is not done in a particular way. Therefore, we have to be careful when we see our students “acting in the right way”, probably they do not really understand and it is our job to make sure about this understanding and acting. Understanding is thus not mere knowledge of facts, but knowledge of why and how, laid out in evidence and reasoning.

“Developing the ability to transfer one’s learning is key to a good education”

I think we teachers expect our students to be able to transfer information more easily when we have not really given them the tools to do so. We teachers have to help our students to be able to apply all the knowledge we are providing them and put it into realistic practice. Our students must be able to show evidence of what they know; therefore they are able to wisely and effectively use what they know.

“My goodness, didn’t they teach you that in grade X?”

I think we have thought and maybe said this sentence more than once in our teaching experience. And if our students have not shown what they should have understood, we do have to re teach. Understanding is also a matter of degree, furthered by questions arisen from reflection and discussion.

“What understanding really means for teachers has to do with the ability to think and act flexibly with what someone knows”

the way it works....