This is the reason why I stayed on this e-mail list.
This website has some terrific resources for all age levels. Thanks so much for sharing, Lisa!!
Pam
Dear Colleagues and Cohorts,
Take a moment before our faculty meeting next Tuesday to read this post from Responsive Classroom and reflect about how these suggestions can connect to the building of our professional, adult community here in the Learning Village. Please comment below and post your personal/professional Hope and Dream for the year.
My personal Hope and Dream for our professional community is that we nurture an environment in which everyone feels safe in taking risks and supported along his/her professional path.
I would like to see our Critical Friends become just that ... colleagues with whom we take the journey toward knowledge, enlightenment, experimentation and professional growth.
My personal hope and dream for our professional community is that we will continue to have authentic conversations that foster and encourage curiosity/creativity.
As a new teacher, advice or questions about classroom practices/routines help me to reevaluate and look at my own classroom from a new perspective (this is very helpful and inspiring).
My personal hope and dream for our community is two-fold. My first hope and dream is that we become comfortable having more questions than answers and nurture that curiosity in others. My second hope and dream is that we encourage each other to have compassion not only for others, but for ourselves, so that we are better able to handle the pressures of our personal and professional lives. I know that we tend as a group to be hard on ourselves and it is hard to learn to be compassionate towards yourself.
My personal hope and dream for myself is to really be present in every moment possible. I find myself thinking constantly about what is coming next instead of just "being in the moment". I think this idea can also present itself when I am having conversations with colleagues about their lives or their teaching. I hope to use the peaceful pause to help center myself and my class so that I can move forward with the lesson or issue at hand.
My personal hope & dream for our community is that we can all continue to be mindful of each other not only as colleagues, but also as the whole person--very much the way we look at the ""whole child"--and consider what else may be going on in each other's lives in the "rest" of our life, too, and how that affects our time here together. I would like to continue to support you all as professional colleagues while simultaneously giving space to and respecting what you might be working through outside of school.
My hope is for a faculty that is caring and respectful of each other...In fact this already characterizes us. But we can't take this for granted. As our lives get busier, and they seem to be getting busier by the day, I hope we are willing to take time for each other, be available to each other. One poet said, "All we take when we leave this earth, is the light in our eyes." My hope and dream is that we continue to see the light in each others' eyes.
My hope and dream for our professional community is that we foster a close, openhearted working relationship filled with respect to promote an academic setting conducive to student social, emotional and academic growth.
My personal Hope & Dream would be to connect with each person at some level about things not school related. Professionally, I hope that I can continue to take risks and try new ways of teaching and learning and work with others in trying and applying these new techniques.
My hope for this current school year is to trust more- in myself, my team, and my colleagues. :)
Trusting myself- I am my own worst critic! I want to critically, yet positively, reflect upon previous years in order to help adapt, tweak, and bring forth what seems most valuable for my students and trust in those changes. (As teachers, we do this constantly, but it is important to continue this!)
Trusting in my team- I am quite excited to be part of such a fresh, new trio! I appreciate the input and support they've already provided and I look forward to trusting them - as educators and friends - throughout our upcoming time together here.
Trusting my colleagues- I hope that we continue to be participants of a nurturing group that is always being mindful of one another's needs-- personally or educationally-- and trusting that support is all around, if only you ask.
My personal hope and dream would be to take the time to stop and greet my colleagues when I see them in the hallway, ask questions about what they are teaching and offer suggestions and support when needed. I know this is not always possible during our busy days, but I think it will help me feel more connected since my workspace is so far away!
My professional hope and dream is to try new ways of teaching that can help the students who are really struggling, or at the opposite end, the students who need to be challenged. My personal hope and dream is that we continue to be the positive and supportive group that exists now.
My personal hope and dream for our professional community is to take the time to notice and be thankful for the little things that are so easily taken for granted.
My personal hope and dream is to create a learning environment in which I am meeting my students needs through differentiated lessons and creating a classroom community where students feel safe to challenge themselves and take risks.
I would like to borrow my personal hope and dream from the Responsive Classroom post: to pay attention. To make sure that I give each of my students my undivided attention at some small moment in the day, and to pay the same respect to my colleagues whenever possible. Our minds are always full of other important things, but it is important to make them stop and focus on what is being said and the person who is saying it.
My hope for the year is that I'll achieve a deepened sense of trust and teamwork both in the classroom and in my professional community. I also hope to create a classroom space where listening is as important as sharing.
My hope is to learn as much as I can this year- from my colleagues and our students. My other hope is to step a little bit out of my professional comfort zone.
My hope and dream for the year is to slow down! Take the time to listen to my students and my colleagues. And also to create a peaceful and respectful classroom environment.
My hope is that we will continue to have peaceful pauses at the beginning (or end) of meetings. I find these moments to be a powerful reminder about "being" rather than "doing".
My personal hope for the year is to be positive. I hope to find the good things in each student and lesson, every day. Also, I hope to reflect with my colleagues, my students and/or independently, on what is going well and how to overcome obstacles.
This is a great resource! So many valuable questions that apply to what we teach. For example, a repetitive theme throughout second grade history is "whom do we believe?" and the kids begin to internalize this question. When it comes up in our Pocahontas at the end of the year, students often relate it to Greek myths at the beginning of the year.
My favorites were:
"Whose story is it?"
"What does it mean to make a living?" -Although this one is more specific to a unit discussion as opposed to an overarching question to keep asking...
I also noticed one question was: " Can an individual make a difference?" I would encourage teachers to ask, " HOW does an individual make a difference."
I really like seeing these questions fleshed out like this. I have been struggling some with the foreign language essential questions when it comes to specific content. For culture and actual language learning parts of the curriculum, the essential questions are easier for me to formulate, but when it comes to "just plain translation" and learning content, I am not sure how to create relevant, thought provoking essential questions. This list helps give me some ideas.
Great questions! My favorites were:
Can fiction reveal the truth?
What would happen if people couldn't read?
How can I make a positive difference?
What is worth fighting for?
How much should it cost? Who decides?
Whose "story" is it?
I agree with Laura. It really helps to see a selection of questions to get brainstorming. I also like how Robin "spun" the last language of the last EQ she posted- just a tad - to make it more meaningful to the students.
In the past, I've been wary of posting "blanket" EQ posters I'd seen hanging around my closet for reasons that were mentioned in this article. I'm looking forward to working together with my team to create EQs that follow a logical sequence, that are understood by all learners and resonate with the topics we are covering, in order to post them throughout the classroom to refer back to often. The EQ's listed here provide a thoughtful launching point. :)
I like the idea that there is no definitive answer to a well crafted essential question. That depending on where/when/whom it is asked, the answer will always be different.
The EQ reminds me how a curious learner might approach a topic or subject. As they learn more they can still ask the same question. It's not about mastery but about the joy of research, inquiry, thinking, deducing or inferring and all driven by the EQ.
As I read this article, I found that it connected project-based learning and EQ's together. It emphasized the importance of general questions that require inquiry, thought, and group discussions. It makes me want to look at my unit and come up with one-two over arching questions, and put them up in the classroom. Throughout the unit, I would reference the question and as we learned/discovered more about our topic of study, the students would be able to dig deeper and deeper into the EQ. (Just like project-based learning, where students are given problems and work to find a solution over time).
By the way, I am pretty sure that I own the book that was referenced in this article. If anyone wants to borrow it, please let me know.
I find Wiggins and McTighe's views thought provoking. I've read some of their book...Understanding by Design. The framework they use is backwards. They recommend beginning with the essential questions which link to the understanding, then determine the assessment, and lastly develop your activities. I like this idea...it forces the designer to focus on the understandings and essential questions throughout the entire design process. I would like to keep my focus on my essential questions and what I want my students to truly understand.
I think this article reflects the importance of learning through inquiry and exploration that many of us value, especially as teachers of younger learners. The idea of an essential question being something pointed but allowing for a lifetime of thought or study is one that I'm sure many of us would hope our essential questions might capture. However, I struggle to visualize how this would look in a first grade classroom. When would we share these questions with our students, or would we not? Are these questions for us to build our lessons around or are they something we would like our students to attempt to answer in a concrete way at some point during a unit? Must they be subject specific or are there more general lines of inquiry that could be applied across the curriculum? I would be interested to read examples of effective essential questions that fall within this description that have been used with younger students, and what kind of learning this has led to.
Parts of the article made me want to reread dewey and eisner.....there is a great quote from eisner about viewing as curriculum not as something to be covered....makes me wonder what it would be like to have some large essential questions for the whole school..... And then more narrowed ones for each class..... Creating life long learners should be our goal.....i always find it disheartening when i ask students at the end of the unit of study what they are still wondering and they write "nothing"..., then i feel that i have not taught well.... But then maybe as the article states we feel that we shouldnt have questions at the end of a lesson....we have been "trained" to think that sitting through a lesson should answer all of our questions answered, when in fact the opposite is true.
Sorry for the lack of punctuation and upper case letters, but i am wedding prep exhausted.
I like the concept that education "is not about learning the answer but about learning how to learn". I also like the idea of having the students try and personalize the questions, trying to relate the essential questions to their lives and experiences or ideas they have had.
I like the way this article describes essential questions and the point of asking them. It says that essential questions touch our hearts and help us to define what it means to be human...this speaks to me. There are several examples given that relate to history, language arts, friendships, humanity that I like under intermediate EQs...I also like the analysis examples under primary EQs. Wondering how to write EQs for math curriculum?
I struggle to find good Reading essential questions. I do like the question, Is a "good read" always a great book? I also found an article with some very specific EQ's for our beginning readers. Here are a few examples: *How do letter patterns help me read words I do not know?" and *How do letter sounds and patterns help me learn to spell?
I appreciated seeing specific examples of essential questions, or how to upgrade from a traditional question to an essential one. however, I assume there will be disagreement on the validiy of these questions!!
Also, interested in reading chapter 22 in this book, Learning to Question to Wonder to Learn, by Jamie McKenzie. Chapter 22 outlines how to go about creating essential questions. This article is out of chapter ten.
I like this quote: "The greatest novels, the greatest plays, the greatest songs and the greatest paintings all explore essential questions in some manner. Essential questions are at the heart of a search for Truth. Many of us believe that schools should devote more time to essential questions and less time to Trivial Pursuit." I believe this fully. I'm getting better at writing essential questions when I think about the deeper meanings about why we do what we do. Are the isolated facts enough? Don't we need to probe the "whys"? I think that I like exploring essential questions in my own life--so why do I balk at coming up with them for courses or units? Is it the ritual of filling them in? Is it my lack of skill in writing them. I think if I go back to the root of why they are important--I'll be more successful and hopefully more motivated.
This is an easy way to look at PBL. It seems daunting but it does not have to be all consuming. I think important advise to note that we should be teaching-through the project, not teaching and then doing the project. It does not have to be complicated to facilitate learning.
A great site for online resources. http://pbl-online.org/
We liked the question "How do the best writers hook and hold readers?" as a possibility for generating discussion that connects mentor texts with student writing in Writing workshop. We think the above question could also be used in RLA. Lisa posed the question "What makes a story good?" at the beginning of the year in her third grade RLA class. Karen and Lisa think both are possibilities for overarching questions that may help our students make significant connections between what they read and what and how they write. ( Lisa Keeler and Karen LeMaire worked together because Lisa forgot her iPad.)
Examples
So how can using a blog help students learn history? There are limitless ways to use the website, but there are a few strategies that work particularly well in the elementary environment. When first starting a unit, create a "KWL chart" on your blog. Have students blog about what they know, what they want to know, and eventually what they have learned. Students will be able to see other posts and scaffold their learning off the responses of others. As the educator, you can quickly assess, focus, and possibly redirect your unit to meet the specific needs of your students.
Have students blog about what they know, what they want to know, and eventually what they have learned.
Another way to use Kidblog is to post video or audio clips. After our unit on the early 20th century, students viewed and listened to footage of Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt on Kidblog. Students had to decide who was a better president, and they blogged reasons to support their choices. Knowing that the writing was being presented to classmates encouraged a focus on the published quality.