A handful of educators from my district attended an ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) Conference this weekend in Houston. The topic was Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design. I had a few Eureka! moments about how to organize my lessons in a way that will facilitate transfer of learning to real life applications, to other concepts, and across disciplines and how to address and plan for differences (readiness, learning profile, interests) from the onset with appropriate assessments. One way to make sure an assessment is appropriate is to have a colleague look at it and see if they can tell you what your enduring understandings are.
Developing your Enduring Understandings, which I now call Endurstandings, is the first step. Study the curriculum: What concepts do I want students to understand now, next month, next year? The skills that they will be able to show you through assessments are not proof of endurstanding. Develop (with your team) some essential questions that you can ask to guide the lesson and to facilitate the transfer of learning. These EQ's can be topical or overarching.
A group of us developed these overarching EQ's for ELA/ Writing:
How does an effective writer hook a reader?
How does a good writer connect to the reader?
How does the reader know the writer's purpose and/or expertise?
We can refer to these questions throughout the year as we write, but also during our guided reading lessons to reinforce the reading/writing connection. As we delve into certain kinds of writing, our questions can become more topical.
Can you think of any other overarching essential questions for writing?
