Thursday, July 24, 2008
"Some teachers have argued that essential questions may work fine in certain subjects like history, English, or philosophy but not in skill-focused areas such as mathematics, chemistry, reading, physical education, and world languages". (p. 112) At first I agreed 99% with this statement. After speaking with my coach I realized the questions are there, but it requires a copious amount of thinking. Also, coming up with essential questions is difficult because in elementary and junior high school, I have been taught math skills by following rules and not by thinking.
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2 comments:
But you know what? You did a LOT of thinking about essential questions and pushing yourself to re-examine how you were approaching the content. I'm pretty excited about the work we'll be doing together this year. I can't wait to see how it's going to impact your students' learning. Expect more major thinking and hard work to happen-- even when it seems like you're not sure where it's taking you (the whole Mastery concept).
i think at first it is harder to determine essential questions for math because it means stepping outside of the formulas and procedures and really thinking,"Why does this even matter?"
last year, i worked with a kindergarten math teacher on her UbD unit for teaching the numbers 11-20 (how to count, read, and write the numbers), and her essential question was something like "Why are numbers important?" imagine how differently we would ALL be thinking about math if it were taught with essential questions even from kindergarten!
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