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Developing Your Unit Content Map with Essential Questions

Developing Your Unit Content Map with Essential Questions. What are the key concepts?. How can I help students see how ideas fit together?. How do I stimulate inquiry learning?. By Sherah B. Carr, Ph.D. Revised from MRESA Best Practices Modules. A Puzzling Task. Puzzling Questions.

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Developing Your Unit Content Map with Essential Questions

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  1. Developing Your Unit Content Map with Essential Questions What are the key concepts? How can I help students see how ideas fit together? How do I stimulate inquiry learning? By Sherah B. Carr, Ph.D. Revised from MRESA Best Practices Modules

  2. A Puzzling Task

  3. Puzzling Questions What strategies did your group use to put the puzzle together? What was missing that would have helped? What happen when you had a mental picture of the outcome? What happen with more advanced puzzles? What happen when you had vocabulary? How is putting a puzzle together like developing a content map?

  4. CONTENT MAPS: Why are they so important? Communication device Conceptualizea unit Enable consistent curriculum pacing and planning Highlight important vocabulary Enable students to"see"the knowledge gained over time and their learning

  5. Content Mapping Key Points • Content maps help students see mental schemas of information • Content maps show how ideas fit together • Use kid friendly terms and writing • Include key vocabulary for the unit • Post in your room or give students a copy • For young children or ESOL you can simplify with main ideas and pictures.

  6. Concept Concept Concept Concept Concept Lesson essentialquestion(s) Lesson essentialquestion(s) Lesson essentialquestion(s) Lesson essentialquestion(s) Lesson essentialquestion(s) Subject: Topic: Grade Level: Unit Topic: Unit Essential Question: Key Vocabulary:

  7. Content Map of Unit Examples / Steps (Optional) Unit Topic / Name Unit Essential Question Key Components / Issues / Concepts / Skills

  8. Where can you find shapes? What are the names of the shapes you see? How can you know a circle? square, triangle, rectangle, oval and diamond How can you read and write shape words? How can you make a story about shapes? How can you sort shapes by kind? by color? by size? Subject: Mathematics/Language Arts Topic: Shapes Grade Level: K Unit Topic: Shapes Unit Essential Question: How do you know the shapes around you? Concept:Shapes are all around us. Concept:There are different kinds of shapes Concept:You can write and read shape words. Concept:You can sort shapes. Concept: Shapes are alike and different How are shapes alike and different? How can you use different shapes to create a shape city? Key vocabulary: shape, circle, square, triangle, rectangle, oval, diamond, sort

  9. What do I know about shapes? Drawing Kinds Words Sorting Using Circle Square Rectangle Triangle Oval

  10. Content Map How do I solve story problems quickly and accurately using multiplication? Multiplication Meaning & Models Mental Math Process Application Relationships Times Multiply One digit Creating & Solving Story Problems Estimating Addition Division – fact families Patterns Repeated Addition Arrays Symbols Fact Mastery 10s, 100s Compute Property

  11. Sample Content Map 3rd Grade Math: Multiplication Instructional Tools: Graph Paper Multiplication Charts Calculator Real Life Problems (finding area) Sequence Chart of Steps Key Learning: Multiplication is a more efficient way of adding. Essential Question: How do we use multiplication? Real-Life Application Meaning Process LEQ(s): 1. How can arrays help you understand multiplication? 2. How is multiplication repeated addition? 3. How can you use skip counting to find a product? LEQ(s): 1. How do you multiply factors to get a product? 2. What patterns can help you remember the multiplication facts? 3. How can we find errors in multiplying? LEQ(s): 1. Where is multiplication used in real-life? Vocabulary: arrays repeated product digit value Vocabulary: factors product reversing lattice method patterns errors Vocabulary: large lots budgeting finding area shopping Industry

  12. Content Map: Third Grade – Earth Science - Rocks and Soil Concepts: Lesson Essential Questions: Vocabulary:

  13. What is a seed? How does a seed become a plant? What are the parts of a plant? What does a plant need to live? How do people benefit from plants? • Have shell • Can travel • Can vary in size and shape • Need soil and water and light to grow • Identifying parts – root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit/seed • The job of each part • Comparing parts on different plants • Soil, water, air, light • Plant growth experiment • Photo-synthesis • Ways we use plants • Plant parts we eat • Other uses: fibers, medicine, paper, fuel, crafts, furniture, etc. • Plant life cycle • Plant growing experiment Subject: Science Topic: Plants Grade Level: 2 Unit Topic: Seeds and Plants Unit Essential Question: What do we know about seeds and plants? Key vocabulary: seed, plant, soil, light, water, life cycle, stem, leaf, flower, petal, fruit, photosynthesis, hypothesis, experiment

  14. Resources • Georgia Performance Standards http://www.georgiastandards.org • Carroll County Schools Content Mapshttp://carrollcountyschools.com/home/curriculum/curriculumcontent.htm

  15. Time to STRETCH!

  16. Essential Question What is the power of essential questions for our students?

  17. Essential means... • of the utmost importance : BASIC, NECESSARY, CRITICAL • so important as to be indispensable: FUNDAMENTAL,VITAL,CARDINAL Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition

  18. Essential Questions…. • Have no easy “right” answer; they are meant to be discussed. • Provoke and sustain student inquiry • Raise other important questions • Are framed in kid language • Are simple! Understanding By Design, McTighe and Wiggins

  19. Essential Questions…. • Are objectives in the form of a question • Are posted in the classroom • Set the focus of the lesson • Clarify what we want students to know at the end Learning Focused Schools, Max Thompson

  20. Essential Questions • Promote deep enduring understanding • Can not be answered with a yes or no, or even one sentence • Are engaging and thought provoking • Generally do not begin with WHAT (How or Why are better choices) • Heidi Hayes Jacobs

  21. Do these EQs invite the student to search for an answer through critical thinking ???? • How does a lack of natural resources affect a nation? • How do we use symbols in mathematics? • What are examples of scarcity in the Americas, Europe and Oceania? • What are the symbols for equality and inequality? • Why do you need to recognize an odd, even, prime and composite number? • What are even, prime and composite numbers?

  22. YES! • Is open-ended • Calls for understanding • Requires critical thinking • Provides incentive for learning • Promotes high student engagement • Provides a way to measure interim progress

  23. NO! • Is short answer • Calls for definition • Is closed-ended • Seems shallow • Focused on what is not essential • Is too general • Asks for a memorized list

  24. Our best thinking usually happens out here

  25. outside Try to think the boxwhen writing Essential Questions Inventions = Mother Necessity Simple Machines = Work Maps and Globes = Directions/Locations Graphs = 1 Picture is worth 1,000 words Meiosis & Mitosis = Life Cycle

  26. Standard: General Science (Kindergarten) • Recognizes individual uniqueness What makes you special?

  27. Standard: Social Studies (Second) • 9. Explain how money is used to facilitate trade and that people spend or save some or all of their available resources How do we use money? Why do people spend and save money? How does your spending money help your community?

  28. Kid friendly language? EQ: What are numbers and how do we use them? EQ: Why is estimation not an exact number and when do we use it? EQ: How is fiction used to organize and tell a story effectively. EQ: How do we recognize a fraction?

  29. 1st Grade EQ: What is a noun? 2nd Grade EQ: How are nouns and pronouns similar and different? 4th grade EQ: How do readers and writers use nouns ? 5th grade EQ: How can nouns help you with comprehension and understand vocabulary ?

  30. Lesson EQ’s Unit EQ: In nature, only the strong survive- what do we mean by strong? How do some insects survive so well? What is the value of predator /prey relationships? What environmental characteristics would determine survival a species? How does nature control it’s own population growth?

  31. Virtual Tour of Classroom EQs

  32. ESOL How do things change?

  33. ESOL Why do people wear different typesof clothing?

  34. The EQ directs your instruction! • Do I need to re-teach? • Are we ready to move on? • Revisit old EQs daily, • 2 to 3 minutes.

  35. Essential Questions for you to ponder Talk with your partner about the following questions…

  36. How might you use EQ’s when you teach? How does it connect with your total unit plan? How do EQ’s help engage students? What part of writing EQ’s is most confusing or concerning to you?

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