Our students have so much to learn - and so little class time in which to begin to learn it. Generative topics are issues, themes, concepts, and ideas that provide enough depth, significance, connections, and variety of perspectives to support students' development of powerful understandings. Key Features of Generative Topics Generative topics are central to one or more domains or disciplines . Issues that foster understanding allow students to gain the necessary skills and understanding to proceed successfully to more sophisticated work in the domain or discipline. Typically such issues are also of interest to professionals in the field.
Generative topics are interesting to students .
The generativity of a topic varies with the age, social and cultural contexts, personal interests, and intellectual experiences of students. Generative topics are interesting to the teacher . Their teacher's passion for and curiosity about a particular issue or question will serve as the best model for students who are just learning how to explore the unfamiliar and complex territory of open-ended questions. Generative topics are accessible . Accessibility in this case means that lots of age-appropriate resources are available to investigate the topic and that it can be addressed through a variety of strategies and activities that will help students with various strengths and inclinations make sense of it.