Questions such as these can help students focus on big ideas as they study the events such as the Oregon Trail, the Mexican War, the California Gold Rush, and the conflicts between settlers and native peoples in the Great Plains. Activities such as position papers, debates, role playing, and simulations can be especially effective in helping students formulate working answers to these essential questions. Certainly leading questions that help students establish key information are an integral part of instruction. But students also come to realize that knowledge does not necessarily exist for its own sake, but is used to understand important dynamics about human behavior. Advantages Much of our curriculum is geared to telling students what.
Essential questions help students to perceive why.
Students are encouraged to take an inquisitive and questioning approach to the curriculum, and to develop answers that personalize their learning. Learning centered around essential questions is more likely to be remembered over time.