PD Follow-Up

After our professional learning day last Friday, some teachers said it would be helpful to see high-quality examples of completed unwrapped units. There is now an Unwrapping Examples collection in the PLC Resources folder with seven different examples from a range of content areas.

A number of people also expressed an interest in getting more clarification around Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions. After doing more reading and thinking about EUs, EQs, standards and targets, I created the graphic below to help myself (and hopefully others) clarify the relationship between them, as well as to envision how these elements actually come into play in day to day instruction and assessment. The instructional cycle starts at the bottom with the Essential Questions.

Feedback? Questions? Please let me know!

Here are some texts that you might find helpful:

"Put Understanding First": High-school specific article by Wiggins and McTighe; a good introduction/review of the philosophy behind EUs and EQs.

"What Makes a Question Essential?": First chapter from Essential Questions by McTighe and Wiggins. I have a copy of this book if you are interested in reading additional chapters.

"How to Use Essential Questions in the Classroom": Blog post from the Global Digital Citizen Foundation.

"On Genuine vs. Bogus Inquiry" - Using Essential Questions Properly": Blog post by Wiggins. Math teachers check out the EQs that are at the heart of genuine problem solving in math.

"What is a Big Idea?": Another post from Wiggins on the Authentic Education blog.

"Essential Understandings": This is a chapter excerpt from Mapping Comprehensive Units to the ELA Common Core Standards, 6-12; however, the information at the beginning and end of the chapter is more general and is applicable to all subject areas.

If you'd like some time to peruse these resources or discuss these ideas further, come to the TTT session on Wednesday in Margaret's room. Teams who want to work on unwrapping are encouraged to attend.