Three Ways Students Can Use Classroom Technology to Explore Essential Questions

by Paul Lawrence

“What is power? Who should have it?”

When we consider this essential question from a middle school social studies classroom, we each bring our own perceptions and experience to answer.   Even in a busy classroom, this process begins for all students as a personal and internal moment that will give a learner the chance to make connections to the question, the unit topic, and the ways that they intersect with the learner’s world.

While this personal moment is integral to the method of using essential questions and should be a starting point for any essential question activity, it should not be the end of your use of the essential question with your students, but really just the beginning.  

The classroom conversation that takes place when students share their answers to essential questions is the moment when essential questions transcend the personal and become the bridge to the learning experiences to come.

This conversation creates an opportunity for students to shape answers for an audience, as well as the chance to measure the answers of their peers.  In addition, students may be called upon to elaborate on or defend their answers while they in turn critique the responses of their classmates.  These higher order actions are the reason why the essential question is such an important part of the UBD method and a practice that works on a common sense level for thoughtful teachers.

Classroom technology is a next step in the evolution of this practice.  Applications such as Google Classroom, Nearpod and Edulastic have given teachers the ability to move this essential question discussion onto student devices and even out into the world.  

Here are three easy ways to start using technology with your essential question conversations.

Post the Essential Question in Google Classroom

As a Classroom teacher, you can post short-answer or multiple-choice questions. After you post a question, you can track the number of students who’ve responded in the class stream. You can also control who sees the answers and whether or not students can comment on each other’s responses.

Post an Essential Question in a Collaborate Activity in Nearpod

Collaborate is a Nearpod feature that allows you to set up an interactive board for brainstorming, sharing text and images in real time. You add the boards, students simply add their ideas. You can moderate these boards from your Teacher Dashboard, reordering them and sharing them.

After students complete and turn in their work, you can grade and return it to the students.

Have Students Post Their Answers in a Flipgrid Video

Flipgrid is a video discussion platform that can be used to spark a discussion and build a dialogue as students share short video responses. Super simple. Super powerful.

When we ask a student to construct a response for an online post, we can both inspire those students who live to reach an audience, while protecting those that would rather stay anonymous. We can teach students how to react and respond to each other’s opinions by using their writing and reasoning skills while also learning how to handle themselves in the online world.

So the next time you introduce an essential question, try to remember that you have the opportunity to give students an experience that will challenge them to begin with a conversation with themselves, extend to a conversation with their peers and possibly finish with a conversation with the world.

Paul Lawrence is the Director of the Information Literacy Department for Hampton City Schools, Virginia. You can reach him at plawrence@hampton.k12.va.us