Teachers Talk: Actually Using Essential Questions with Students

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

(Brand new to Essential Questions? Read this first)

Sure, Essential Questions sound great in theory, but how do they actually work in the classroom? What question should you ask? How will you ask it? Are you students even going to understand the question? In this era when multiple choice reigns supreme, will they even know how to debate their answers?

We asked some of our amazing Hampton City Schools' teachers to weigh in with what Essential Question they've used with their students, how they used it, and how it went. Here's a sample of the responses that we received:

Essential Question: Are heroes born or made?
Subject: Middle School, Language Arts
Teacher: Deana Kolan
How It Went: I have been using Essential Questions since the Curriculum Workshops [professional development on Understanding by Design]. I absolutely love it, because it helps the students develop connections between different pieces of texts, and it gives them a greater purpose for reading. It has increased the depth of our classroom conversations. One day a student said, "So, what is the correct answer?" They were really shocked that I didn't have an answer that it wasn't about one correct answer. I think that essential questions really help the students learn "how to think" vs. "giving the answer the teacher wants to hear." When they become less concerned with pleasing me, and more involved in exploring ideas the value of everything we do increases. Each time I use these, I try to find different ways to incorporate it into the class work. I think that it is important for it to go past just the verbal conversation. One of the most difficult aspects of EQ for me to get use to is the idea that the conversations have to be organic. I can't force, or try to take an overly leadership role in different cores' conversations. Just because one core took the question in a certain direction that had that "on fire quality" doesn't mean that I can steer every group that way. Each group has to be free to take it in the direction that they are fueling. 

Essential Question: What if nothing had a shape? 

Subject: Elementary School, Mathematics (Grade 1)

Teacher: Jan VanDenheede

How It Went: The students loved talking about what the world would be like if nothing had a shape. They were describing how we would all be just blobs and everything around us would be blobs. Next time I would like for them to write their ideas out and draw a picture that matched with labeling. 

Essential Question: How do we know whom to believe?  and What do you do if you have conflicting information?
Subject: Middle School Library
Teacher: Nancy Terrell
How It Went: I really love the inclusion of the essential questions because they not only relate to the content (Information Evaluation) that I am teaching, but also life skills in knowing who/what to trust information and make sound decisions in life. 

Essential Question: How can failure provoke a positive change in your life?
Subject: High School, Success 101
Teacher: Julie Buckman
How It Went: The students were surprised I was talking about failure.  I was able to use real life examples of famous individuals that overcame obstacles and had the resilience to continue pursuing success.  "Failure" seems very negative and I have been interchanging failure with "making mistakes" and "overcoming obstacles."

Essential Question: How does knowing the solution to one problem help me solve a different problem?
Subject: Elementary School, Mathematics
Teacher: Jennifer Chafin
How It Went: When teaching addition and subtraction it worked really well. Students made the connection that if they solved an subtraction problem and weren't sure if they had the right answer, they could check it by doing addition. It helped students feel more comfortable in solving problems knowing they had a way to check for the right answer. The only thing I would do differently next time is spending more time on having students complete word problems and using it to check their answers.

Essential Question: How does our country’s court system affect the lives of citizens?
Subject: Middle School, Civics & Economics
Teacher: Brittney Conrad
How It Went: Using the essential question was incredibly beneficial to use with my students. I was able to introduce the federal/state court system unit with the students using the essential question. I included the essential question on Pear Deck and students responded. We shared the answers and opinions with the class. It helped guide instruction and helped guide the students thinking throughout the lesson. I thought it went really well, I would not do it differently next time. 

Essential Question: How will I know if my career interest are right for me?
Subject: High School, Success 101
Teacher: Schawann McGee
How It Went: It went well because students completed personal inventories concerning their skills, abilities, roles, aptitudes, and career options based on career interest surveys. Students analyzed their results and determined if their career interest matched their inventory results concerning personality traits, skills, and aptitudes. Additionally, students had the opportunity to attend a career exploration field trip where they were able to ask professionals in the industries they are interested in questions about real world jobs/careers.  Next time, I will space out the inventories over multiple lessons and provide students more career research time so they can prepare questions for the professionals. 

Essential Question: What does it mean to you to be an American?
Subject: Middle School, Social Studies
Teacher: Samantha West
How It Went: It went pretty well! I used Nearpod and put my Essential Question into an activity slide as an "open-ended question". My students were able to participate individually and see what their peers said. By allowing my students to see everyone's answer, this sparked interesting discussion.

Essential Question: Why are living things so different yet alike?
Subject: High School, Biology
Teacher: Echo Riggs
How It Went: It went very well! I was surprised at how many students were able to draw on their prior knowledge to piece together answers that were spot on!  Next time I want them to stand up and defend their answers and start a small debate.  We will use the class lecture to help figure out who was right.

Essential Questions: How does the way you solve a problem affect the solution you get?  Is there always an exact answer to a problem?  Is an exact answer always the best answer?  
Subject: Middle School, Mathematics
Teacher: Georgie Erickson
How It Went: I had the students copy the questions in their notes to start the lesson.  Then I had them answer the questions on their own.  After a few minutes the students shared their responses.  It was a great introduction into inequalities.  The students reflected on other student responses which helped with the class discussion.  Next time I would use this as a discussion board using technology and google classroom.  I would have the students answer the question and then respond to at least two other student responses before we discussed it as a class.

Essential Question: How does conflict affect people?
Subject: High School, English
How It Went: The conflict theme is tied together through reading Romeo and Juliet and writing persuasive essays.  The students have been discussing how conflict can affect many generations, the different ways that people deal with conflict, and the consequences of those decisions.  This is reflected in the plot of Romeo and Juliet.  For writing, the students have done "mini debates" over various topics, and have been examining articles that discuss various conflicts/issues. These news articles have dealt with topics such as the effectiveness of suspending students; the debate over grades vs. written feedback; and the Dodge Ram/MLK Super Bowl commercial. The persuasive/argumentative essay prompts they are choosing from involve school issues, such as cell phone use in class.  
We are in the middle of this unit, so I don't know entirely what works/doesn't yet, but I do know that this question and the way that it ties in with both the play and the persuasive essay has helped me to be much more consistent in keeping the essential question prominent in what we do in class.  The students love to debate and give their opinions on various issues, so I will definitely be using that aspect again.  Next year, I would like to do one or two more formal debates with the students to get them even more prepared for backing up their thinking with evidence when they get to the persuasive essay.