Revisiting The Essential Questions for Learning
Lauren Rochus- via Eduspeak
Rick Stiggins is undoubtedly one of the most prolific and articulate assessment experts. I have learned so much from the work he and his colleagues have shared over the years. One of the most enduring principles that his work articulates is the idea that students must be kept at the center of the assessment process. As such, in Classroom Assessment for Student Learning (Stiggins, Arter, Chappuis, & Chappuis, 2004), Stiggins and colleagues suggest that if we want to use assessment as a tool for learning, students need to
Rick found that when these items are presented as questions students can use to self-reflect (What am I supposed to learn? Where am I now in my learning? What do I need to do to close the gap?), the resulting pedagogical realizations are much more powerful. At the same time, I have unfortunately also seen these questions manipulated into a testing experience for which the purpose is not growth and learning but rather an identification of results and indicators of achievement. To avoid this perspective and a focus on proficiency, we must create a new perspective where teachers can begin to shift the focus from testing and measurement to growth and learning, thereby providing students with the metacognitive experience that is essential to the learning process. To be very clear, I do not believe that anything is wrong with the principles that assessment experts have articulated; in fact, we believe that they are essential to the learning process. However, our experience has been that we can enhance this metacognitive experience for students when we focus their attention on proficiency. To that end, I offer the following corrallary questions that students should ask and be able to answer every day in class.
By beginning with “Why am I not where I am supposed to be?” proficiency is driven to the center of the instructional exchanges between teacher and student. The main advantage to this centralized positioning of proficiency is that it requires the teacher to communicate more effectively and students to reflect more efficiently. The dual perspective of this first question is also powerful in that it requires students not only to know what proficient is but also to reflect with an eye on their current proficiency. The second question, “What thinking led me to where I currently am?” forces students to dive deeper into the reflection, asking themselves to make claims about what misunderstandings they may have had related to their answer from question one. For example, let’s say a proficiency-based target stated, “I can consistently recognize vocabulary in a familiar context.” If a teacher were to have students look at this target and ask themselves, “What thinking led me to where I currently am?” Students now would be able to reflect on and observe what thinking patterns might have led them astray.
The third question, “How am I going to get from where I am now to where I need to be?” addresses the universal cure to any problem: action. In the original set of questions, students answer the question, “What do I need to do to close the gap?” But with this new proficiency-based question, student action is now directly related to the success criteria of a target. When a proficiency-based target such as the one above is used with the question, “How am I going to get from where I am now to where I need to be?” the student can become more self-prescriptive and far more deliberate in action.
By shaping essential questions in this manner, proficiency is placed at the core of instruction and places more importance on reflection practices in the classroom, which is essential to creating a culture of learning in our classrooms.
- Know where they’re going
- Know where they are now
- Know how to close the gap
Rick found that when these items are presented as questions students can use to self-reflect (What am I supposed to learn? Where am I now in my learning? What do I need to do to close the gap?), the resulting pedagogical realizations are much more powerful. At the same time, I have unfortunately also seen these questions manipulated into a testing experience for which the purpose is not growth and learning but rather an identification of results and indicators of achievement. To avoid this perspective and a focus on proficiency, we must create a new perspective where teachers can begin to shift the focus from testing and measurement to growth and learning, thereby providing students with the metacognitive experience that is essential to the learning process. To be very clear, I do not believe that anything is wrong with the principles that assessment experts have articulated; in fact, we believe that they are essential to the learning process. However, our experience has been that we can enhance this metacognitive experience for students when we focus their attention on proficiency. To that end, I offer the following corrallary questions that students should ask and be able to answer every day in class.
- Why am I not where I am supposed to be?
- What thinking led me to where I currently am?
- Knowing this, how am I going to get from where I am now to where I need to be?
By beginning with “Why am I not where I am supposed to be?” proficiency is driven to the center of the instructional exchanges between teacher and student. The main advantage to this centralized positioning of proficiency is that it requires the teacher to communicate more effectively and students to reflect more efficiently. The dual perspective of this first question is also powerful in that it requires students not only to know what proficient is but also to reflect with an eye on their current proficiency. The second question, “What thinking led me to where I currently am?” forces students to dive deeper into the reflection, asking themselves to make claims about what misunderstandings they may have had related to their answer from question one. For example, let’s say a proficiency-based target stated, “I can consistently recognize vocabulary in a familiar context.” If a teacher were to have students look at this target and ask themselves, “What thinking led me to where I currently am?” Students now would be able to reflect on and observe what thinking patterns might have led them astray.
The third question, “How am I going to get from where I am now to where I need to be?” addresses the universal cure to any problem: action. In the original set of questions, students answer the question, “What do I need to do to close the gap?” But with this new proficiency-based question, student action is now directly related to the success criteria of a target. When a proficiency-based target such as the one above is used with the question, “How am I going to get from where I am now to where I need to be?” the student can become more self-prescriptive and far more deliberate in action.
By shaping essential questions in this manner, proficiency is placed at the core of instruction and places more importance on reflection practices in the classroom, which is essential to creating a culture of learning in our classrooms.