Teachers, what do you want your students to learn?

/ mkessenburg
I want students to flourish in terms of transformative learning. My deep hope is that students are experiencing…

(1) Big questions, big ideas, and big skills.
(2) Best practice content, assessment, instruction, and feedback that are designed to help them achieve the Christ-centered outcomes.
(3) A living curriculum (staff) that models transformative learning.
(4) Measurable holistic growth (intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual), including achievement of the Christ-centered outcomes (see Construct: Data-Driven Improvement, p. 16). 

This blog post focuses on #1 above.

Photo by Jerry Wang on Unsplash

Get your students learning big questions, big ideas, and big skills. Why?

  • Because big questions get your students inquiring, reflecting, and doing critical thinking.
  • Because big ideas help your students understand and apply a biblical perspective.
  • Because big skills help your students learn and use their learning to serve others.
  • Because these are time-tested best practices that help students flourish.

What does getting students learning big questions, big ideas, and big skills look like? Here’s what it looks like for me as a secondary English language arts teacher:

(1) Big questions: Big questions pique students’ curiosity and direct their inquiry. Big questions come in 3 main types: questions related to the subject area content, to the skills, and to a worldview perspective.  Here are sample questions for secondary English language arts:

  • Content: How do literary devices communicate theme? Why would a reasonable, rational, normal person do that? What is the purpose of satire and how does it work?   
  • Skill: How do I develop an informed opinion and what do I do with it? What makes good narrative writing? How can I serve my neighbor/audience? How do I read like a writer and write like a reader? What can I do when I don’t understand what I’m reading?  
  • Worldview: Who am I? Who is my neighbor? How do people build or break shalom? What is the significance of words?  

To learn more, check out Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding.

(2) Big ideas: Big ideas put what students are learning into the context of the beauty and brokenness of the world God has created, the life God has designed students to live, and how students can best flourish in it. I find this motivating for both my students and myself! These big ideas operate at the level of my subject, my course, and a particular unit. 

Here are some examples:

  • Subject: We use God’s good gift of language to serve others.
  • Course: Respect others because they are God’s image bearers.
  • Unit: As stories help us vicariously experience the lives of people very different from ourselves, they help us deeply understand the neighbors God calls us to love.

To learn more, check out Enduring Understandings: Seeing the Forest through the Trees.

(3) Big skills: To function in our diverse, information rich world, students need skills, for example: 

  • Reading: Reading increases vocabulary, improves writing, expands knowledge of the world, deepens empathy, gives opportunities to practice moral decision making, and much more.
  • Listening: In our diverse world, listening is vital. Students must learn to listen intently in order to understand others. 
  • Writing: Writing changes how we think and helps us effectively communicate that thinking to others. 
  • Collaboration: We learn better together than separately. When I listen carefully, ask good questions, build on others’ thoughts, and respectfully disagree, I increase my own and others’ learning.

To learn more, check out What are 21st Century skills?

Here are some related resources:

What about you? What do you want your students to learn? How might learning big questions, big skills, and big skills help your students flourish? What’s 1 action step you can take?

Get flourishing!

Kim