Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Kindle
$17.77

Available instantly

Paperback
$5.39 - $18.71

$18.71 with 33 percent savings

List Price: $27.95

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

FREE delivery Tuesday, October 22 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35

Or Prime members get FREE delivery Saturday, October 19. Order within 5 hrs 16 mins.

Select delivery location

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

$$18.71 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Ships from

Amazon

Ships from

Amazon

Sold by

TAKKA STORE

Sold by

TAKKA STORE

Returns

30-day refund/replacement

Returns

30-day refund/replacement

This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.

Read full return policy

Payment

Secure transaction

Payment

Secure transaction

We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more

Details

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

$5.39

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

All pages and the cover are intact, but shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Pages may include limited notes, highlighting, or minor water damage but the text is readable. Item may be missing bundled media. All pages and the cover are intact, but shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Pages may include limited notes, highlighting, or minor water damage but the text is readable. Item may be missing bundled media. See less

FREE delivery Monday, October 21 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35

Or Prime members get FREE delivery Saturday, October 19. Order within 5 hrs 16 mins.

Select delivery location

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

$$18.71 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Enhancements you chose aren't available for this seller. Details

${cardName} not available for the seller you chose

${cardName} unavailable for quantities greater than ${maxQuantity}.

Sold by 2nd Life Aloha and Fulfilled by Amazon.

Other sellers on Amazon

New & Used (164) from $1.24

Follow the authors

Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding F First Edition

by Jay McTighe (Author), Grant Wiggins (Author)

4.6 285 ratings

See all formats and editions

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$18.71","priceAmount":18.71,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"18","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"71","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"UQl9RLogZCzVu1TebUMbMGAtgbIYLSgXTChfVOjiV%2FPLKT18P5lJ1eNcgJQfYo2Rw5A6IaBtk92D8fjcNO6CYlFgEiHfXUFSgnBvNKfzEgRj6ULKjzbgv%2FsEu4h517AptOxgwiLZTKc8gC3QmG%2F4UPsWgppDN%2BCwHW76ZCsVNEO8eR3wBHsaN9Q3%2BXfDFx0%2B","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$5.39","priceAmount":5.39,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"5","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"39","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"UQl9RLogZCzVu1TebUMbMGAtgbIYLSgXxvZMQKVQRSVnq%2F7Sa%2Fq00mk2TJ6K21%2BqN5sRizFoaOJfx6nTnkBWedtbbTeS3ydiFT9vlYJ2l5oqPr%2Bq3kwE03MIUkuw%2BKiTRSIDWP971S9y6AXJr9zgTZsW5Z3NlLeAEvfzJ20sGNmSNEUvczL9LA%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

What are "essential questions," and how do they differ from other kinds of questions? What's so great about them? Why should you design and use essential questions in your classroom?

Essential questions (EQs) help target standards as you organize curriculum content into coherent units that yield focused and thoughtful learning. In the classroom, EQs are used to stimulate students' discussions and promote a deeper understanding of the content.

Whether you are an Understanding by Design (UbD) devotee or are searching for ways to address standards—local or Common Core State Standards—in an engaging way, Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins provide practical guidance on how to design, initiate, and embed inquiry-based teaching and learning in your classroom.

Offering dozens of examples, the authors explore the usefulness of EQs in all K-12 content areas, including skill-based areas such as math, PE, language instruction, and arts education. As an important element of their backward design approach to designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment, the authors

*Give a comprehensive explanation of why EQs are so important;

*Explore seven defining characteristics of EQs;

*Distinguish between topical and overarching questions and their uses;

*Outline the rationale for using EQs as the focal point in creating units of study; and

*Show how to create effective EQs, working from sources including standards, desired understandings, and student misconceptions.

Using essential questions can be challenging—for both teachers and students—and this book provides guidance through practical and proven processes, as well as suggested "response strategies" to encourage student engagement. Finally, you will learn how to create a culture of inquiry so that all members of the educational community—students, teachers, and administrators—benefit from the increased rigor and deepened understanding that emerge when essential questions become a guiding force for learners of all ages.

ISBN-10

1416615059
ISBN-13

978-1416615057
Edition

F First Edition
Publisher

ASCD
Publication date

March 27, 2013
Language

English
Dimensions

8.62 x 0.25 x 11 inches
Print length

119 pages
See all details

This item: Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding

$18.71

Get it as soon as Tuesday, Oct 22

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

Sold by TAKKA STORE and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.

+

Teach Like a Champion 3.0: 63 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College

$19.87

Get it as soon as Monday, Oct 21

In Stock

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

+

The Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units

$17.94

Get it as soon as Monday, Oct 21

In Stock

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

Total price: $00

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Try again!

Details

Added to Cart

Some of these items ship sooner than the others.

Show details Hide details

Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

What are "essential questions," and how do they differ from other kinds of questions? What's so great about them? Why should you design and use essential questions in your classroom?

Essential questions (EQs) help target standards as you organize curriculum content into coherent units that yield focused and thoughtful learning. In the classroom, EQs are used to stimulate students' discussions and promote a deeper understanding of the content.

Whether you are an Understanding by Design (UbD) devotee or are searching for ways to address standards local or Common Core State Standards in an engaging way, Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins provide practical guidance on how to design, initiate, and embed inquiry-based teaching and learning in your classroom.

Offering dozens of examples, the authors explore the usefulness of EQs in all K 12 content areas, including skill-based areas such as math, PE, language instruction, and arts education. As an important element of their backward design approach to designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment, the authors

*Give a comprehensive explanation of why EQs are so important;

*Explore seven defining characteristics of EQs;

*Distinguish between topical and overarching questions and their uses;

*Outline the rationale for using EQs as the focal point in creating units of study; and

*Show how to create effective EQs, working from sources including standards, desired understandings, and student misconceptions.

Using essential questions can be challenging for both teachers and students and this book provides guidance through practical and proven processes, as well as suggested "response strategies" to encourage student engagement. Finally, you will learn how to create a culture of inquiry so that all members of the educational community students, teachers, and administrators benefit from the increased rigor and deepened understanding that emerge when essential questions become a guiding force for learners of all ages.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ ASCD; F First Edition (March 27, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 119 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1416615059
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1416615057
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.62 x 0.25 x 11 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #479,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #263 in Education Administration (Books)
- #4,519 in Instruction Methods

Customer Reviews:
4.6 285 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Jay McTighe
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Jay McTighe brings a wealth of experience developed during a rich and varied career in education. He served as Director of the Maryland Assessment Consortium, a state collaboration of school districts working together to develop and share formative performance assessments. Prior to this position, Jay was involved with school improvement projects at The Maryland State Department of Education where he directed the development of the Instructional Framework, a multi-media database on teaching. Jay is well known for his work with "thinking skills," having coordinated statewide efforts to develop instructional strategies, curriculum models, and assessment procedures for improving the quality of student thinking. In addition to his work at the state level, Jay has experience at the district level in Prince George's County, Maryland as a classroom teacher, resource specialist, and program coordinator. He also directed a state residential enrichment program for Gifted and Talented students.
Jay is an accomplished author, having co-authored eleven books, including the best-selling Understanding by Design series with Grant Wiggins. He has written more than thirty articles and book chapters, and has published in a number of leading journals, including Educational Leadership (ASCD) and The Developer (National Staff Development Council).
Jay has an extensive background in professional development and is a regular speaker at national, state, and district conferences and workshops. He has made presentations in forty-six states in the U.S., seven provinces in Canada, and eighteen countries outside of North America on six continents.
Visit Jay's website -- jaymctighe.com
See more on the author's page
Grant P. Wiggins
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Grant Wiggins, EdD, is the President of Authentic Education in Hopewell, New Jersey. He earned his Ed.D. from Harvard University and his B. A. from St. John's College in Annapolis. Grant consults with schools, districts, state and national education departments on a variety of reform matters; organizes conferences and workshops; and
develops print materials and Web resources on curricular change.
Grant is perhaps best known for being the co-author, with Jay McTighe, of Understanding By Design, the award-winning and highly successful program and set of materials on curriculum design; and Schooling by Design. He is also currently a co-author to Pearson Publishing on more than a dozen textbook programs in which UbD is being infused. His work has been supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.
Over the past twenty five years, Grant has worked on some of the most influential reform initiatives in the world, including Ted Sizer's Coalition of Essential Schools, the International Baccalaureate Program, the Advanced Placement Program; and national school reform efforts in China and Thailand.
Grant is also widely known for his work in assessment reform. He is the author of Educative Assessment and Assessing Student Performance, both published by Jossey-Bass. And he was a lead consultant on many state assessment reform initiatives, such as the portfolio project in Vermont and the performance assessment consortia in New jersey and North Carolina.
His many articles have appeared in such journals as Educational Leadership and Phi Delta Kappan. His work is grounded in 14 years of secondary school teaching and coaching. Grant taught English and electives in philosophy, coached Varsity soccer, Cross Country, JV Baseball, and Track & Field. He also plays in the Hazbins, a rock band. He can be reached at grant@authenticeducation.org.
See more on the author's page
J. McTighe G. P. Wiggins
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.
See more on the author's page
Jay McTighe
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

285 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Customers say

Customers find the book very useful and a great teaching tool. They appreciate that it provides great suggestions for all content areas, ideas, and in-depth discussions. Readers also describe the writing style as approachable and accessible.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more

Book value Content Writing style Value for money

23 customers mention "Book value"23 positive0 negative

Customers find the book useful for a person both in the classroom and online. They say it's a great teaching tool, a good reference, and a good reference for those going down the UbD road. Readers also mention that the content is engaging, the examples useful, and the writing approachable.

"...The ideas here are wonderful, practical, insightful, clearly presented and invaluable for increasing student engagement and critical thinking in any..." Read more

"This book is a great addition to any teacher when making different lesson plans for students...." Read more

"...This book is FANTASTIC." Read more

"...The participants found the content engaging, the examples useful and the writing approachable...." Read more

17 customers mention "Content"17 positive0 negative

Customers find the content helpful for designing essential and guided questions. They say it's well-written and informative, with insightful examples. Readers also mention that the logic for creating essential questions is flawless.

"...As a result, it gives in-depth discussion as to how to keep alive the EQs throughout the school year, covers how many EQs per lesson are possible,..." Read more

"...used with my learners, are easy to differentiate, and can be applied to every subject that I teach. I can't wait to start using them in my classroom!" Read more

"...probably revisit it several times, and may find its suggestions useful for re-framing ideas...." Read more

"This book is so intelligently conceived and written. The logic for creating essential questions is flawless and flawlessly presented...." Read more

7 customers mention "Writing style"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the writing style approachable and easy to use with learners. They also say the examples are useful and can be applied to every situation.

"...The authors also make sure that this text is teacher-friendly, allowing for reasonable time to adapt new ways of thinking classroom planning as well..." Read more

"...I instantly felt that the strategies in this book would be easily used with my learners, are easy to differentiate, and can be applied to every..." Read more

"This book is so intelligently conceived and written. The logic for creating essential questions is flawless and flawlessly presented...." Read more

"...found the content engaging, the examples useful and the writing approachable...." Read more

3 customers mention "Value for money"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book worth the money and a good buy.

"...Very comprehensive look at the value of and use of the essential question in the planning, instruction and assessment process." Read more

"Reading it now- does help with CCSS- worth the money. Thanks" Read more

"Good buy...." Read more

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Elvin Ortiz

Useful Follow up to Understanding by Design

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2013

Verified Purchase

This text continues the necessary discussion of designing curriculum for higher-order thinking by placing essential questions at the center of UbD. The benefit of this book is that while in their first work Understanding by Design they cover the issue of Essential Questions in one chapter, this time around the authors flesh out issues around using EQs in the classroom. Although some of the material in the first three chapters was already covered in the first book, additional charts, and a greater explanation on how teachers can make essential questions based on skills is much more useful. As a language teacher I definitely find these sections very useful.

The book is also an answer to schools already applying UbD, and thus, it focuses a lot more on classroom processes than on theoretical foundations. As a result, it gives in-depth discussion as to how to keep alive the EQs throughout the school year, covers how many EQs per lesson are possible, and reinforces the idea that EQs should be at the center of the classroom. In addition to this, W&M make connections between EQs with older ideas, such as Socratic Questioning and The Paideia Proposal. The authors also make sure that this text is teacher-friendly, allowing for reasonable time to adapt new ways of thinking classroom planning as well as discussing potential problems that may arise in the classroom.

A caveat is that this book is not about specific strategies or methodologies, or about curriculum philosophies albeit Socrates and Plato are briefly discussed with respect to questioning methods in the classroom. This is a text that is specifically designed as a follow up on how to design and use EQs within the Understanding by Design planning templates, and thus can be helpful for the curriculum maps.

38 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jenna L. Lilley

Fabulous Resource!

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2014

Verified Purchase

This book should be on every educator's shelf. The ideas here are wonderful, practical, insightful, clearly presented and invaluable for increasing student engagement and critical thinking in any subject area. As a teacher of students with learning disabilities I teach five different subjects to a wide variety of learners. I instantly felt that the strategies in this book would be easily used with my learners, are easy to differentiate, and can be applied to every subject that I teach. I can't wait to start using them in my classroom!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Simple Guy

Never get too comfortable with established fact, here is how to activate your curiousity again

Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2014

Verified Purchase

Hi fellow seekers of insight,

I think those amongst "us" who used to wonder:
Why must we learn in the classroom style chosen by our teacher?

....may benefit the most from checking out Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding [Kindle Edition]
Jay McTighe (Author), Grant Wiggins (Author)

You don't have to be a teacher to gain from reading it.

It is a short 119 pages, but uses most of them to explain how you can empower your own learning process.
Yes, there are also suggestions of why the fact recall method of training doesn't promote transferable understanding, but that's not where the real value of the book lies.

You will probably revisit it several times, and may find its suggestions useful for re-framing ideas.
After accepting the premise, you may with time also unconsciously find yourself trying to identify provocative verbs that signal that you can re-frame the facts being viewed by you.

That's been my experience.

My attraction to the content in the book is that it gave me a road-map describing ..(albeit a little roughly).., how I could use language in the form of questions to encourage & discover new, bigger ideas ON MY OWN.

Being able to do so is very helpful to CONFIDENCE building if you are taking courses where the pass mark is 75%. (e.g. Customs Broker type Exams)

I like this quote " It is rarely the case that we come to understand a new and complex teaching or experience on first blush. That's why it is proper to say that meaning is made and understanding is earned over time."

NOTE:
I have recently purchased & have been reading this book, finding that it compliments Mr. Puryear's contribution to the ADD community. (i.e. Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD... Douglas A. Puryear MD (Author)

Cheers,
Simple Guy.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

L2G+G

Essential (thought provoking) Questions - we all need them!

Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2014

Verified Purchase

This book is so intelligently conceived and written. The logic for creating essential questions is flawless and flawlessly presented. Teachers need this. Students need teachers who use this, even more. The future will be much brighter with universal use of these principles. (The world, to thrive, needs thinkers - not just memorizers. Essential questions get the thinking wheels turning and turning and turning, with evermore satisfying results for teachers and students alike.)

Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2018

Verified Purchase

This book is a great addition to any teacher when making different lesson plans for students. It allows you to trigger deeper understanding in questions that need to be asked to students and also understand how to teach students effectively with essential questions.

Helpful

S. Sinclair

Awesome resource for learning about Essential Questions

Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2020

Verified Purchase

Dare I say an essential resource for learning how to work with essential questions. Great descriptions, explanations, and lots of examples.

Helpful

Joseph Dyer

Buy this book. For work or pleasure.

Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

“Paradigm Shifter” - to use a trite cliché. Do you want to better engage your students? Do you want to add depth to your lessons? Are you more merely curious about what a question is and how they work?
This book is FANTASTIC.

Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2014

Verified Purchase

I used this text as part of a workshop I was giving on Understanding by Design. The participants found the content engaging, the examples useful and the writing approachable. I would encourage anyone who is interested in having this portion of the UBD framework explained more fully to consider buying this text.

Dr. Brian Husby

One person found this helpful

Helpful