What is a guiding question & how can it help your students?

Writing guiding questions compels teachers to create precise, focused plans for learning. That focus and precision help students better understand the learning expectations for each unit and lesson. Good questions evoke a rigorous education, but they should be written in easy to understand language and involve the smallest number of questions for each unit.

Great questions are accessible, easy to understand, and complete illustrations of what will be learned. Preparation reaps significant benefits. When teachers think through what will be learned and how learning will happen, their lessons are more focused, efficient, and accessible to all learners.

Guiding questions help students by giving them a clear target for each day’s learning.

High-impact planning starts with the most fundamental question: What do I want my students to remember 5, 10, or 20 years after this class is over? As such, it compels teachers to be precise about exactly what students will learn and how their mastery of the knowledge, skills, and big ideas will be measured. Content planning guides teachers to think deeply about what is most important and then to teach in a way that ensures that the most important learning is given the emphasis it requires.

When teachers write good questions and create maps, they are forced to become very clear about what they are teaching. That clarity gives focus to their teaching, making it much easier for students to learn.

A key component that we have found absent from the curriculum design is the guiding question.

When students understand what they are supposed to learn, the chances are much higher that they will actually learn it. Guiding questions represent a starting point for formative assessment. When teachers teach classes with diverse learners, and most teachers do these days, they frequently need to differentiate learning so that it meets the needs of all students Tomlinson, Differentiation happens best when teachers carefully plan their instruction so that they can reflect on where and how learning needs to be transformed.

Guiding questions provide an excellent starting point for differentiation.