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1. Is open-ended; that is, it typically will not have a single, final, and correct answer.

2. Is thought-provoking and intellectually engaging, often sparking discussion and debate.

3. Calls for higher-order thinking, such as analysis, inference, evaluation, prediction. It cannot be effectively answered by recall alone.

4. Points toward important, transferable ideas within (and sometimes across) disciplines.

5. Raises additional questions and sparks further inquiry.

6. Requires support and justification, not just an answer.

7. Recurs over time; that is, the question can and should be revisited again and again.

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1. causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content;

2. provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions;

3. requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers;

4. stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons;

5. sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences;

6. naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects.

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What is an essential question? An essential question is - well, essential: important, vital, at the heart of the matter - the essence of the issue. Think of questions in your life that fit this definition - but don't just yet think about it like a teacher; consider the question as a thoughtful adult. What kinds of questions come to mind? What is a question that any thoughtful and intellectually-alive person ponders and should keep pondering?

In Understanding by Design we remind readers that "essential" has a few different connotations:

One meaning of "essential" involves important questions that recur throughout one's life. Such questions are broad in scope and timeless by nature. They are perpetually arguable - What is justice? Is art a matter of taste or principles? How far should we tamper with our own biology and chemistry? Is science compatible with religion? Is an author's view privileged in determining the meaning of a text? We may arrive at or be helped to grasp understandings for these questions, but we soon learn that answers to them are invariably provisional. In other words, we are liable to change our minds in response to reflection and experience concerning such questions as we go through life, and that such changes of mind are not only expected but beneficial. A good education is grounded in such life-long questions, even if we sometimes lose sight of them while focusing on content mastery. The big-idea questions signal that education is not just about learning "the answer" but about learning how to learn.

A second connotation for "essential" refers to key inquiries within a discipline. Essential questions in this sense are those that point to the big ideas of a subject and to the frontiers of technical knowledge. They are historically important and very much "alive" in the field. "What is healthful eating?" engenders lively debate among nutritionists, physicians, diet promoters, and the general public. "Is any history capable of escaping the social and personal history of its writers?" has been widely and heatedly debated among scholars for the past fifty years, and compels novices and experts alike to ponder potential bias in any historical narrative.

There is a third important connotation for the term "essential" that refers to what is needed for learning core content. In this sense, a question can be considered essential when it helps students make sense of important but complicated ideas, knowledge, and know-how - findings that may be understood by experts, but not yet grasped or seen as valuable by the learner. In what ways does light act wave-like? How do the best writers hook and hold their readers? What models best describe a business cycle? By actively exploring such questions, the learner is helped to arrive at important understandings as well as greater coherence in their content knowledge and skill.

A question is essential when it:

1. causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content;

2. provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions;

3. requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers;

4. stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons;

5. sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences;

6. naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects.

Here is a variety of subject-area examples of such questions:

How well can fiction reveal truth?

Why did that particular species/culture/person thrive and that other one barely survive or die?

How does what we measure influence how we measure? How does how we measure influence what we measure?

Is there really a difference between a cultural generalization and a stereotype?

How should this be modeled? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this model? (science, math, social sciences)

Note that an essential question is different from many of the questions teachers typically ask students in class. The most commonly asked question type is factual - a question that seeks "the" correct answer. For example, in a history class, teachers are constantly asking questions to elicit recall or attention to some important content knowledge: "When did the war break out? Who was President at the time? Why, according to the text, did Congress pass that bill?"

Such questions are clearly not "essential" in the sense discussed above. Rather, they are what we might call 'teacherly' questions - a question essential to a teacher who wants students to know an important answer.

Is such a leading question bad? No. There are all sorts of good pedagogical reasons for using a question format to underscore knowledge or to call attention to a forgotten or overlooked idea. But those questions are not "essential" in the sense of signaling genuine, important and necessarily-ongoing inquiries. Teachers have to be careful not to conflate two ideas: "essential to me in my role as a teacher" and "essential to anyone as a thinking person and inquiring student for making meaning of facts in this subject."

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Authentic Education - What Is an Essential Question?

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What is an essential question? An essential question is - well, essential: important, vital, at the heart of the matter - the essence of the issue. Think of questions in your life that fit this definition - but don't just yet think about it like a teacher; consider the question as a thoughtful adult.

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It may well be the case that non-essential questions can be used to bring about understanding of the essential questions, but they are not the essential thing.

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Wiggins and McTighe identify big ideas, essential questions and enduring understandings as critical elements of course design in Understanding by Design. If a big idea is like a point on the horizon you are steering toward, and enduring understandings are the highlights that you will always remember, essential questions are the engines of inquiry that propel students through your learning experience. They should prompt exploration and open discovery. All content should contribute toward or inform learners as to the evolving complexity of potential responses to these questions. Grant Wiggins characterizes them as "well, essential: important, vital, at the heart of the matter - the essence of the issue.' Essential questions are important because they identify the point of inquiry from which you create actual instructional material and experiences for your students.

A question is essential when it:

Causes genuine INQUIRY into the big ideas and core content

ARGUABLE: provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions

Requires students to CONSIDER alternatives, WEIGH evidence, SUPPORT their ideas, and JUSTIFY their answers

Stimulates vital, ongoing rethinking of big ideas and assumptions

Sparks meaningful CONNECTIONS with prior learning and personal experiences

As a big idea will unpack into multiple essential questions (usually), so an essential question will itself unpack into multiple smaller questions. The smaller questions are not unimportant, but it is crucial to understand how the smaller questions relate to the Big Idea. For instance:

Essential question: What traits and characteristics are collectively used to determine a classification?

Non-essential question: How many legs does a spider have?

It may well be the case that non-essential questions can be used to bring about understanding of the essential questions, but they are not the essential thing. Consider another pair:

Essential questions: How do history and context determine the definition of "art?'

Non-essential question: Is Duchamps "Fountain' art or not?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Wiggins and McTighe identify big ideas, essential questions and enduring understandings as critical elements of course design in Understanding by Design. If a big idea is like a point on the horizon you are steering toward, and enduring understandings are the highlights that you will always remember, essential questions are the engines of inquiry that propel students through your learning experience.

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important, vital, at the heart of the matter – the essence of the issue. Think of questions in your life that fit this definition – but don’t just yet think about it like a teacher; consider the question as a thoughtful adult.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is an essential question? An essential question is - well, essential: important, vital, at the heart of the matter - the essence of the issue. Think of questions in your life that fit this definition - but don't just yet think about it like a teacher; consider the question as a thoughtful adult. What kinds of questions come to mind? What is a question that any thoughtful and intellectually-alive person ponders and should keep pondering?

In Understanding by Design we remind readers that "essential" has a few different connotations:

One meaning of "essential" involves important questions that recur throughout one's life. Such questions are broad in scope and timeless by nature. They are perpetually arguable - What is justice? Is art a matter of taste or principles? How far should we tamper with our own biology and chemistry? Is science compatible with religion? Is an author's view privileged in determining the meaning of a text? We may arrive at or be helped to grasp understandings for these questions, but we soon learn that answers to them are invariably provisional. In other words, we are liable to change our minds in response to reflection and experience concerning such questions as we go through life, and that such changes of mind are not only expected but beneficial. A good education is grounded in such life-long questions, even if we sometimes lose sight of them while focusing on content mastery. The big-idea questions signal that education is not just about learning "the answer" but about learning how to learn.

A second connotation for "essential" refers to key inquiries within a discipline. Essential questions in this sense are those that point to the big ideas of a subject and to the frontiers of technical knowledge. They are historically important and very much "alive" in the field. "What is healthful eating?" engenders lively debate among nutritionists, physicians, diet promoters, and the general public. "Is any history capable of escaping the social and personal history of its writers?" has been widely and heatedly debated among scholars for the past fifty years, and compels novices and experts alike to ponder potential bias in any historical narrative.

There is a third important connotation for the term "essential" that refers to what is needed for learning core content. In this sense, a question can be considered essential when it helps students make sense of important but complicated ideas, knowledge, and know-how - findings that may be understood by experts, but not yet grasped or seen as valuable by the learner. In what ways does light act wave-like? How do the best writers hook and hold their readers? What models best describe a business cycle? By actively exploring such questions, the learner is helped to arrive at important understandings as well as greater coherence in their content knowledge and skill.

A question is essential when it:

1. causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content;

2. provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions;

3. requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers;

4. stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons;

5. sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences;

6. naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects.

Here is a variety of subject-area examples of such questions:

How well can fiction reveal truth?

Why did that particular species/culture/person thrive and that other one barely survive or die?

How does what we measure influence how we measure? How does how we measure influence what we measure?

Is there really a difference between a cultural generalization and a stereotype?

How should this be modeled? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this model? (science, math, social sciences)

Note that an essential question is different from many of the questions teachers typically ask students in class. The most commonly asked question type is factual - a question that seeks "the" correct answer. For example, in a history class, teachers are constantly asking questions to elicit recall or attention to some important content knowledge: "When did the war break out? Who was President at the time? Why, according to the text, did Congress pass that bill?"

Such questions are clearly not "essential" in the sense discussed above. Rather, they are what we might call 'teacherly' questions - a question essential to a teacher who wants students to know an important answer.

Is such a leading question bad? No. There are all sorts of good pedagogical reasons for using a question format to underscore knowledge or to call attention to a forgotten or overlooked idea. But those questions are not "essential" in the sense of signaling genuine, important and necessarily-ongoing inquiries. Teachers have to be careful not to conflate two ideas: "essential to me in my role as a teacher" and "essential to anyone as a thinking person and inquiring student for making meaning of facts in this subject."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Authentic Education - What Is an Essential Question?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What is an essential question? An essential question is - well, essential: important, vital, at the heart of the matter - the essence of the issue. Think of questions in your life that fit this definition - but don't just yet think about it like a teacher; consider the question as a thoughtful adult.

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An essential question is open ended. Unlike fact questions, which are binary — you either know the right answer or you don’t — there is no single correct answer.

An essential question is thought provoking. It should elicit new thoughts and generate more questions that extend thinking.

Essential questions can, and should, recur. A fact question can be asked and answered and done with, but essential questions should stick in the learner’s head and be revisited again and again.

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What Makes A Good Essential Question? - Eduplanet21

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"In a world that's changing rapidly and information is growing daily, helping kids understand how to find information, how to critically appraise it, and especially how to apply it to new situations, which they will face in school and in lives, matters most." We live in an era where nearly everyone has immediate access to [...]

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An essential question is a question that helps people or students make sense of facts, or important ideas. The essential question are deep and fundamental. And this questions are often not easy to answer.

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"It should connect students’ lived experiences and interests [...] to disciplinary problems in the world. And it should connect what they learn back to the real world, where they can put their new understandings to work" (Wilhelm).

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A question is essential when it: 

causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content;
provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions;
requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers;
stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons;
sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences;
naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects.

# data[].attributes.body
Essential questions are open-ended and don’t have a single, final, and correct answer
Essential questions are thought-provoking and intellectually engaging. They also promote discussion and debate.  
Essential questions call for higher-order thinking, such as analysis, inference, evaluation, and prediction. They can’t be effectively answered by recall alone.
Essential questions point toward important, transferable ideas within disciplines. 
Essential questions raise additional questions and spark further inquiry.
Essential questions require support and justification, not just an answer.
Essential questions recur over time. They can and should be revisited again and again. 

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Essential questions are designed to encourage further questioning about a particular subject. They're intended to spark a conversation about the subject rather than simply providing a factual answer to the question.
But let us help you break it down...

Typically, inside a classroom, a teacher asks content questions that require a definite and factual answer. Here's an example: What are the three branches of government?

There's only one answer to this question: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial.

Now, let's reframe the example as an essential question: When does a government overstep its authority?

When posed in this way, students begin to think about the subject on a deeper level. They might talk about what state delegates were trying to achieve when writing the Constitution, and hopefully, discover the importance of checks and balances.

It's also important to know that content questions like the initial example aren't bad. They're actually great for building foundational knowledge and recalling information that's easy to forget. But by asking an essential question, students do more than simply focus on memorizing facts and figures.

Essential questions encourage students to carry out their own investigations about a subject. And since there's no real right or wrong answer to an essential question, they tend to stimulate ongoing inquiry, spark more questions, invite the exploration of ideas, and encourage collaboration - all while allowing students to draw their own conclusions about the material.

The importance of essential questions

Essential questions get students engaged in the kind of thinking it takes to truly understand a subject. They help students see the connection between content standards and important questions through inquiry and thoughtful conversation. That means students learn more than just the subject matter but why it's relevant, too.

Let's take a look at another example essential question: Can the things you eat and drink prevent pimples?

When students dive into finding the answer, they might begin exploring the importance of healthy eating or how what you eat can affect your body.

Because essential questions guide students to find deeper meaning, they set the stage for further questioning. This fosters critical thinking and problem-solving skills, while showing students how to ask the right types of questions to find the answers they need.

Most importantly, instead of merely teaching students about a specific subject, essential questions show students how to learn.

The 7 defining characteristics of essential questions

In the book, " Essential Questions," authors Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins explore the difference between essential and nonessential questions. Their research resulted in the 7 characteristics of good essential questions:

1. Essential questions are open-ended and don't have a single, final, and correct answer

2. Essential questions are thought-provoking and intellectually engaging. They also promote discussion and debate.

3. Essential questions call for higher-order thinking, such as analysis, inference, evaluation, and prediction. They can't be effectively answered by recall alone.

4. Essential questions point toward important, transferable ideas within disciplines.

5. Essential questions raise additional questions and spark further inquiry.

6. Essential questions require support and justification, not just an answer.

7. Essential questions recur over time. They can and should be revisited again and again.

At Summit Learning, we strive to develop and deepen student understanding by beginning every project with an essential question. Stephanie, from the Summit Learning curriculum team says, "The essential question is the guiding beacon for students to discover learning through real-world problems."

Like what you read? Discover tips on how to improve your child's progress at school.

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Essential questions are designed to encourage further questioning about a particular subject. They're intended to spark a conversation about the subject rather than simply providing a factual answer to the question. But let us help you break it down... Typically, inside a classroom, a teacher asks content questions that require a definite and factual answer.