"If the textbook contains the answers, then what are the questions?"

Some textbooks contain lots of valuable information, also known as the content that we will be teaching our students in several different subject areas. Ensuring that our students learn this content is crucial, but it is important to first consider backwards design and the concept of identifying the big ideas and questions that we want our students to think about before we equip them to explore the content. The "questions" are the big ideas that we want our students to think about and ultimately take away from the instruction that we give them. Before consulting the textbook or any other resources identifying the answers and the content, it is important that we design our questions in terms of what we want our students to learn. For example, essential questions are developed at the beginning of a unit, and they are broad, philosophical questions that will address many sub-topics within the unit. The questions help guide teachers in planning units and they help students to know the focus of what they are learning.