What’s the Big Idea? Designing Assignments that Challenge and Engage All Students
For the last three years, Jim Burke has been gathering and analyzing academic reading and writing assignments from around the country and his own school in order to identify the forms and features of the most common and effective assignments. At the heart of these academic assignments we find, of course, both academic reading and writing, coupled with the role discussion plays in both. In this interactive keynote, Jim will discuss how inquiry-based academic writing and reading assignments can improve engagement and rigor for all students. In the course of the session, participants will learn how to incorporate inquiry into existing or new assignments they have yet to design. Over the course of the session, participants will examine case studies of different types of assignments, taking from these examples and Jim’s book What’s the Big Idea? those principles and practices that participants can use to improve their own lessons. Throughout the workshop, Jim will include in his presentation practical ways he incorporates technology into these assignments and his classes in general.