“How Am I Supposed to Do This Every Day?”

Many teachers see the inherent benefits of investigating the past but are faced with the demands of local or state assessment tools that they perceive as contradictory to the goals of these accountability measures. Effective teachers spend countless hours combining their passion for a subject, their personality, and their knowledge of students into a package that effectively educates all of their students. Most high school and middle school curricula consist of ten to fourteen units per year. Approaching every topic through the lens of a question will also help students and teachers through this transition. As teacher confidence crescendos, the reservoir of materials available to promote effective investigations grows, and teachers realize that the technique effectively engages students and promotes greater levels of achievement, they will find this approach the new normal and wonder why they were initially resistant to the change.